WHAT is one to make of the coordinated attack that the Taliban launched on seven sites in Kabul and three sites in Paktia, Logar and Nangarhar?

It was certainly the most dramatic and widespread assault in the Afghan capital since an attack in September on the US embassy and Nato headquarters. It took the Afghan national security forces and their Nato mentors some 18 hours to clear out the last of the 36 insurgents involved in the attack in Kabul.

An Afghan spokesman explained that so much time was taken only because the Afghan security forces were anxious to avoid civilian casualties. They did acknowledge that while 35 of the 36 insurgents in Kabul were killed, eight members of the Afghan security forces and four civilians were killed while another 40 security personnel and 25 civilians were wounded.

The attacks at the Jalalabad airfield used by the Americans and on Afghan installations in Paktia and Logar were, it seems, largely casualty-free though three of the four insurgents attacking the airfield were killed.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, in a detailed briefing, told a Reuters’ correspondent that the 30 specially trained mujahideen had spent months working with mock-ups of the targets to rehearse the attacks. He claimed that heavy machineguns, rocket grenades and ammunition had been put in place before the assault with inside help from the Afghan security forces.

This attack has been termed as the start of the ‘Taliban spring offensive’ and one can assume that this was the Taliban version of creating ‘shock and awe’ — very different from the military dominance that was proclaimed by this term when used in describing the American attack in Iraq — to let the Afghans know that the Taliban could attack at will the most sensitive installations in the best-guarded parts of the capital.

According to Mujahid, “The attacks were very successful for us and were a remarkable achievement, dealing a psychological and political blow to foreigners and the government.”

On the other hand, Nato saw things very differently. In his statement, Gen John R. Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, maintained that the Afghan security forces “were on scene immediately, well-led and well-coordinated. They integrated their efforts, helped protect their fellow citizens and largely kept the insurgents contained”.

President Karzai, while being critical of both Nato and Afghan intelligence failures that permitted the insurgents to infiltrate into sensitive areas, maintained that “terrorists must know that by launching such attacks they cannot prevent the determination of the peoples of this homeland of ours from the path of rebuilding and progress, as well as our goal for reaching peace and tranquillity in our country”.

Separately, a spokesperson at Nato headquarters in Brussels, while conceding “we still face security challenges” and that “this was not the first such attack, and I don’t expect it will be the last”, went on to say “such attacks don’t change the transition strategy. They don’t change the goal and they don’t change the timeline.” Not much publicity has been given to the fact that Nato helicopters were used in the final assault on the insurgent positions which would seem to suggest that the Afghan forces may have acted “largely” on their own but needed critical help from Nato forces to clinch the issue.

In other words, the Nato perspective is that this was a “largely ineffective” attack and not the “remarkable achievement” that the Taliban would like to think it was. Rather, it established that the Afghan security forces have proved their ability to take on responsibility of handling whatever the Taliban can throw at them. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between these contradictory assertions.

Certainly the Taliban have reinforced the belief that they have sympathisers among the most well-placed of the security forces and can enlist their support to place weaponry in sensitive sites and to allow infiltrators to reach and use these caches. But it is also established — if this is the start of the ‘spring offensive’ — that the Taliban cannot yet mount frontal assaults and cannot retake territory lost to the foreign and Afghan security forces.

From Pakistan’s perspective the most important element is the assertion that the one insurgent captured has said that he was a member of the Haqqani network. The American ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, told CNN that “frankly, I don’t think the Taliban [are] good enough” to pull off such an attack. In another interview, he said that the attacks may be the work of the Haqqani network since, in his view, “The Taliban are very good at issuing statements, less good at fighting”.

As surely as night follows day we will see in the next few days a spate of leaked reports confirming that the attack was the handiwork of the Haqqanis and dismissing contemptuously the Taliban spokesman’s statement that the Haqqanis, even while being with the Taliban, were not involved in this attack. Pressure will then mount on Pakistan to take action in North Waziristan. How will we react at this time when relations are at a particularly delicate juncture?

Another point to ponder. Was there any connection between the assault in Kabul and the similarly well-planned attack on the same day on Bannu prison, which resulted in the escape of several high-security prisoners? There, too, the assault was rehearsed over a period of time. The attackers had inside information about the location of the cells occupied by the high-security prisoners. There was no resistance to the assault by the prison guards. Not one attacker and not one defender was even injured.

Does this suggest that the same people planned both attacks? Worse, does this not prove that, because of venality or incompetence, our security is now worse than that prevailing in war-torn Afghanistan?

The writer is a former foreign secretary.