Taliban Surprising U.S. Forces With Improved Tactics

The Taliban has become a much more potent adversary in Afghanistan by improving its own tactics and finding gaps in the U.S. military playbook, according to senior American military officials who acknowledged that the enemy’s resurgence this year has taken them by surprise.

U.S. rules of engagement restricting the use of air power and aggressive action against civilians have also opened new space for the insurgents, officials said. Western development projects, such as new roads, schools and police stations, have provided fresh targets for Taliban roadside bombs and suicide attacks. The inability of rising numbers of American troops to protect Afghan citizens has increased resentment of the Western presence and the corrupt Afghan government that cooperates with it, the officials said.

As President Obama faces crucial decisions on his war strategy and declining public support at home, administration and defense officials are studying the reasons why the Taliban appears, for the moment at least, to be winning.

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Syria Strike Was Approved By Syrian Government

The Black Hawk strike conveyed U.S. troops over the border from Iraq into Syria where they killed terrorist Abu Ghadiya. He was identified by the Treasury Department as “a high value al-Qaida commander in charge of money, weapons and other terrorists for al-Qaida in Iraq.”

Officially the Damascus regime denounced the attack in which seven villagers died. But intelligence sources in London and Washington provided an intriguingly different story of the background to the raid, citing sources in the formidable al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya, Syria’s intel service.

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Syria – US Helicopter Makes Strike Near Border

DEVELOPING: U.S. military helicopters attacked an area along Syria’s border with Iraq Sunday, causing casualties, Syrian state TV and witnesses said. Syria said on Sunday unidentified helicopters attacked a Syrian border point with Iraq, causing casualties.

The official Syrian news agency SANA did not identify the helicopters but said the attack took place in the Bou Kamal border area, in eastern Syria.

Residents said the attack targeted a house in the area in which a man and his four sons and two nearby workers were killed..

The U.S. military in Baghdad had no immediate comment.

The area is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money coming into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

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