by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Anti-government militants in Afghanistan have intensified activities over the past few months and recently conducted a series of deadly attacks in the capital city of Kabul.
The attacks have left more than 120 people dead, mostly civilians, and injured more than 250 others while causing widespread panic among Afghans.
The Taliban group, the major anti-government fighting force in the country, claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on the luxury Intercontinental Hotel on Jan. 21, which killed 22 people including four Americans.
The armed insurgents also claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in which a bomber drove an ambulance packed with explosives down a crowded street in downtown Kabul on Jan. 28. The explosion left about 100 people dead.
More than 250 others sustained injuries in both the bloody attacks, claimed by the Taliban outfit.
"Attacks on heavily guarded areas such as the Intercontinental Hotel and extended violence is a blatant response of the armed opposition groups and their foreign supporters to the new U.S. strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia, unveiled by President Donald Trump in August," political and military analyst Gen. (Rtd) Atequllah Omarkhil told Xinhua recently.
The U.S. president, in his strategy on Afghanistan announced in August last year, besides terming Taliban as a terrorist group and vowing to target the militants and their supporters, vowed to increase the American troops' number in the war-torn country.
Since unveiling the new strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia, the U.S. military has expanded airstrikes against anti-government insurgents in the war-battered country.
The U.S. military has also reportedly targeted the alleged Haqqani network hideouts in Pakistan's tribal areas close to Afghan borders over the past couple of months.
The U.S. military in Afghanistan has drastically increased airstrikes and expanded air campaigns from Taliban's traditional hotbed in the south to the relatively peaceful northern region.
General John Nicholson, the commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, has warned that the Taliban militants "cannot win the war" on the battle ground and that the time is ripe for them to give up fighting and join the government-backed peace process.
However, Taliban militants have always described the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan as an "occupying force" and called for their withdrawal.
The U.S.-backed Afghan forces, according to media reports, carried out some 2,000 air raids in 2017, while the U.S. and NATO-led Resolute Support mission conducted more than 3,000 sorties against militants last year.
As part of the increased air campaign, the Afghan Air Force conducted 51 flights over the past 24-hours, killing 66 armed insurgents including Taliban and Islamic State fighters, the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Claiming responsibility for last month's deadly terrorist attacks in Kabul, a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Majahid, reportedly said "You can't expect flowers from anyone if you speak from the barrel of gun."
Describing the ongoing Afghan imbroglio as a "proxy war", Omarkhil maintained that the "increase in deadly Taliban attacks demonstrate the failure of President Trump's new policy on Afghanistan."
"The aim of Taliban fighters launching bloody attacks in Kabul and other cities on one hand is to demonstrate their ability to target even heavily-guarded places such as the Intercontinental Hotel if they want to, and on the other hand is to defame the government in the eyes of Afghans," the former army general said.
"The Taliban and like-minded groups will continue to conduct deadly terrorist attacks and claim the lives of more innocent Afghans unless and until the Afghan government reaches a regional consensus on a logical conclusion to the country's lingering crisis," Omarkhil asserted.
Another political expert Mushtaq Raheen suggested that insurgents organizing deadly attacks in big cities like Kabul is a change of tactic and could be a reaction to the U.S. and Afghan forces' mounting military pressure on the militant groups.
