Violence Levels Increasing

Violence across Afghanistan hit its worst levels in 2010 since the Taliban were 'ousted' to quote various US media by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, with civilian and military casualties at record levels.
A total of 711 foreign troops were killed in 2010, the deadliest year of the war for the coalition, and at least 340 have been killed so far this year, six in the last 2 days, according to independent monitor www.icasualties.org and figures kept by Reuters.
U.S. and European military commanders have claimed significant success against Taliban insurgents in the south over the past 18 months, mainly with the help of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops deployed in the Taliban's southern heartland.
However the Taliban and other insurgents have shown an ability to adapt their tactics and shift the focus of their attacks out of the south into the east and the once relatively peaceful north.
Thursday's car bomb in northern Kunduz came two days after suicide attackers killed four security guards at a guesthouse in the city used by foreigners.
Three children were also wounded by the blast from a bomb planted in the car of Payenda Khan, a district head for the National Directorate of Security in Kunduz city, said Sayed Sarwar Husaini, a spokesman for the provincial policeman.
There has been a series of high-profile attacks and assassinations in the north in the past couple of years as insurgents seek to demonstrate their reach beyond their traditional southern heartland.
The police chief of north Afghanistan, General Dawood Dawood, was assassinated in late May by a massive bomb in Takhar province that also killed the Takhar police chief.
In June, a suicide bomber killed at least four policemen at a memorial service for Dawood in Kunduz. The attack appeared to target the police chief of Kunduz province, Sameullah Qatra, whose predecessor was killed by a suicide bomber in March.