Since the Taliban have announced their spring offensive under the name of ‘Khyber,’ terror attacks across Afghanistan has observably increased. On Monday,a heavy explosion disrupted life in relatively peaceful city of Kabul when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a minibus transporting employees of Ministry of Defense (MoD). As result, two officials of the said ministry were killed while nine others were left injured.

In Afghanistan where terror attacks are unfortunately conceived a norm of life, in the view of public and the government, Monday’s blast is only a small-scale offensive by the insurgents. Therefore, such attacks gain little or no attention.

Regretfully, more terror attacks in Kabul and other provinces of Afghanistan are not beyond expectation. It is majorly because the spring operations of Taliban have already kicked off and this time they will try to kill two birds with one stone i.e. continuing their brutal attacks against the government and foreigners and also trying disrupting the second round of election.

In about two weeks the run-off election between two leading presidential contenders Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf GhaniAhmadzai is going to take place. In the first round of election, the Afghan people enthusiastically participated making it a success for their country that has been lauded by the international community.

The Taliban terribly failed to create fear among the people that could stop them from going to the polling stations. Nonetheless, they have now view the second round of election as another opportunity to further their heinous intentions. The insurgents will definitely do their utmost to disrupt the election and will try to compensate their failure in creating any serious hurdle for the April presidential and provincial councils’ elections.

Kabul remains a highly guarded city where security checkpoints have been established at every few kilometers and vehicles entering the city are fully searched. Despite such measures, the insurgents and their required weapons and destructive materials are successfully transferred. Also the attackers triumph in reaching their targets. This is an indicator of the bitter fact that if the insurgents possess the capability of launching attacks inside the capital, they can do the same any other part of the country quite easily.

Taliban’s threats must be taken as very serious and preventative measures to foil and counter their attacks inside capital Kabul and other important cities of Afghanistan must be taken. Ministries of interior and defense must prepare their security plans in accordance with changing scenario in the country and the Taliban must not be allowed to triumph in their heinous objectives.