By Staff, Agencies

Wary representatives of Afghan society met Taliban officials in Qatar on Monday for a second day of talks, with bloody insurgent attacks back home casting a pall over efforts to end Afghanistan’s years of war.

The Taliban on Sunday detonated a car bomb outside a government security compound in central Afghanistan killing 14 people and wounding 180, including scores of children.

The attack came at the onset of a two-day meeting between Afghan citizens and the militants, meant to open the way to an Afghan peace process that should build on a hoped-for deal between the United States and the Taliban to end the longest ever US war.

“It is very hard to sit across from those men who are waging a war against innocent Afghans, but it is also a test of our commitment to peace,” said a senior Afghan government official involved in the talks.

The Taliban and American officials are trying to strike a deal on a Taliban demand for the withdrawal of US and other foreign forces and a US demand that the Taliban not let Afghanistan be used as a base for terrorism.

But the Taliban refused to negotiate with the US-backed Afghan government, denouncing it as a US puppet.

So while the 60-member delegation of Afghan representatives in Qatar includes government officials, they are not there in their official capacity.

“I am here as an Afghan, but I am not sure if the Taliban view themselves as Afghans before anything else,” said the government official, who spoke by telephone from Qatar but declined to be identified.