Al-Qaeda, Taliban getting bolder

The audacity of a suicide-bomb attack on Tuesday at the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice-President Dick Cheney underscores why President Bush sent him there

The audacity of a suicide-bomb attack on Tuesday at the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice-President Dick Cheney underscores why President Bush sent him there — a deepening American concern that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent.

American officials insisted that the importance of the attack, by a single suicide bomber who blew himself up a mile away from where the vice-president was staying, was primarily symbolic. It was more successful at grabbing headlines and filling television screens with a scene of carnage than at getting anywhere near Cheney.

But the strike nonetheless demonstrated that Al Qaeda and the Taliban appear stronger and more emboldened in the region than at any time since the American invasion of the country five years ago, and since the Bush administration claimed to have decimated much of their middle management. And it fed directly into the debate over who is to blame.

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The leaders whom Cheney met on his mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan have appeared increasingly incapable of controlling the chaos, and have only pointed fingers at one another.

Cheney said the attack underscored the need for a renewed American effort. His critics said the strike was another reminder of how Iraq had diverted the Bush administration from finishing the job in Afghanistan.

The blast killed at least 23, including an American soldier and contractor and a South Korean soldier. About 20 Afghans died, including a 12-year-old boy. An additional two dozen or so were wounded. But it remains unclear whether the suicide bomber had known the Vice-President was on the base at the time of the attack.

American officials said they were investigating whether Taliban fighters were tipped off about Cheney’s visit as the Vice-President’s entry to Afghanistan had been kept a secret.