Furthermore, the prolonged conflict is costing more casualties on both sides every day, as rebel fighters with little more than small arms seek to push back an army of tanks and artillery.
But even as Nato rules the skies, the Taliban insurgency steadily erodes Kabul's ties with the population back on earth, armed with little more than small arms, rockets and improvised explosives.
Now they had spent months in Pakistan's rugged frontier zones and had done nothing more than basic small arms training, some physical exercise and religious instruction.
General Harel also said the army had found 10 belts of explosives, 10 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, mortars and more than 2,000 small arms.
ARMED THREAT -- More than eight million small arms belonging to Iraqi security forces fell into private hands during the invasion, laying the groundwork for the insurgency, according to a study by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Reuters reported.
The United Nations estimates that there are more than 500 million small arms in the world -- assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and such -- and that they are used to kill at least half a million people each year, mostly in third-world war zones like Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola, Sri Lanka and Colombia.
The United Nations estimates that there are more than 500 million small arms in the world.
More tellingly, the sporadic small arms fire heard between the larger bursts of American bombs and Afghan tank fire was distinctive.
But they have said that they need sophisticated weaponry, like antitank and antiaircraft missiles, much more than they need small arms.
