At least 23 Afghan soldiers have been killed and seven kidnapped by Taliban in a pre-dawn raid on a border outpost on Sunday. The attack in the eastern province of Kunar was the single deadliest strike on Afghan troops in recent months by the insurgents. Once more, the Taliban claimed credit for the attack. Most probably one or two rogue soldiers of the outpost have supported the Taliban carrying out the attack.

This is the same province where incidents of cross-border shelling from Pakistani side have been reported for multiple times in the past. Local authorities have confirmed presence of members of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Kunar who have close cooperation with the Afghan Taliban. Apparently, both these groups have been involved in engineering and launching the Sunday attack. 

Taliban continue to carry out deadly attacks across Afghanistan amid the President Hamid Karzai efforts to nudge the into peace talks. For Taliban’s satisfaction, President Karzai strongly condemned the recent killing of their ex-minister Mullah Abdul Raqeeb in Peshawar, Pakistan and called him a martyr and supporter of peace. His remarks were seriously criticized by the people of Afghanistan who have been the victims of Taliban’s insurgency over the past two decades.

The Kunar incident has once again established that the Taliban have no intentions to resolve the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan through table talks. Releasing hundreds of Taliban prisoners, considering rewards of various kinds for their leaders and maintaining a soft instance towards them, despite their brutalities, killings and slaughters, are all efforts in vain.

In the Kunar incident, the Taliban have taken seven Afghan soldiers with them. Will they also release those soldiers as the Karzai administration has been releasing Taliban insurgents from Bagram and other prisons in the country? This is indeed a naïve question. Sooner or later the Taliban will release a video to show how they would behead them.

It is now obviously necessary that the government should stop its so-called peace process and take a clear-cut instance against the Taliban. Meeting them secretly in the presidential palace or in Dubai and passing Taliban-favorite statements have only bolstered the morale of insurgents and have put the Afghan security forces in a complete state of ambiguity.