Kabul attack 'shows strategy failure'

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/kabul-attack-shows-strategy-failure-2341018.html

The Taliban attack on the British Council offices in Kabul has underlined the failure of the western strategy in Afghanistan, the UK's former special envoy to the country warned today.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles said claims Afghan forces would be able to take over responsibility for security after 2014 - as Britain and America are planning - had been exposed as a "fantasy".

Once international forces pull out, he warned the country would be plunged into a bloody civil war - in which the rival parties "fight themselves to a standstill" unless there was a political settlement with the Taliban.

"The strategy is not working. It is a fantasy to imagine that the Afghan security forces are going to be able to secure Afghanistan any time these ten years. They won't be able to secure Afghanistan unless there is a new political and regional settlement," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.