Resurgent Taliban strangles southern heartland

[maddezmom]

By Terry Friel

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Thousands of cars, gleaming in the desert sun, fill sales yards along the road to the airport in Afghanistan's second city.

The shops and bazaars of Kandahar are full to bursting.

But the prosperity is deceptive in the city where the Taliban was born, now a centre of violence amid a resurgence by the hardline Islamist group five years after it was toppled from power by U.S.-led forces.

"It's getting worse. I am afraid -- these suicide attacks happen all the time," said Ahmad Shah, a 60-year-old tyre mechanic outside his shop -- an old shipping container on the airport road by the city gates.

"The foreigners fight only for themselves. The Taliban fight only for themselves."

more;http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP216676.htm