Some good news is coming out of Afghanistan now that it and Pakistan seem to be the new focus on the war on terror. As I mentioned yesterday it seems al-Qaeda and its associate groups and fighters are heading to the region after their defeat in Iraq. So clearly Americans should monitor events in the two countries where al-Qaeda was given sanctuary to plan and execute the 9-11 attacks.

Along that line we see two Taliban leaders have been taken out of commission in the area. One was captured:

Afghanistan’s law enforcing agencies have nabbed a local leader of Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, National Security Directorate (NSD) said on Monday.

“Hajji Gulalai Agha, who was the commander of a terrorist group of Taliban militants in Kandahar province and had organized several terrorist attacks in the past, was captured three or four days ago,” an official at the press department of NSD read out a statement to Xinhua but declined to give his name.

The other was killed:

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan yesterday said it killed several militants in a strike on Taleban command-and-control networks in Musa Qala, a southern district that has been in rebel hands for 10 months.

The strike on Sunday was aimed at a senior Taleban commander believed to have been involved in the March kidnapping of Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo and his interpreter and his driver, who were both beheaded.

The commander, whom the coalition did not identify, was also said to have been responsible for attacks on international military bases and other bombings, the coalition said in a statement.

During the operation, coalition forces targeted a vehicle carrying five men, one of whom intelligence reports said was the commander.

“A supporting aircraft released a precision-guided munition, destroying the vehicle and killing the occupants,” the statement said. There were no immediate indications of civilian casualties, it added.

Things are definitely heating up in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is asking for US support and military supplies to fight our common enemies. (and I am sure will get once Congress gets off it fat ass and actually passes legislation that can be signed). What better way to protect American soldiers than to enable the local military to take up some of the fight?

On the international front Estonia has agreed to keep its forces in place for another year. And while Australia may be pulling out of Iraq, they are still supporting the effort in Afghanistan.

The Dutch also are extending their stay in Afghanistan to at least 2010. And the UK will be taking on a coordinating role for UN and NATO efforts there. All this news coming out around the same time has my spider senses tingling. Clearly the world is united and acting to focus their efforts on Afghanistan in the coming months. In fact the US is also beefing up our forces there:

Five U.S. Army National Guard brigades have been ordered to go to Iraq and Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, the Pentagon announced Monday.

Among the troops, 8,000 will go to Iraq and the rest 7,000 will leave for Afghanistan, it said.

It is truly telling that the forces going to Iraq and Afghanistan are about equal. If Iraq is on the path to victory, and al-Qaeda is massing in the Pakistan Afghanistan for their final battle with the West, then this focus of resources away from Iraq and towards the birth place of radical Islamic extremism makes sense.