KABUL, Afghanistan -- The targeted killings of community leaders and off-duty security forces have wracked Afghanistan for months, with the frequent echo of explosions and gunshots serving as reminders for those in cities and towns across the country and especially in Kabul, the capital, that a generation of Afghans is being cut down.
The Afghan Interior Ministry would not provide the exact number of assassinations recorded last year, but The New York Times has documented the deaths of at least 136 civilians and 168 security force members in such killings -- worse than nearly any other year of the war.
The attacks -- directed at civil servants, members of the media, human-rights workers and former and current security force members -- represent a shift away from targeted assaults on high-profile officials by the Taliban and other groups operating in the country and toward civil society's rank-and-file and security forces who are at home with their families, with responsibility for the deaths often unclaimed.
The killings are a sign of how much remains unsettled as the U.S. military prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan after nearly two decades of fighting, and they have added to fears that more violence and chaos will follow.
The timing makes most officials believe that the Taliban are using the assassinations as a complement to their coordinated assaults on security posts and government-controlled territory to strike fear and increase the government's desperation at the negotiating table.
But some officials believe that at least some of the killings have a different source: political factions outside the Taliban that are beginning to use chaos as a cover as the country starts breaking down under pressure, settling scores in a troubling pattern reminiscent of Afghanistan's disastrous civil war a generation ago.
This new chapter of intimidation and violence first opened after the Feb. 29 peace agreement between the Taliban and the United States, and it continued through the negotiations between Afghan and Taliban representatives in Qatar that paused last month. The next phase of discussions, set to reconvene Tuesday, will focus on solidifying the agenda for the negotiations, with the ultimate goal of creating a political road map for a future government.
In the first half of the year, the targeted killings were mostly limited to religious scholars and civilians in outlying districts and provinces, according to The Times' data. The pattern of bloodshed next emerged in cities, leaving a trail of slain judges, prosecutors, civil-society activists and journalists.
Sometimes victims received threats to pressure them to stop working; other times, there was no warning before they were killed, according to family members. The Interior Ministry has advised news organizations to either arm or better protect their staffs or close their doors. Several Afghan journalists have fled the country, and local journalism associations have called on reporters to boycott government news for three days to protest the attacks, spurred by the assassination of a radio station manager in Ghor province on New Year's Day.
Ahmad Zia Saraj, head of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, recently told parliament that his agency had arrested 270 Taliban members who were part of a special unit called Obaida Karwan that has been linked to the killings.
For the Taliban, the aim of these attacks is likely twofold: to degrade public trust in the government and to eliminate those who might oppose the group's interpretation of justice and virtue, especially if a version of their hard-line Islamic government -- known for human-rights violations during their rule in the 1990s -- returns to power after any peace deal.
Still, the group continues to deny accusations of its involvement.
"Civil employees of government, civil institutions, civil organizations and civil-society activists and independent people were never in our target list. Our mujahedeen are not involved in their killing," said Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban. "We have condemned these killings, and we reject any involvement in these killings."