Taliban have permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan

The Taliban now have a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan, up from 72% in November 2008, according to a new map released today by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). According to ICOS, another 17% of Afghanistan is seeing ‘substantial’ Taliban activity. Taken together, these figures show that the Taliban has a significant presence in virtually all of Afghanistan.
In November 2007, ICOS assessed that the Taliban had a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan, and in November 2008, using the same methodology; the result was a finding of a permanent Taliban presence in 72% of the country.

The way ICOS assesses the Taliban presence is by counting Taliban attacks by province: provinces in which there is an average of one or more weekly Taliban attack count as having a "permanent Taliban presence", so 80% of provinces.

One important aspect is that although the Taliban have always been strong in the South and South East, they are now spreading to the north.

The map of Taliban presence can be found here.