by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The successive deadly attacks in the fortified Afghan capital Kabul over the past weeks which the Taliban has claimed responsibility has dashed hopes for peace and national reconciliation in the country, local observers here said.
The brazen attacks occurred despite the government's decision to release Taliban detainees from Pakistani jails.
The government was also able to take control of Bagram prison from the U.S. military as part of its efforts to bolster the peace process and bring the armed militants into the political mainstream.
Afghan analysts said that "one-sided efforts for peace" would never yield the desired results, adding that the two bold attacks in Kabul over the past two weeks only illustrate that the Taliban does not believe in the peace process.
"Consecutive bold attacks on security apparatus in Kabul demonstrate security lapses on the part of the government," a political analyst Jawed Kohistani said in a television panel discussion.
Releasing more Taliban detainees from Afghan, U.S. and Pakistani jails, according to Kohistani, would only further boost the Taliban morale to carry more attacks.
He said this was what happened when Mullah Samad Achakzai was released because the freed Taliban leader is now reported to be commanding the insurgent fighters in Spinboldak, in the province of Kandahar.
Another political observer and parliamentarian Arif Rahmani warned that "anyone who kills our people and destroy our country is our enemy, no matter if he is our brother or if he belongs to our clan and tribe."
President Hamid Karzai has time and again called on Taliban militants to give up fighting and join the government in the rebuilding process of Afghanistan.
However, the olive branch has been repeatedly rebuffed by the Taliban branding it as "trick to divide" tactic of the government. They said that there will be no talks with the government as long as there are foreign troops in the country.
The Taliban had in fact demanded the immediate pullout of NATO- led coalition forces from Afghanistan as a precondition for any dialogue with the government.
It is almost six years now since the Afghan government called on the Taliban to sever ties with al-Qaida, accept the country's Constitution and join the peace process.
Despite the peace overtures of the Karzai administration, no ranking Taliban military or political leader has switched side to the government.
More than two dozen Taliban detainees, including senior commanders Mullah Nurudin Turabi and Anwarul Haq Mujahid, have been released from Pakistani jails over the past few months but none has joined the government in Kabul and no one knows their whereabouts now.
Reports said that the released Taliban, instead of joining the peace process have rejoined their comrades and are playing key roles in the group's protracted war against the Afghan government and NATO-led troops based in Afghanistan.
The brazen attack by the Taliban against the police in Kabul on Jan. 21 had left eight people dead, including five suicide attackers and three traffic police, and injured over a dozen others.
In the previous attack in the compound of the National Directorate for Security (NDS), the country's intelligence agency, which occurred on Jan. 16, six people, presumably all attackers, were killed and 30 others, all civilians, were injured.
The militant group also critically wounded the head of intelligence Assadullah Khalid in a suicide bomb attack in his highly protected guest house in Kabul about a month ago.
According to observers the prospects for peace in Afghanistan appears to be dim after the government failed to win the support of any Taliban leader with only a year before the pullout of U.S.- led NATO forces in 2014.
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