KABUL (AFP) — The past year has been the "bloodiest" for Afghanistan since the Taliban fell in 2001 with the rebels doing their utmost to deter international troops, the defence ministry said.
Taliban insurgents were using "all their resources" to try to persuade Afghanistan's international allies to withdraw their forces, senior defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters.
"I agree this year was the bloodiest Afghanistan (has) gone through," Azimi said in a response to a question, as police reported a new suicide attack near international soldiers and the killing of 40 Taliban in two days of clashes.
"In fact, the enemies' vision was if they use all their resources it would change the international community's vision towards Afghanistan. But The Netherlands' decision in fact proved their vision as wrong," he said.
The Netherlands' government announced this week it would keep its more than 1,600 troops here until December 2010, more than two years longer than the end of their original mandate in August 2008.
Azimi said the increase in Taliban attacks could also be a desperate attempt to avenge the killing of some key rebel leaders in military operations this year, including military mastermind Mullah Dadullah.
"We see a kind of revengeful reaction from Taliban as their key leaders... were killed," he said.
Azimi said the Islamic rebels had lost the capacity to face Afghan and international forces in significant numbers and were instead operating in small groups able to cover a larger area, often using suicide attacks.
A suicide bomber blew up a car bomb in the southern province of Kandahar on Sunday but he was the only casualty, police said.
The attack was in the Shah Wali Kot district, where police said 35 Taliban were killed in two days' fighting.
There were also new clashes in the province's volatile Zhari district late Saturday, in which five Taliban were killed, police said.
The Taliban have stepped up their insurgency every year since 2001, when they were driven from government in a US-led invasion because they refused to surrender Al-Qaeda leaders behind the 9/11 attacks.
The violence has this year killed about 6,000 people, most of them Taliban fighters but also about 1,000 Afghan security forces and more than 200 foreign soldiers.
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