The worst suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001 has claimed at least 52 lives and highlighted just how difficult is the task facing the Nato-led international force there.
Parliamentarians, local notables and many children died in the atrocity at Baghlan in the northern part of the country. This has been one of the quieter regions in the continuing war against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies, which has been concentrated in the southern provinces bordering Pakistan. The attack registers that this is no longer the case and that the suicide bombings which have plagued Iraq are now becoming much more common in Afghanistan.
Some 50,000 foreign troops are serving in Afghanistan, fighting an increasingly fierce war against much more determined insurgent forces. The war is assymetric, pitching Nato's first ground combat operation since it was founded in 1949 against small mobile guerrilla forces loosely linked under the Taliban umbrella. Frequent recourse to air cover has led to many civilian casualties, often boosting local support for the insurgency. Efforts to build up the Afghan army have been frustrated by corruption and tribal rivalries which the weak Kabul government of Hamid Karzai has not been able to overcome. Its role is further undermined by the fact that humanitarian and military aid has not been channelled effectively and a comprehensive failure to tackle unemployment or provide basic public services. The rebel forces rely on greatly increased opium production to finance themselves, making Afghanistan the world's principal producer of the drug.
Many states in the Nato force have small contingents in Afghanistan and those from larger ones such as France and Germany are operationally constrained by political restrictions reflecting public unease at home about their assignment to an increasingly unpopular war. This leaves the main fighting burden on US, British, Canadian and Dutch contingents, which have borne relatively high casualty levels. There is great difficulty getting the extra troops commanders insist are necessary and much unease about the way US troops in particular have been deployed and acted.
This accumulation of difficulties for the international force and its mandate to support Afghanistan's development does not bode well for the force's survival. Afghanistan desperately needs military help to build its state and give it the opportunity to govern the country more effectively. But the actual conduct of the war and the weakness of the government are not delivering on them.