In a surprisingly downbeat assessment, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday that the Taliban has proved to be a tough foe and warned that U.S. forces face a difficult struggle to dislodge the regime's troops from the crowded cities of Afghanistan.
Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, a senior official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recent moves suggest that the Taliban will protect themselves by moving its forces into cities, where the U.S. military's technological advantage are constrained by the difficulties of intelligence-gathering and efforts to spare civilians.
Stufflebeem said at a Pentagon briefing that he has been \a bit surprised at how doggedly [Taliban forces] are hanging on to their power."" The forces of the radical Islamic regime have ""proven to be tough warriors,"" and they ""are in an environment that they, obviously, are experts in,"" he said.
While some Pentagon officials have privately offered similar comments, Stufflebeem's remarks marked a departure from the Pentagon's positive public assessments about the course of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
