The Taliban will likely try to boost its presence in new areas of Afghanistan while continuing to fight in its south and eastern strongholds, the Pentagon warned Friday in its first report on security in the country.
"The Taliban will challenge the control of the Afghan government in rural areas, especially in the south and east. The Taliban will also probably attempt to increase its presence in the west and north," the report to Congress said.
The hardline Islamic militia, which was routed from power in Afghanistan by a US-led coalition in 2001, has regrouped since then and "coalesced into a resilient insurgency."
The Taliban has continued to grow in strength, and Afghanistan suffered its worst violence in some years in 2007, when some 6,500 people died in suicide attacks, roadside bombings and other violence.
The insurgency has been fiercest in the Taliban strongholds of southern Afghanistan and to the east, bordering Pakistan.
The Pentagon report, which recorded events up to April, acknowledged that international forces had "caused setbacks to the Afghan insurgency, including leadership losses and the loss of some key safe-havens in Afghanistan.
"Despite these setbacks, the Taliban is likely to maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008."
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a US-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan over its support for the Al-Qaeda network.
But violence in the region has steadily increased in the past two years despite the presence of some 70,000 multinational troops in Afghanistan, including soldiers under US command and others under NATO's authority.
The "Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan" is the first such report to Congress, and a similar accounting will be now made every six months in the same way that the Pentagon tracks the war in Iraq.
On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates lashed out at Pakistan's failure to put pressure on Taliban forces on the country's border with Afghanistan saying it had fueled a rise in violence.
A 40 percent spike in attacks in east Afghanistan in the first five months of 2008 "is a matter of concern, of real concern, and I think that one of the reasons that we're seeing the increase ... is more people coming across the border from the frontier area," Gates told a news conference.
