XDA

As I suspected, regarding the recent uptick in casualties NATO forces (and we) are taking in Afghanistan, the bulk of the increase is from a change in tactics, a change to a losing tactic. The rest is because it's too hot for al Qaeda types in Iraq and they have fled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to try their luck there. Or so says Stephen Brown at FrontPageMagazine online.

Money quotes:

Such highly publicized attacks on NATO troops [like the attack on French paratroopers] are part of the enemy’s strategy to undermine public support for the war in Europe.

[...]

But the truth is that despite the media-savvy Taliban’s endeavors to impress the world with reports of successful operations, it is losing ground. For all intents and purposes, the Afghan war is what experts term a “low-intensity conflict.”

[...]

A military news site further reports that “gun battles with the Taliban are down fifty per cent this year.” Another hopeful sign is that fewer civilians, and more Taliban and al-Qaeda, are being killed.

[...]

Credit for this achievement goes to Afghanistan’s steadily improving 70,000-man army – it was an Afghan unit that surrounded and killed some of the suicide bombers at Camp Salerno – as well as to the nearly 60,000 American-led NATO troops. Facing well-trained, professional soldiers, backed by smart bombs and air superiority, the Taliban has had difficulty finding new recruits despite offering generous pay. Ignoring Taliban propaganda, many Afghans seem to realize that guerrilla tactics are not going to win this war.

As a result, the Taliban has been forced to rely more on suicide bombers and roadside bombs. However, these brutal tactics have caused the deaths of countless civilians, and in the end could turn the population against the Taliban, much as al-Qaeda’s massacres in Iraq ultimately inspired a nationwide backlash against the terrorist organization. To take one example among many, last February a suicide bomber aiming for Canadian troops in a crowded market place in the southern city of Kandahar wounded four soldiers but killed forty Afghan civilians. It may be just a matter of time before Afghans rise up against the Taliban’s indiscriminate carnage.

Sounds right to me.