June 12, 2010 in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Peace Talks, Political, Violence | No comments

Since Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s much anticipated peace assembly earlier this month, the Taliban has launched a series of high profile attacks.  Analysts say these attacks show the Taliban will not back down as coalition and Afghan forces prepare for a major offensive to drive them from their southern stronghold in Kandahar province.

Just this week, Afghan authorities blamed the Taliban for an attack on a wedding in southern Afghanistan, which killed nearly 40 people.  The Taliban denied responsibility, but the groom had links to anti-Taliban groups.  Also, Monday was the deadliest day so far this year for international forces in Afghanistan. Ten NATO soldiers, seven of them Americans, were killed in separate attacks in the eastern and southern parts of the country that day.

With this new violence, the director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies, Haroun Mir, told me that he believes next month’s scheduled international conference in Kabul might not happen.

“I don’t think that it would be appropriate for a foreign minister from Europe to attend the Kabul conference when we know that there’s a huge risk, tremendous risk, that they could be eliminated by one rocket attack,” said Haroun Mir. “All we need is one rocket attack, and all these ministers are flying back to their homes and that would be a big humiliation.”

Even the top U.S. commander in the country, General Stanley McChrystal, said this week he expects the Kandahar offensive to take longer than anticipated.