Sunday marked the first anniversary of the establishment of an interim government in Afghanistan following the collapse of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime. Earlier this month, Mr. Hamid Karzai, head of the transitional government that took over from an interim administration in June, noted that security remains the country's biggest concern. Fighting among local warlords continues, as does terrorism attributed to remnants of the Taliban. The attempted assassination of President Karzai in September, in the southwest town of Kandahar, is still fresh in memory.
Osama bin Laden, the elusive leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, is still at large (if he is alive), and so, too, is Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was the Taliban's supreme leader. U.S. special forces are continuing the hunt for terrorists in and around Afghanistan. In the event of a war in Iraq, however, some American troops will probably be redeployed to the Iraqi front, causing a slackening in the antiterror campaign.
Meanwhile, Afghan refugees are returning home in droves. So far 1.7 million people -- half of the estimated 3.5 million who had fled their devastated homeland -- are said to have come back from Pakistan and other neighboring countries. But in an economy ravaged by two decades of war, jobs are scarce. Rebuilding essential infrastructure is, therefore, just as pressing a priority for Afghanistan as restoring peace and order.