It was only on Saturday, one day before the tornado of attacks was unleashed across Afghanistan, that some friends of mine jokingly quipped Kabul has been too calm for too long time and something should be up sooner than later. The anticipation did not last long. On the following day, upwards of 10 armed men stormed into buildings in Kabul and laid siege on the heart of the city – a siege that lasted too long and too hard.

Armed men followed the familiar modus operandi: taking shelter in buildings that tower over some of the most important national and international facilities, prolonging the state of panic as much as possible and thus enabling the organizers to reap extensive media publicity as well as pulling off a forceful demonstration of what they can be up to.

Laying siege on multiple important locations such as the American embassy, the German and British embassies, the headquarters of the ISAF-NATO and the national parliament premises was an unmistakable message intended for the government of Afghanistan, the international community and the broader Afghan public opinion.

One day after the events, the sense of unease and uncertainty is palpable among the denizens of Kabul. It is also evident that the government and the security forces were caught by surprise. The relatively long period of calm in Kabul in the preceding months had made them slip into a false sense of lull. However, that proved to be the lull before the storm.

The line repeated by the government has been the usual one: the government and the security forces succeeded in putting down another cowardly attack by the enemies of Afghanistan and these enemies miserably failed in achieving objectives. One wonders how they have failed in creating a sense of panic and confusion and conveying the idea that they remain powerful and are able to attack anywhere and anytime at will.

These were, by and large, the objectives sought and they were indeed successful at getting what they wanted. The message they intended to put across has gone down well with the government as well as the people at large.

It would not be difficult to ascertain who has been behind the audacious attacks in Kabul. The attacks bear the hallmarks of the Haqqani network. With its reach far and wide across eastern Afghanistan and northwards as far as Kabul, the majority of attacks in Kabul have been the handiwork of the Haqqani network.

Apart from the U.S. that maintains regular back-channel contacts with the group – facilitated by the Pakistani government – the group and its extensive network remain outside the purview of the government of Afghanistan's peace efforts.

It is apparent that these audacious attacks on a large scale had been planned much earlier and were intended to mark the beginning of the Taliban's spring offensive. The Haqqani network and the Taliban maintain close links with Jalaluddin Haqqani, the operational commander of the group, openly proclaiming allegiance to the Taliban and its leadership.

In Loya Paktiya, the Taliban and the Haqqani group have a symbiotic relationship marked by close cooperation. In the U.S. military documents released by the Wikileaks, the Haqqani network is said to have a special unit created specifically to target and organize campaigns in Kabul city. This special unit has been in operation for at least three years and has the responsibility for planning, coordinating and executing attacks in the national capital.

The attacks of this week, as audacious as they were, on the one hand, are an indication that the capabilities of the Taliban to counter Afghan and international security forces have been degraded. Taliban are no longer able to take these security forces head on and are forced to rely on IED and suicide bombings and occasional attacks on urban centers as seen in Kabul, Jalalabad in recent days.

On the other hand, these attacks were a forceful demonstration by them conveying the message that they remain powerful and can present themselves as a challenge to the political and military order in Afghanistan. The fact that it was the Haqqani network that organized and executed the attacks and not the Taliban (although the two entities remain ideologically and operationally very close), shows that the Taliban do not have the operational and logistical capabilities that can match those of the Haqqanis.

Haqqanis, being based in North Waziristan, maintain close links also with Pakistan-based militant groups such as the Lashkar-eTayyba. It was the Lashkar that, in 2008, planned and executed the Siege of Mumbai. Now the same modus operandi is being increasingly replicated in Afghanistan.

For the militant networks and their benefactors, the waves of media publicity that such high-profile attacks create are simply too valuable to be ignored. The main objective sought in Kabul attacks was creation of a sense of fear and hopelessness however much temporary in the Afghan and foreign public opinion.

The attacks showed that the capabilities of the Afghan security forces have considerably improved since last year. Weaknesses though remain in the intelligence agencies. President Hamid Karzai has criticized the NATO-ISAF forces for intelligence failure.

However, it is, primarily, the duty of the Afghan security and intelligence agencies to be able to gather and provide "actionable" intelligence that can help thwart such attacks. The President's remarks amount to shifting the blame on others. The intelligence failure in Afghan agencies was glaring in the lead-up to these attacks.

The attacks are also significant in the context of the ongoing talks and negotiations. Representatives from the Hizb-i Islami had arrived in Kabul just before the attack began. The Taliban have proclaimed that they are no longer talking with the government of Afghanistan.

Since the attacks were organized and executed by the Haqqani network, we are going to see increasing efforts on the part of the U.S. and the government of Afghanistan to engage also the Haqqanis. The U.S. had conducted exploratory contacts with the Haqqanis but the efforts collapsed along the way. Most probably, we are going to see renewed American efforts to seek paths of talks with this group. The efforts of the government of Afghanistan are, however, unlikely to produce any results as far as the Haqqani network is concerned.