Taliban has ways of eluding U.S. hunters

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Troops with powerful rifle scopes scanned mountain ridges for elusive, black-clad Taliban infiltrators. Afghan soldiers, hit by a roadside bomb, pressed on into the valley. U.S. Special Forces swept through the sinister alleys of its main settlement.

The strike, carried out by about 200 American and Afghan government forces, was supposed to sever a major insurgent infiltration and supply route from neighboring Pakistan to Islamic fighters deep in
Afghanistan.

But the attack didn't work — an object lesson in why 47,000 U.S. and NATO forces are struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban movement.

Field officers say eradicating fighters who cross the porous 1,470-mile border is like trying to drain a swamp when one cannot shut off the streams feeding it. Pakistan's failure to dam those streams has deepened the five-year-old conflict, they say.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan_coming_through