A combination of unrelenting internal and external dynamics has aggravated security and living conditions in Somalia. With millions of Somalis experiencing the catastrophic effect of this intractable and multifaceted conflict, hopes for a viable peaceful solution are becoming increasingly bleak.
Map showing the areas in Southern Afghanistan where the opium cultivation forecast for 2008 is at its most intense. The cultivation forecast in these areas is at a level of 5000 or more hectares for the year 2008.
Showing the areas of violent activity in Afghanistan. This map demonstrates that the main areas of NATO activity are limited to the military bases, while the Taliban violence affects the whole country.
Depicting the difficulty to travel in Southern Afghanistan once you are just a very short distance from NATO/Afghan conrolled areas or military basses.
Militant operations in Afghanistan have become increasingly sophisticated since
2004. By offering rewards to those willing to kill or kidnap foreigners and
government officials, and engaging in increasing amounts of suicide bombing, the
militants have intimidated the Afghan population in the south and southeast.
Less a homogenous structured movement, Al-Qaeda has essentially become an
ideological reference point for ad hoc terrorist cells and like-minded terrorist
movements around the world. The Al-Qaeda notion has inspired attacks in such
diverse states as Indonesia, Morocco, Spain and the UK.
Poppy cultivation and opium production are increasingly concentrated in the south of Afghanistan, with two provinces (Kandahar and
Helmand) amounting to around 62 per cent of all opium produced worldwide. It is estimated that the current insurgency in Afghanistan is funded up to 40 per cent by income
derived from the illegal opium economy.
In more than seventeen out of the thirty four provinces in Afghanistan, more than 70 percent of the population has no access to safe drinking water either from a pump or a protected spring.
Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries and ranks at the bottom of practically all of the major development indicators of the United
Nations. Afghanistan is the only non-African country with a Human Development Index less than 0.35
The 25 Provincial Reconstruction Teams stationed in Afghanistan in the summer of 2006, 12 under the
command of Operation Enduring Freedom and 13 under the control of NATO-ISAF.
During NATO-ISAF’s Stage I, completed in late 2004, NATO-ISAF forces expanded into Afghanistan’s northern provinces and assumed command of
Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Badakhshan, Kunduz, Faryab and Balkh provinces from Operation Enduring Freedom.
