Barely three months to the Afghan elections, efforts at detailed security accelerate to prevent attacks in a time when the whole world would be looking at Afghanistan.
“At the end of 2008, there was a time when the Taliban were able to besiege the capital and controlled the main access roads. That would not be repeated,” says a UN official who has had a long experience in the area.

There are three access roads to Kabul: one that goes north to Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, Ring Road, and the highly sensitive Jalalabad road which is the most important supply route for the citizens and coalition troops.

The reinforcements promised by Barack Obama are coming to Afghanistan to be deployed in Wardak and Logar, two of the six provinces surrounding Kabul. The increase in American forces shall be about three thousand men, towards the 21,000 that have been pledged to strengthen controls over access to capital and to train a new militia force known as the urban Afghan Public Protection. This militia force is yet another experiment to try to halt the progress of the insurgency to the capital. All militia members are to be selected by local tribal leaders and belonging to the same place where they are deployed.

“Kabul is the mirror of the country to the world and must be under control,” stated Lt. Col. Di Somma. Italian forces are responsible for security in rural southwest of the capital, the French in the north, and the Turkish contingent in the southeast. These three fronts form a veritable ring of security around Kabul. The urban center, however, has been the sole responsibility of the Afghan National Army since the beginning of the year.

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Via The New York Times