The evacuation proposal, whether or not it proves to be part of an overall Taliban surrender, appeared designed to avert a massacre by Northern Alliance troops of hundreds of foreign soldiers who fought with the Taliban.
The transfer proposal, which would have required notification to Congress, fell apart in March when the Taliban rejected U.S. conditions designed to ensure transferred Taliban wouldn't slip away and reappear as military leaders.
Seeking to redefine the alliance, NATO's leaders have suggested its future depends upon defeating the Taliban, yet the extremists can perhaps at best be contained.Spreading butterThe NATO force, currently 18,500 strong, was not designed to eradicate the Taliban.
The program is designed to screen out Taliban sympathizers, religious extremists and Al Qaeda spies.
That campaign, which is expected to last months, is designed to reverse the Taliban's momentum, which has accelerated over the past several years.
The U.N. sanctions are designed to pressure the Taliban into turning Mr. bin Laden over to a country that will prosecute him and to force the closure of his and other terrorist training camps.
In contrast to earlier US-led operations designed to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, the International Security Assistance Force's mission in the south is to provide security for reconstruction and development work.
NATO's surge is therefore mostly designed to weaken the Taliban, the biggest group, sufficiently to allow the weak and corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai to start administering areas they now control.To stand half a chance, governance will have to be vastly improved.
Bearded men whirled rapturously to the sound of a drumbeat, kicking up a cloud of fine dust over the American soldiers around them.This shura, or tribal council, was the culmination of Operation Attal, designed to clear the Taliban from three districts in Paktika, a troubled province bordering Pakistan.
