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WASHINGTON: Fresh carnage in Kabul and a rising death
toll among US troops are thrusting once-forgotten Afghanistan into
the thick of the intensifying White House showdown between John
McCain and Barack Obama.
Democratic presumptive nominee
Obama is promising to redeploy large numbers of US combat troops
from Iraq to Afghanistan if he is elected president in November in
an effort to quell resurgent militant activity.
Republican John McCain, however,
maintains Iraq is the central front of the “war on terror,”
adding that a US withdrawal would bolster terrorists and US enemies
and that the two wars cannot be seen in isolation.
With a surge in the death toll
among US and allied troops battling al-Qaeda and Taliban militants,
Afghanistan moved to center stage in the campaign last week—even
before Monday’s suicide car bombing at the Indian Embassy in
Kabul, which killed at least 41 people in the deadliest attack since
the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
But the security situation in
Iraq appears to be improving, following a US troop “surge”
anti-insurgent strategy launched last year.
Obama argues that the huge US
troop presence in Iraq is draining resources from the anti-terror
effort in Afghanistan.
The Kabul bombing “is one more
indication of the severe deterioration that we’ve seen in the
security situation in Afghanistan,” Obama said Monday.
“I have consistently stated
that one of other reasons for us to begin a careful phased
deployment out of Iraq, is that we are under-manned in
Afghanistan,” he said.
--AFP
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