Graeme Smith of the Globe and Mail has the story: Taliban control more of Kandahar than government, U.S. says KANDAHAR, July 15 — More districts of Kandahar are controlled by the Taliban than by the Afghan government, according to a U.S. assessment that casts doubt on Canada's upbeat view of the war. A detailed analysis by U.S. security officials shows that foreign troops and their local allies hold sway over the core, highly populated districts of Kandahar, but the zone of government control remains a small part of the vast territory assigned to Canadian responsibility two years ago. The assessment divides Kandahar's districts into four categories: contested, Taliban controlled, locally controlled, and government controlled. Only four of 16 districts were classified as government controlled. The Taliban were described as controlling six districts. The rest are held by local tribes or warlords, or they are battlefields with nobody clearly dominating. The study was completed in January, but the findings were made available only recently to The Globe and Mail... Other assessments of the province have been even more pessimistic: Over the past two years, the United Nations' periodically updated security maps have shown encroaching areas of “extreme risk” filling large swaths of the countryside described as government controlled in the U.S. assessment... The districts listed as government-controlled – Kandahar city, Arghandab, Spin Bo ...
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