The Taliban are often said to have lost their capability to fight Afghan and foreign forces face to face. The bitter fact is that the militants have launched their spring offensive and continue to cause problems for local people in different provinces. For instance, the Taliban have been closing schools in some districts of Ghazni province. They also continue to target public places.

As part of the Taliban's so-called "spring offensive" they have been able to carry out coordinated attacks in Kabul and other cities. For example, they had conducted well-coordinated attacks in April in Kabul and some other cities. In these assaults, President Hamid Karzai said intelligence failures by the Afghans and NATO allowed insurgents to infiltrate Kabul.

At least 20 people were killed during a large-scale insurgent attack on the Qargha Lake hotel a week ago. In the wake of the attack, MOI spokesman Sediq Sediqi said, "Qargha is huge place. The Afghan National Police had formed checkpoints in order to strengthen security in the area, but despite that, the Taliban could infiltrate and preferred the soft target of a civilian place rather than a military base."

The militants claimed the responsibility for the attack that targeted civilians, saying that they were attacking an "immoral" lakeside hotel. Afghan families usually go to the lake which offers some relief from the heat and dust of Kabul. The unarmed guests at the hotel were taken hostage by men with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Reports now indicate that fighting has been going between Afghan and Pakistani Taliban on one side and Afghan and foreign troops on the other side in Nuristan province. In fact, the militants hold sway over some of its districts. Over 50 houses are told to have been burned by the insurgents or hit by rockets.

While Afghan national police claim that about 10 militants have been killed in this fighting, the Taliban counter-claim that 14 police soldiers have been killed and about 10 police stations have been ruined. This shows that the Taliban wish to continue the fighting in the battlefield and have the capability to engage Afghan and foreign forces for a while.

What needs to be done on the part of Afghan and foreign forces is to scale up their military pressure on the Taliban and other lunatic fringes so as to reverse their momentum and dismantle their capability to continue to inflict casualties on civilians and security personnel alike.