It is interesting to see when terrorists feel that western politicians are not doing what the terrorists want. The terrorists get all upset and call the western leaders names, which is usually a sign things are not going well. Clearly things must no be going well in Afghanistan for the Taliban, based on a recent rant against the French for sending more troops to Afghanistan:

The Taliban militants have accused the French president of breaking his campaign promises by pledging to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Nicolas Sarkozy announced during the NATO summit in Bucharest this week that France would send an additional battalion, or about 700 troops, to the volatile southern Afghanistan to free up US troops to serve as reinforcements.

The Taliban said that goes against an apparent promise Sarkozy made during his electoral campaign about withdrawing French troops from Afghanistan.

The hardline militia also said that broken pledge was in line with other NATO leaders “lying” to their nations about the progress being made in Afghanistan.

Jihad is tough when you have to actually fight the west’s military instead of bombing unarmed innocent women and children.

And the Taliban suffered another blow with the capture of their deputy commander for the southern region:

Afghan officials say a senior Taleban commander has been arrested in the southern city of Kandahar.

Mullah Abdul Jabar, the Taleban deputy leader in southern Afghanistan, was on his way to Pakistan, officials said.

It is in the south where the Taleban have been fighting some of their fiercest battles against international and Afghan forces.

A Taleban spokesman told the BBC he had no information that Mullah Abdul Jabar had been arrested.

At least two senior Taleban commanders have been arrested in the southern provinces in recent months.

There are not an endless supply of capable leaders in this poverty stricken area of the world. Not leaders which can withstand western forces and the Afghan forces the west has trained. The result is a string of biting defeats for the Taliban already this year:

US-led troops and Afghan security forces on Sunday killed a “significant” number of militants, the coalition said, a day after 15 Taliban were killed in attacks in the south.

The coalition did not give an exact toll but a local MP said the battle in eastern Nuristan province, in which warplanes were also deployed, left 20 people dead including some civilians.

“The combined force repelled the attack with accurate small-arms fire and crew-served weapons. During the long battle, the insurgents reinforced their positions in several compounds with large groups of fighters,” a statement by the US-led coalition said.

It added that troops “inflicted significant insurgent losses” and that many rebels had been detained.

The statement said the fighters were members of Hizb-e-Islami, an outlawed militant group loyal to the former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is said to have joined the Taliban.

The ‘spring offensive’ by the Taliban is probably going to be another bloody defeat for the Taliban.