Canadians Regarded As Joke By Afghans

Western commanders claim they are bringing the insurgency to heel, but there is growing resentment among Afghans at the high death toll. President Hamid Karzai acknowledged this last week, saying: "It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying." Memories of expelling unwanted outsiders are strongest in Maiwand. In 1880 almost 1,000 British and Indian soldiers died at the hands of an Afghan tribal army at the height of the second Anglo-Afghan war. One British officer, recalling the frantic retreat along a "blood-stained" road, described Maiwand as "simply a rat trap". Today the town - an unlovely haunt of drug traders, Taliban spies and unhappy tribesmen - has lost little of its menace. A charred police jeep lies where four police died in a recent roadside bomb. Hashish and opium are sold openly in the bazaar, where pro-Taliban sympathies are freely expressed. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1806029,00.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on June 28, 2006]

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