Summary here and here.

The shades of the chaos may vary, but outside of Kabul it deeply permeates everywhere.

The disarmament of Afghanistan’s illegal private militias has ground to a halt and the price of weapons in the country’s relatively quiet north is skyrocketing – a sign of the embattled central government’s failure to assert its control, Afghan and Western officials say.

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“No (provincial) governor has stayed for more than three or four months in the job because there are powerful people and networks” who force them out, said Habibullah, a car mechanic in Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital of Baghlan, where the top Kabul-appointed administrator was replaced three times during 2006.

Ethnic Tajik and Uzbek warlords from the Northern Alliance that helped the U.S. defeat the hardline Taliban regime still dominate and local citizens are increasingly seeking guns for self-protection because of rampant criminality and distrust of the police, residents say.

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Some 2,000 illegal armed groups – each with at least five fighters – remain active, including new groups that have popped up across the country, said Ahmad Jan Nawzadi, a spokesman for the disarmament program. It originally hoped to disarm all fighters by the end of 2007.

“As the security environment in the country, particularly in the south, began to deteriorate the whole process of voluntary weapons handovers … began to grind to a halt,” said a Western official involved in the process who would only speak on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject.

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The Western official said the Taliban resurgence and government drive to establish an 11,000-strong auxiliary police force among Pashtun tribal militias in the south to combat the Taliban has generated suspicion among Northern Alliance factions who fear being outgunned by their tribal rivals. Article

Beyond “surge,” this is indicative of a major, major expansion in warfare already well into year six of operations.

The 120-day extension of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, has left U.S. military commanders in eastern Afghanistan “scrambling to accommodate the sudden influx of soldiers” as new units rotate into the area, officials said Tuesday.

The new troops are largely from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, which has been taking over operations in the area.

Many of the 10th Mountain troops are now being pushed northeast, U.S. military officials said, giving the troops a wider reach but also altering areas of responsibility and adding challenges to logistical support efforts at bases such as Jalalabad.

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The bases in and around Jalalabad are also undergoing expansion, officials said. According to the news release, the number of U.S. military bases in the area – of varying sizes – has grown from 17 to 30 over the past year, with three more under construction.

Jalalabad itself will expand even more and include expanded facilities for a combat aviation unit that will “become larger and more stationary,” the release reads. Article