This is important becuase the fatwa issued by leading Pakistani clerics is exactly the opposite of what was desired by the Afghan government. The permission to conduct suicide attacks came against a backdrop of an on again, off again "peace conference" that the Afghan government has been trying to organize.

Prospects for that conference now seem dead.

Long War Journal:

Afghan officials have resisted the Taliban's demand to be included in the conference, suspecting no doubt that the Taliban would subvert the original goal of obtaining a fatwa against suicide bombings, and the event has appeared to be destined for limbo. Meetings between Afghan and Pakistani religious scholars on the proposed conference have reflected division between the two groups, and as of a few weeks ago they had apparently agreed only to hold a joint conference in March on the issue of attacks on civilians, according to Xinhua.

The picture became much clearer yesterday, however, when the head of Pakistan's ulema council announced that suicide attacks are permitted in Afghanistan so long as US forces remain in the country.

"Palestine is occupied by Israel, Kashmir by India, and Afghanistan by the US. So if the Muslims don't have the atomic bomb, they should sacrifice their lives for God," Tahir Ashrafi, the head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, told TOLOnews.

Significantly, Ashrafi's rhetoric on suicide attacks is identical to that of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. In January 2009, the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan released a propaganda tape in which a jihadist said that "suicide bombers are the atomic weapons of Muslims."

In the tape, a teenage suicide bomber named Masood, who was involved with a May 2008 double suicide bombing in Lahore, stated: "Suicide bombers are the atomic weapons of Muslims because Muslims do not have the latest weapons to fight enemies who are committing atrocities against Muslims in Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq."

The Taliban's influence is evident in the Pakistani clerics' recent letter to the Afghan ulema council, in which the Pakistani council stated that it would not attend the planned joint ulema summit, saying it was unwilling to criticize the Afghan Taliban's activities or issue a fatwa against them or their activities, Khaama Press reported.

In another interesting twist, Ahmad Saeedi, an Afghan political commentator, has claimed that the latest statement on suicide bombings by the head of the Pakistani ulema was issued at the request of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate, according to Pajwhok Afghan News.

With NATO ready to pull out by the end of next year according to President Obama's hard deadline, there is very little incentive for the enemy to negotiate or cooperate in making Afghanistan a more peaceful place. The suicide bombings target mostly Afghan civilians and security forces, so the fatwa supporting them is only going to kill more Muslims, not "occupiers."

But the killing of one American is seen as a victory by the Taliban and their terrorist allies, no matter how many Muslims are killed in the process. The fatwa is a chilling reminder that the war in Afghanistan is still being waged, and that peace is as elusive as ever.