Pentagon issues downbeat assessment on Afghanistan

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Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Pentagon issues downbeat assessment on Afghanistan
By Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers 2 hrs 14 mins ago

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon Wednesday issued a downbeat assessment of the situation in Afghanistan , saying that only one in four Afghans in strategically important areas currently back President Hamid Karzai's government even as the Taliban expand their insurgency and install shadow local governments.

The report to Congress outlined some areas of progress, including a leveling off of violence during the last three months, improved counter-insurgency cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistani and the finding that 84 percent of Afghans feel that security is good or fair.

Yet the overall level of violence rose 87 percent between February 2009 and March 2010 , driven in part by a major U.S.-led offensive earlier this year to push the Taliban out of strongholds around Marjah in the southern opium-producing province of Helmand, according to the report.

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The Pentagon assessment was issued two weeks before Karzai visits Washington for talks with Obama amid strained relations over Afghan government corruption, the deaths of Afghan civilians in U.S.-led military operations and other issues.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100428/wl_mcclatchy/3490686