The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is facing its most serious threat since the end of the cold war as the Taliban are clearly on the counterattack and taking the offensive in Afghanistan. After organizing a spectacular jailbreak at the weekend during which several hundreds of Taliban militants escaped, the insurgents blew up bridges near Kandahar hoping to deter a possible counter-offensive by Afghan and NATO troops.

Recent activity by the Taliban in the border region with Pakistan has raised tension between the two countries – both U.S. allies in the fight against terrorism – after President Hamid Karzai threatened that Afghan forces could attack militants on the soil of neighboring Pakistan.

Residents fleeing town of Arghandab said the Taliban had seized much of the area and that many people had abandoned their harvests.

NATO can ill-afford to allow the Taliban a victory. The great danger in the Afghan campaign is that the Western nations currently contributing troops to the war effort will lose interest and withdraw. This is precisely what the Taliban hopes to achieve in prolonging the campaign and gradually raising the number of casualties among NATO forces, which in turn they believe will bring pressure on the respective governments back home, and eventually forcing them to withdraw their forces.

"There were Taliban everywhere. They have destroyed all of the small bridges leading to the villages," a local resident told the French news agency, AFP.

The presence of about 70,000 international troops mainly operating under NATO does not seem to discourage the insurgency, aimed at overthrowing the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. A movement that has grown in intensity over the past two years with the Taliban coming more brazen in recent months, launching a raid on a five-star hotel in January and opening fire on a televised military parade attended by Karzai in April.

Allowing the Taliban a victory in Afghanistan will reset the anti-terrorist clock back to zero.