The peace negotiation which reached its nadir after the abortive attempts of Afghan politicians within the last decade comes to light. Reports say that in the recent meetings in Kabul, the Pakistani delegation, led by the nation’s army chief of staff, told Afghan leaders that the Taliban appeared willing to meet for negotiations in the coming month. The renewed push for negotiations appeared to be driven by evolving relationships between Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, which recently offered to help broker talks. Although Pakistani officials have told the Afghan president, Muhammad Ashraf Ghani, that the movement’s central organization, the Quetta Shura, is amenable to negotiations, many Afghans remain doubtful of their neighbor’s sincerity. The relationship between the two countries has been marked by distrust and intrigue for years. But Afghan and Western officials insist that both sides are willing to shed their historical baggage.

To Afghans’ unmitigated chagrin, this topic has piqued our politicians’ interest and will galvanize them into shaking hands with the sworn enemies of our nation. It is believed that the green light given by the “political opponents” is no more than a flash on the pan and will turn red as usual. Most probably, they aim to alleviate the government’s adamantly harsh policy towards them via posing as peace negotiators.

A big reason behind the failure of peace negotiation is that the militants have split into different factions since their former regime’s leadership went into hiding after the Taliban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in 2001, as part of a US effort to hunt down Al-Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the US. Therefore, any militant groups, who proclaim readiness for peace talk without Mullah Omer’s aegis, will be exposed to danger – the same as Mulavi Abdul Raqib, etc.

The Afghan-Taliban peace platitude has constantly led to great sacrifices in the country. As a result, the release of Taliban prisoners to catalyze the peace process bore bitter fruit. The released militants rejoined the armed-groups to organize more deadly attacks against Afghan police and civilians. For instance, Mulavi Abdul Rahman, who was freed from Bagram prison, was killed last year in a fight in Ghorband between Afghan and US soldiers on one side and Taliban militants on the other side.

Moreover, the head of Afghan High Peace Council, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, was assassinated at his home in Kabul on 20 September 2011, by two men posing as Taliban representatives. The suicide bomber claimed to be a Taliban commander and said he wanted to “discuss peace” with Professor Rabbani. Four other members of HPC were also killed in the blast. The Quetta Shura, which is the leadership of the Afghan Taliban hiding in the affluent Satellite Town of Quetta in Pakistan, was blamed for the incident by Afghan officials.

In retrospect, the civilians’ sacrifices will never fade into oblivion and Afghans still grimace and wince at the painful memory of the cruel regime. The increasing casualties caused by ongoing explosions reflect Taliban’s adamant animosity towards our nation.

Attempts to get talks going in Qatar in 2013 came to nothing after the Afghan government objected to fanfare surrounding the opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state, complete with flag and official plaques.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has historically close links with the Taliban, have been marred by mistrust and suspicion but Ghani, who came to power last year, has reached out to Pakistan and sought to improve ties.

Based on a report, Pakistan, for its part, is pushing for the Taliban to agree to talk in exchange for an Afghan promise to capture and hand over the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah, who is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.

The Kabul diplomat warned that any talks might hinge on the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has not been seen in public since 2001. The diplomat said, “The final decision is still upon Mullah Omar, according to (Pakistani army chief) Raheel. The Taliban leadership is consulting him.”

The gist of the story is that the Afghan High Peace Council was established in 2010 and tasked with contacting the Taliban and convincing them to join the peace process. The members of High Peace Council (HPC) were making efforts days and nights in pursuit of brining Taliban’s leaders on the table of negotiation. However, all the efforts met failure repeatedly. In spite of the government’s efforts focused on re-integrating Taliban fighters, they did not have a reconciliation strategy. So, what would be the solution?

The 2007 bomb blasts in the UK prompted the International Association of Chiefs of Police to come up with techniques to prevent the suicide bomber form reaching his target. The solution recommended was shooting the suspected bomber in the head. The technique holds out hope for those countries where absolutely no mechanism is in place to stop the living bomb from creating mayhem. Our standing operating procedures to combat suicide bombers are archaic and based on a response strategy. Although, emergency repose agencies must be prepared to respond effectively to suicide bombing, the greatest payoffs lie in preventing such attacks. And it goes without saying that for a smart mechanism a mentoring and threat assessment programme should precede the proactive preventive measures to detect and prevent suicide bombing attempts. Hence, since Afghan officials’ long-term attempts for peace talk failed to convince Taliban militants, it seems the only mechanism for our officials to prevent terrorism. For this we need a highly efficient intelligence and information gartering network.