Violence unabated

While Afghanistan has continued its struggle for peace, this year it has seen increasing violence in the past few weeks, notably at its educational institutions. The deaths of young people are particularly tragic. When these come in multiples, it makes the story even worse. At Kabul University on Monday gunmen stormed the building and began a carnage, which left 22 students dead, out of which 10 were women. Bodies of students were found next to their desks in pools of blood. There can be nothing more horrific than this.

The attack comes just a week after another education centre in western Afghanistan was attacked and 24 people killed. The Islamic State (IS) claimed the attack and warned there could be others. The Afghanistan government has insisted that the Taliban are responsible for sponsoring groups which carry out such violence. There's no way of saying whether this is accurate. Pakistan has condemned the killings and has said it would do everything possible to bring the wave of violence being faced by Afghanistan to an end. There's also conjecture by analysts that the attack in Pakistan on a madressah in which eight people were killed was linked to the ongoing violence in Afghanistan with the IS possibly involved. No matter where it occurs, and what factors behind it may be, the point is it has to be stopped. It has to be stopped immediately and without further delay. There have been too many lives lost. Afghanistan needs to find peace. This is important not only for that country itself, as its government continues to emphasize along with international groups, but also for the region as a whole. Until there's calm in Afghanistan, there can be no hope of lasting peace in the rest of the region.

A way has to be found to bring about a solution to the Afghan problem where the Taliban continue to show little regard for the government of President Ashraf Ghani. Even if they showed respect, there must be some doubt over how much control they have over the IS which is believed to be behind some of the most recent attacks. The attacks have been particularly brutal ones. They have not spared the young, they have not spared children, they have not spared women. Until such waves of violence can end, Afghanistan will never find the tranquility that is required for it to regain stability and make the progress it's people deserve. It has suffered far too long already.