Surely I am not the only one to notice this, but for some inexplicable reason nobody seems to be paying attention to events in South Asia, as in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For anyone keeping score the U.S. has suffered some noticeable reverses on the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) playing field recently.

In Afghanistan, rising anger over an increasing number of civilian casualties caused by American airstrikes has increased American concerns about losing the support of its people, its government and other nations for the mission there.

So much so in fact, that last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Kabul expressed his “sincere condolences” and promised speedier compensation and investigation after such casualties.

There are, tragically, far too many. Thus far 2008 is on pace to be the deadliest for civilians since the Taliban were toppled by the American-led invasion in 2001. More than 1,445 civilians have been killed so far in 2008, and slightly more than half of those deaths, tallied by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, are attributed to insurgent forces.

While the Taliban is responsible for more civilian deaths (55 percent of the total) than NATO, the actions of international forces and allies have sparked the most criticism from Afghans. The number of civilians killed by pro-government forces jumped by 21 percent in 2008, and air strikes were responsible for two-thirds of these. Last month up to 96 civilians were killed in the western province of Herat, sparking protests around the country. Earlier in the summer, American ordnance hit a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan, killing 47 civilians. In both cases US officials denied that such a large number of civilians were killed.

Secretary Gates accepted a proposal from Afghan officials to establish a permanent joint investigative group to determine the facts surrounding civilian casualties more quickly.

The senior American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, said that he had tightened the rules affecting when NATO troops could use lethal force

He also noted that the insurgent attacks in the country have increased 30% from last year. The number of U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan in 2008, at 122, has already exceeded the 117 fatalities in 2007.

Over the last three months, insurgents have exacted the most punishing casualty tolls on Western forces since the Afghan war began nearly seven years ago. Numbers of foreign troops killed have exceeded U.S. military deaths in Iraq. In June, the Taliban orchestrated a spectacular prison break here that set hundreds of insurgents free. A multi-pronged assault on a remote, just-established U.S. outpost killed nine Americans in July. In August, an ambush killed 10 French troops.

He said Tuesday first time that he needed three combat brigades, which could amount to some 15,000 more combat and support troops, in addition to the one extra battalion and one extra brigade that President Bush had already ordered to arrive here by early next year.

So we can look forward to Surge II, in Afghanistan. The problem, as Fred Kaplan ably pointed out in Slate is that Afghanistan is not remotely like Iraq. As he noted:

Iraq’s insurgency is based in Iraq; Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are based mainly across the border in Pakistan. Iraq is urban, educated, and has great wealth, at least potentially, in its oil supplies; Afghanistan is rural, largely illiterate, and ranks as one of the world’s five poorest countries. Iraq has some history as a cohesive nation (albeit as the result of a minority ruling sect oppressing the majority); Afghanistan never has and, given its geography, perhaps never will.

Moreover, the Taliban’s insurgency is ideological, not ethno-sectarian (except incidentally). Therefore, while some warlords and tribes have allied themselves with the Taliban for opportunistic or nationalistic reasons, and therefore might be peeled away and co-opted, the conditions are not ripe for some sort of Taliban or Pashtun “Awakening.” Nor is there any place where walls might isolate the insurgents.

Last Thursday Gates said that Washington was planning to send two more brigades, or about 7,000 troops, to Afghanistan next year in addition to the brigade already diverted from Iraq, and a fourth brigade in 2010. He also said he expected Britain to match Washington’s commitment by enlarging its troop presence.

A couple of days later Secretary Gates said the Bush administration is reviewing its war strategy in Afghanistan amid spreading insurgent violence and doubts about winning.

Indeed, we should be asking ourselves, are we, despite all our past effort and sacrifice, losing Afghanistan? According to a new 113-page report released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies the answer is yes.

Meanwhile Predator drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Special Operations Command have been firing missiles at targets inside Pakistan almost daily for the past several weeks, killing dozens of Pakistanis, according to Pakistani officials. Last week, a U.S. missile hit a suspected Taliban ammunition depot in South Waziristan, killing five people, Pakistani officials said.

The U.S. claims Pakistan has failed to crack down on militants operating in its border regions, allowing the insurgents to create safe havens where they can train recruits and plan attacks inside Afghanistan.

But last week Pakistan’s military said its soldiers had orders to fire at any American troops raiding across the border. Pakistani officials were responding to a U.S. cross-border commando raid on Sept. 3, and to revelations the Bush administration had cleared the way for U.S. forces to strike targets in Pakistan without first alerting Islamabad and had authorized an increase in the number of U.S. missile strikes on targets inside Pakistan.

Things are likely going to get worse as the U.S. Army is preparing to deploy a network of drones and other surveillance aircraft to Afghanistan in an expanding effort to defeat the resurgent Taliban. The effort, known as Task Force ODIN-A, is set to begin early next year and will coincide with the planned deployments of thousands of American troop reinforcements to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile the London Daily Telegraph reported that the Taliban has challenged Pakistan’s overstretched security forces by opening up a new front in the north of the country.

Militants have used fear and intimidation to clear a swathe of territory in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to establish training camps and for taking sanctuary, and have set up their headquarters in Maidan, in the rugged, green hills of the Upper Dir valley.

The Taliban encroachment has seeped from Pakistan’s seven tribal areas into adjacent areas nominally under full government control.

And, if anybody need more evidence of terrorist’s strength there was the suicide truck bombing that exploded at the entrance to the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 53 people and wounding at least 266.