Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised continued U.S. support for Afghanistan, during her five-hour visit to Kabul. After a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Rice said that the Taleban forces responsible for a series of attacks will be defeated.
"Afghanistan has determined enemies and they are ruthless but they will not succeed in undermining or in rolling back the democratic gains of the Afghan people,? she said.
Peter Bergen is a terrorism analyst at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.
"I think the situation is beginning to look a little bit like Iraq six months after the invasion, where things started to begin to look not very good,? he said. ?Suicide attacks, a lot of non-governmental organizations or charities having to sort of rethink what they're doing, travel around parts of the country basically becoming impossible and the Taliban have adopted a lot of the tactics from Iraq."
At a congressional hearing on security in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, said the U.S. military has made progress in training and equipping the Afghan National Army.
"This force at this point in time has become a much more resilient force than it was in 2002," he said. "They believe in themselves, they're fighting well side-by-side with us."