War-torn Afghanistan may soon have a defense minister, nine months after the new government was formed and amid some of the toughest fighting since the Talban's insurgency began nearly 14 years ago.
Masoom Stanekzai is better known as a peacemaker than a battlefield strategist, having led the High Peace Council negotiating body charged with ending the conflict with the Taliban, but now he is directing the war.
He is expected to be confirmed soon by parliament, though the law allows him to assume the post in an acting capacity.
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His appointment will complete President Ashraf Ghani's Cabinet as the military tackles an invigorated Taliban without the backing of international forces, which ended their combat mission last year.
Stanekzai takes the job as the Taliban are redefining their war against Kabul, joining forces with other militant groups and spreading the fight to every corner of the country.
A change in tactics has taken Afghan security forces by surprise and forced them to spread ever-thinner as their casualty rates soar.
NATO figures show that between Jan. 1 and May 7, Afghan security forces saw a 63-percent increase in those killed and wounded in action as the Taliban spread across the country from their traditional strongholds in the east and south bordering Pakistan.
The figures show 2,322 army, police and local security personnel were killed during that period, 53 percent more than the same period in 2014.
From the 2001 US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban until the drawdown at the end of last year, America lost 2,217 soldiers.
The Taliban are threatening major cities and overrunning remote districts, attacking "on a greater scale, with full force and in many places at once," said Muhammad Jan Rasul Yar, the deputy governor of southern Helmand province.
"They have managed to conquer and capture many districts," he said, adding that desertions among government forces are rising.
"More than 100 districts across the country are vulnerable to being overrun by the Taliban every day," said a central government official familiar with the security situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
"Every day across Afghanistan you have 10, 15, 17, 25 direct clashes between the insurgents and government forces, and now that is happening in areas where there was no serious threat before."
The new battleground is the previously peaceful north, where local warlords have largely been able to keep the Taliban out, but where the new insurgent tactics are proving a match for government forces.
