Now, how much can US tighten the vise?: ‘…the Soviet Union controlled many Afghan cities and much of the country for years, yet came to grief in the mountainous redoubts to which the Taliban is now retreating.

But in their glory years, the mujahideen had both the civilian population and large stocks of US weapons behind them. Today, the fighting men in the caves have neither. Their adversaries include not only US special-operations groups, but also local warlords who sense that history is no longer on the Taliban’s side.’ Christian Science Monitor