generalspeaking

Carnage, the Taliban Calling Card

"[The Taliban's] insistence on continuous violence is jeopardizing the unique opportunity for peace."
"[The insurgents must] cease bloodshed  and engage constructively [in negotiations]."
Stefano Pontecorvo, NATO Afghanistan official

"This is what the Taliban have to offer the Afghan people."
"Destruction, destruction and more destruction."
Javed Faisal, spokesman, President Ashraf Ghani

Afghan security personnel inspect the site of a car bomb blast near the destroyed office building of Afghanistan's intelligence agency in the city of Aybak on Monday. At least 11 security personnel were killed. (AFP via Getty Images)

Unfailingly polite when it comes to naming terrorists for what they are, the Taliban are called 'insurgents' in news releases. What they have proven themselves to be, much like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is relentless, skilled terrorists, intent on destroying lives and infrastructure to break down resistance and enable their return to governance in Afghanistan. Where their first order of business will be to restore the Sharia-led administration that will once again relegate women to the role of unseen possessions, outlaw music and art, mandate beards for men and death for opponents.

Women have every reason to shudder at the prospect of a return to Taliban rule. They will no longer be permitted to emerge from their homes unescorted by family males and will be publicly thrashed dare they appear in public without the all-enveloping burka. Nor will they aspire to careers for they must not work outside their home even if they are widows and sole family earners. Girls will not attend school for education is a male-centric right. Hospitals will no longer admit female patients but re-direct them to female-only hospitals where female surgeons must operate under burkas.

The virtues of Islamic law and custom will silently permit not only the marriage of pre-pubescent girls but the violation of young boys for the amusement of men. Young men will not have the option of deciding whether or not to join Taliban militias, they will be conscripted. An immediate and wholesale return to the days of Taliban rule will commence from the time the current Afghan government feels forced to agree to sharing the governing of the country with the Taliban who will renege on any agreement once they have been satisfactorily installed.



Until that time, facilitated by the turnover of Taliban prisoners by the government to their Pashtun brothers, the Taliban under pretense of bargaining with the Afghanistan government, plans and executes one attack after another all over the country, demoralizing and terrorizing the population which has long since surrendered hope that they will one day live in a secure and peaceful nation united by common interests and a dedication to the public weal in a country that has never in its long and violent history known anything but relentless successions of invasions.

Rubble was all that remained on Monday in the remote city of Aybak after a Taliban car bomb and gun attack killed eleven Afghan intelligence workers, an attack that left 60 civilians, among them children, wounded. Weeks of relentless insurgent ground assaults and bombings culminated in the attack in the capital of Samangan province. Taliban public relations justified the attack targeting the compound of an intelligence agency, stating that only agency employees were among the dead.

Afghan officials begged to differ, stating that Taliban terrorists attacked the city hall building next door to the intelligence compound, where scores of public visitors were in attendance, leaving civilians injured, including children, verified by hospital officials. In Samangan. a northern region once an ancient centre of Buddhism, a council member said the presence of the Taliban in his area is "stronger than any time int he past 20 years".

The attack had "closed the doors of peace", according to Shah Hussain Murtazawi, senior aide to President Ghani in Kabul. The attack exacerbated public despair and disillusionment with the process that was supposed to finally lead to peace, highlighting fears for the uncertain future. Observers believe the Taliban will return to power through a combination of force and political manoeuvring, and this is how the 19-year civil conflict will never end.

Terrorists carried out 30 ground assaults on Monday, along with remote bombings in 17 provinces, killing ten people, on top of the toll taken in Aybak, according to the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs. Assaults took place on a prayer ceremony in western Faryab province and a district headquarters in northern Balky province, at one time the very picture of stability. The Taliban have resurged with a vengeance.