Not Even Kabul Is Safe from the Taliban

A trio of true believers from the Taliban blew themselves up in downtown Kabul today, leaving behind the sort of macabre tableau that much of the world has become sadly used to: writhing bodies, severed limbs, wailing mothers. At least thirty people died in the attack, and more than three hundred people were maimed and wounded. But here’s a question worth posing, even now—indeed, especially now, in the fifteenth year of the American war in Afghanistan. What on Earth could the Taliban’s commanders hope to gain from such an act of mass murder, in which many, if not most, of the victims were civilians?