"What security challenges has Afghanistan faced in recent months?"
"A steady drumbeat of attacks from members of the Taliban has left more than 1,200 people dead in Afghanistan in the last six months, the worst death toll since the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001. U.S. and Afghan forces have been fighting the Taliban-led insurgency since then, but “the [security] trend since the presidential election [in October 2004] has been downhill,” says Peter Tomsen, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan from 1989-93. He says the Taliban have become increasingly sophisticated in their training and are mounting ever-larger and more complex attacks. "

Of those 1,200 killed, well over 1,000 were Taliban fighters. Of course most news sources fail to mention this little tidbit of information. Many of those insurgents were killed by Afghan security forces with little or no Coalition backup.