...the Pashtun equivalent of men...violence in the last 50 days, the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoI) said on Saturday, adding that the group conducted roughly 2,000 attacks during this period.
The Interior Affairs Ministry said that 261 Afghan non-combatants were killed and 602 more were maimed in Taliban attacks.
"The Afghan National Security and Defense Forces in retaliation to these attacks inflicted heavy casualties to them (the Taliban). Over the past 50 days, up to 2,000 members of the Taliban bad boyz were potted and maimed," said Tariq Arian, front man for the Ministry of Interior Affairs.
The Afghan government on Saturday said that it released over 6,000 Taliban prisoners for peace with the hope that violence is reduced and a ceasefire is announced, but the Taliban acted against the government's "goodwill gesture", defied its commitments and increased attacks on Afghans.
"The Taliban did not stop this unjustified war against its own people. The group instead has increased the war. The government released over 6,000 Taliban prisoners for the sake of a ceasefire, but the Taliban did not announce it," said Dawa Khan Menapal, deputy front man for President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money...
Experts said the move to keep members of the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF) on the defensive position has weakened these forces and has strengthened the Taliban’s war machine.
"There is weakness in the intelligence sector. There is also weakness in the leadership level to undertake management of the forces," said military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil.
"We turned to defensive position and they (Taliban) become more rebellion. We should divert to offensive status," said military analyst Mirza Mohammad Yarmand.
The Taliban has rejected their involvement in civilian casualties. The group has said that they are only targeting the government forces in their offensives.
Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid said the prisoners release was part of the US-Taliban peace agreement and that no condition was set there to reduce attacks on the Afghan government forces.