Afghan jailer Ghulam Dastager Mayaar stands next to the hole which the inmates used to escape from inside the Kandahar's main jail April 25, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Kandahar city has been a major focus of the international troop surge over the past year, with NATO officials saying that establishing security there will be key to securing the region. Last summer, Afghan forces created a ring of checkpoints around the city and started pushing out into Taliban bed-down areas on its outskirts in a plan to establish the government's authority before the rise in attacks that usually comes with warmer weather in the spring and summer.

The Taliban have responding by starting off the spring fighting season with a string of attacks apparently designed to undermine trust in the capabilities of the Afghan government. Within the past two weeks, Taliban agents have also launched deadly attacks from inside the Defense Ministry a shared Afghan-US military base in eastern Laghman province.

The attacks have exposed weaknesses that have also thrown doubt on the readiness of the Afghan government to start taking over authority for security parts of the country as planned. Without that transition, it becomes more difficult for the country's international allies to show an exit strategy that will start bringing their troops home.

NATO does continue to have tactical successes. The international coalition announced Tuesday that it had killed a key al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan in an airstrike.

NATO identified the man killed in the April 13 airstrike in Dangam district of eastern Kunar province as Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani. The alliance said he was a regional commander in charge of suicide bombings and cash flow. The strike also killed a number of other insurgents, including another al-Qaida leader known as Waqas.

But Afghans tend to focus on the continuing danger they face in their daily lives - either as government workers who may be targeted or just that they could be a bystander when a suicide bomb goes off.

In eastern Paktia province on Tuesday, the provincial governor narrowly escaped an apparent assassination attempt by insurgents. A roadside bomb exploded just behind a vehicle taking Gov. Juma Khan Hamdard to his office, said Rohallah Samon, a spokesman for the governor.

Hamdard was not hurt, but three policemen who were in a chase vehicle were slightly injured, Samon said.