of violence in afghanistan have increased significantly over the last several years. moreover, the taliban and its affiliates had until this year steadily been expanding the areas they control and influence. this year, however, isaf achieved progress in several location, the initial effort has been in the helmand river valley and afghan, u.s. and u.k. forces ha expanded security there and predictably the enemy fought back as we have taken away his sanctuaries in the districts at marjah, and elsewhere. nothing has been easy in those operations. but, 6 months ago, we could not have walked through the market in marjah as i was able to do with the district governor there, two months ago. we are now increasing our focus on kandahar province, an area of considerable importance to the taliban. we re working hard to ensure that our operations there are based on a strong, integrated
remember that progress is possible in afghanistan, because we have already seen a fair amount of it, in a variety of different forms beyond the recent security gains. for example, nearly 7 million afghan children are now in school, as opposed to less than 1 million a decade ago under taliban control. immunization rates for children have gone up substantially and are now in the 70 to 90% range nationwide and cell phones are ubiquitous in a nation where during the taliban days they were nonexistent, though the taliban tries to shut down them, ha lat, jalalabad, infrastructure has been repaired and built and commerce is returning to hill man ore isaf and afghan forces are present. even in places where governance remains weak, innovative efforts like the afghan government s national solidarity program supported by american and