Taliban has retaken control of about 10 percent of Afghanistan's territory

The Taliban has retaken control of about 10 percent of Afghanistan's territory, less than seven years after being run out of the country by US military forces. The US-backed Hamid Karzai government meanwhile, controls just 30 percent, and then the rest of it was local control. These gains of Taliban can be attributed in part to aid from the Al-Qaeda international terror network.

Afghanistan has in the last year seen its most violent period since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, increasing pressure on the United States and its allies in NATO to beef up their military contingents to avoid the country falling again to the radical Islamists. At the same time, Al-Qaeda presents an increased threat to Pakistan, while it continues to plan, support and direct transnational attacks from its de facto safe haven in Pakistan's largely ungoverned frontier provinces.