U.S. Col. Jonathan Ives inaugurates a library at a school last month in Tagab district of Kapisa province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan, America is planning for a long stay.

Bagram, Afghanistan ? Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan’s Taliban government and its al-Qaida guests, America is planning for a long stay.

Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, is growing in size by nearly a third.

Today the U.S. has about 25,000 troops in the country, and other NATO nations contribute another 25,000, more than three times the number of international troops in the country four years ago, when the Taliban appeared defeated.

The Islamic militia has come roaring back since then, and 2007 has been the battle’s bloodiest year yet.

At Bagram, new barracks will help accommodate the record number of U.S. troops in the country.

“We’ve grown in our commitment to Afghanistan by putting another brigade (of troops) here, and with that we know that we’re going to have an enduring presence,” said Col. Jonathan Ives. “So this is going to become a long-term base for us, whether that means five years, 10 years – we don’t know.”

More than 5,100 people – mostly militants – have died in insurgency-related violence so far this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials. That far outpaces last year’s violence, when the AP count topped 4,000 for the entire year.

Some 87 U.S. troops have died so far this year, also a record pace. About 90 U.S. servicemembers were killed in all of last year.

Wide areas of the south – in Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces – are controlled by the Taliban, and the fighting is migrating north, into Ghazni province – where 23 South Koreans were kidnapped in July – and Wardak, right next door to Kabul, the capital.

Osama bin Laden, whose presence here was a trigger for the U.S.-led attack, is still at large, possibly hiding in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

And Afghan farmers this year grew a record amount of opium poppy, prompting officials to draw up plans to use the military in drug interdiction missions against traffickers.

U.S. commanders point out that military operations have killed more than 50 mid- and high-level Taliban commanders this year, causing at least a temporary disruption in the militants’ abilities. The Afghan army participated in its first jointly planned and executed operation, in Ghazni province, earlier this summer.

Originally, Pentagon planners thought Bagram would be a “temporary” camp, Ives said, but an increased U.S. commitment to Afghanistan means Bagram needs to grow.

“Where we designed a base around 3,000 (troops), it quickly moved to 7,000 and now we’re housing about 13,000, so just in a very short period of time you’ve grown not necessarily exponentially, but you’ve definitely doubled just about every two years,” Ives said.

A new runway accommodates heavier C-5 cargo planes and Boeing 747s. New soldiers’ barracks – safer and more comfortable than the wooden structures that dot Bagram – are being built. And more workers are flowing in. Two years ago, some 1,500 Afghans worked in support roles at Bagram; today 5,000 walk through its front gates daily.

Six years after CIA agents and Special Forces soldiers helped the Northern Alliance swoop down from their northern stronghold toward Taliban-controlled Kabul, President Hamid Karzai is increasingly asking that Taliban militants join the government through peace talks. And the U.N. has said an increasing number of fighters want peace.

But the Taliban and factional warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, have rejected those offers, saying that international troops must first leave the country.

But the U.S. will mentor Afghanistan’s military for years to come, Ives said. He said America’s military and aid commitments to Afghanistan are “speaking volumes.”

“Our commitment to them is really saying we will be here until you have the security and stability that allows you to be a developing country on your own, and if that’s 10 years then it’s 10 years,” he said. “But I think the thing is we’re looking to help them as much as we can.”