The ruthless bereavement continues hunting Afghan people, unless the disarmament of insurgents is ensured, either by earning their confidence in democratic setup or inflicting mighty crush on them.    

Formerly, an explosives-laden car ploughed into a foreign military convoy and rocked Kabul city. Fifteen people, including NATO soldiers and civilian contractors, were killed and 42 others wounded. In line with its policy, the NATO-led force did not reveal the victims’ nationalities.

The Taliban last month said they would step up attacks against foreign troops and diplomatic installations as they announced the beginning of their annual spring offensive. In a separate incident earlier this week, a roadside bomb killed four U.S. troops in the southern province of Kandahar. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack. Each day in Kabul is celebrated with a dreadful incidence.

Nevertheless, Thursday’s blast was so powerful that it was felt across the city and damaged dozens of surrounding buildings, ripping metal shutters and shattering windows.

The attack comes as Afghan forces are taking over responsibility for security in the country ahead of the complete withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year.

This was the first major attack in the Afghan capital since March, when the Taliban killed nine civilians outside the Afghan Ministry of Defense headquarters, during the visit to Kabul of U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

An Islamist group, Hizb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for the early morning attack and said it had formed a special “martyrdom” unit to attack foreign troops. The announcement could mean a steep escalation for the movement, which is based in northeastern Afghanistan and which has fought against the American-led coalition but is also a fierce rival of the Taliban. Afghan insurgent group Hezb-e-Islami said that was in reaction to President Hamid Karzai’s recent offer of long-term bases to the U.S. A spokesman for Hizb-e-Islami, Haroon Zarghoon, told The AP that one of the movement’s operatives carried out the attack on what he described as two vehicles of American advisers.

Zarghoon says the militant group has formed a new cell to carry out suicide attacks on US and other coalition troops.

He claimed the cell was established in response to alleged American efforts to keep permanent bases and troops in Afghanistan even after the full NATO withdrawal.

The US has repeatedly said it wants no permanent bases in Afghanistan after most foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014, but President Hamid Karzai raised eyebrows last week when he announced he had agreed to an American request to keep nine bases. A smaller American force is expected to remain in the country to assist Afghans in keeping security, but the exact configuration of their work has not yet been decided.

Hizb-e-Islami is headed by 65-year-old former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan Prime Minister and one-time US ally who is now listed as a terrorist by Washington. The militia has thousands of fighters and followers across the country’s north and east.

Hekmatyar, who was heavily financed by the US during the 1980s occupation of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, has been declared a terrorist and is being hunted by Afghan and NATO troops. US bombs have targeted his military chief Kashmir Khan in Kunar Province in northeastern Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan.

However, Hekmatyar’s son-in-law has also held peace talks with both Karzai and also American officials. In a further sign of the complexities of the Afghan insurgency, Hizb-e-Islami is also a rival to the Taliban insurgency, even though both movements share the goal of driving out foreign troops and establishing a State that would follow a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Hekmatyar and the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Omar, in particular, are said to share personal animosity.

Thursday’s attack was the second in eight months claimed by Hizb-e-Islami. In September, the militant group claimed responsibility when a female suicide car bomber killed at least 12 people. At the time, Hizb-e-Islami said the attack was revenge for the film “Innocence of Muslims,” which was made by an Egyptian-born American citizen and infuriated Muslims abroad for its negative depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

Still, the Taliban-led insurgency, said to consist of no more than about 30,000 fighters, has made much of the country too dangerous to travel. And Thursday’s bombing points up the complex nature of the enemy, whose leaders perceive how quickly support for the war is fading in the U.S. and NATO countries and aims to launch “spectacular” attacks like Thursday’s to quicken the departure of the 50-nation International Security Assistance Force, which consists of 28 NATO and 22 non-NATO countries and is led by the United States.

More than anywhere else, the future of Afghanistan will be decided here, in the heart of the new Afghan security structure on which Washington is spending billions of dollars.  As of the end of June, the ANSF will move from planning and leading operations for the entire country.

But the plans are barely sketched out. U.S. and European officials appeared to agree on one thing: Most of ISAF is waiting on Obama, whose administration is currently engaged in secret negotiations with Karzai’s government on the size and shape of the U.S. force that will be left in Afghanistan after the final drawdown of the 63,000 or so American troops that remain.

That force is expected to number perhaps 8,000 troops, complemented by another 4,000 or so from NATO and ISAF countries. But some countries have already announced they are leaving Afghanistan completely, and a rare country has stepped up with an offer of 600-800 troops post-2014.

Well, it’s still here, as a horrific week has demonstrated. The ANSF now outnumbers the Taliban by 10-to-1. Even in the face of U.S. and NATO withdrawal, the long-term commitments Washington and other capitals are making, however reluctantly, will very possibly change the age-old equation that has often seemed to doom Afghanistan to a state of permanent war. Unless, a practical and realistic step taken, eternal peace seems to be a day dream in Afghanistan.