Violence Escalates Significantly in Afghanistan

Far more deaths and even greater destruction there (from WaPo):

A spate of terrorist attacks, from the murders of five medical workers in Badghis province in the north to bombings in the opium poppy region of Helmand in the south, is expanding a climate of insecurity across Afghanistan as NATO forces prepare to take over most military duties from the U.S.-led coalition.

Afghan officials vaguely blame the attacks on "enemies of Afghanistan" and denounce neighboring Pakistan for harboring Islamic insurgents bent on destroying this fragile new democracy. The reinvigorated Taliban militia, for its part, has vowed to wage a bloody spring and summer offensive against the Afghan state.

But a variety of foreign analysts and military officials here offer a different explanation: a vast canvas of weakly governed and unprotected territory in which drug traffickers, feuding tribesmen and opportunistic criminals -- as well as Taliban gunmen on motorbikes and mysterious suicide bombers -- operate with increasing ease, despite the presence of tens of thousands of foreign troops in the country.

"There are feudal fights, factional rivalries, people settling old scores, people opposed to anti-drug operations," said Cmdr. Susan Eagles, spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force here. "There is no coordinated strategy between incidents," she added. "When there are areas of ungoverned space, where the rule of law is not in operation, it becomes a breeding ground for insurgent action."

In addition to the growing number of suicide bombings, a tactic once unknown in Afghanistan, Western officials cite persistent reports of a burgeoning collusion in Helmand and Kandahar provinces between drug traffickers and forces loyal to the Taliban, which banned opium poppies as un-Islamic when it ruled most of the country five years ago.