This is the calculation of the pro-Taliban elements in Pakistan, and the paper said, “This has not proved wrong so far.”

“Bloody suicides, ambushes, roadside bombs and brazen assaults on the NATO and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan have become a daily norm by Taliban, which has already fixed the 2010 summer deadline for a complete take over of the country,” The News Daily said.

The paper said seven years down the road since the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent intervention in Afghanistan by the allied forces, the American military might has apparently failed to smoke out the Taliban militia, which is gradually extending its area of control in most parts of the war-torn country.

The situation on the ground in Afghanistan is filled with the danger of a Taliban victory; thus, compelling President Hamid Karzai to appeal to the fugitive Taliban Amir Mullah Omar, “to return home under guarantees of safety to help bring peace to Afghanistan”.

Hamid Karzai went on to state that he can engage in negotiations to give the NATO-ISAF forces safe passage out of Afghanistan, clearly demonstrating his frustration and the fact that the US-led war on terror has reached a tipping point in Afghanistan, the paper said.

Meanwhile, the CNN.com has reported that the Taliban leaders are holding Saudi-brokered talks with the Afghan government to end the country’s bloody conflict.

Former Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif is playing a key role in conjunction with Saudi Arabia in bringing about a negotiated settlement between the Taliban and the Karzai regime to pave the way for withdrawal of the foreign troops from Afghanistan, the paper said.

The command and control structure of the Taliban is still intact, even though they had lost some top military commanders like Mullah Dadullah Akhund and Mullah Akhtar Osmani.

The fugitive Taliban chief is alive and fully functional and has been sending instructions to his field commanders from his hideout through audio-tapes, letters and verbal messages, the paper said.

Before the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan actively supported the Taliban regime, mainly because many of its leading lights were products of the Pakistani Madrassa system and had close links with the country’s intelligence establishment.

Even though Gen Musharraf had formally renounced support for the Taliban when he threw in his lot with Washington under American pressure, the action against the Taliban and their supporters remained half-hearted at best, partly because of the fact that many within the Pakistan establishment had ideological affinity with the Taliban.

But recently NWFP Governor Owais Ghani stressed that the US should talk to Mullah Omar in order to negotiate peace in Afghanistan.