Nineteen years on, the overriding concern is averting a chaotic conclusion specially in view of the fact that more than 3,500 coalition troops are dead and over 110,000 Afghans killed (“Blasts targeting Afghan security forces claim dozens of lives,” Nov.30, Gulf Today).

Though, the countdown gathers pace for the gradual removal of the last US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.  Again at least 34 people were killed on Sunday in two separate suicide bombings in Afghanistan that targeted a military base and a provincial chief. Nobody has the answer for these useless and baseless killings of innocent people. The peace talks are also going off and on. Taliban are holding face-to-face talks in Qatar for the first time to end the country’s decades-long war.

In eastern Ghazni province, 31 soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded when the attacker drove a military Humvee full of explosives onto an army commando base before detonating the car bomb, according to an official in Afghanistan’s National Security Council, who spoke anonymously because he was not permitted to speak directly to the media.

Shoukat Arain
By email