Did you get the Taliban’s message? It came this week, less than a month from the United States withdrawal. The message wasn’t sent so much in words as it was in deeds. It was a message of defiance and mockery of the last 13 years of war and bloodshed waged against the terrorist group by the U.S.-led coalition. In some ways, it was almost a statement of victory on the eve of U.S. withdrawal.

The message came on December 13 when the Taliban coordinated attacks throughout Afghanistan. A suicide bomber detonated his payload on a bus packed with soldiers, killing seven. Meanwhile, Taliban gunmen mowed down a supreme court judge as he went to work. Gunmen also targeted men clearing landmines, killing 12. Two U.S. soldiers were also killed when their convoy came under fire near Bagram Airbase.

One day; one message. Of course, the Taliban has delivered the same message for some time now—it’s just growing louder. The group is becoming increasingly active throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan. As U.S. and coalition forces downscale, the Taliban is returning with a vengeance.

This day of attacks was just one note in a bloody dirge that has been composed over the course of 13 years of conflict. And the song is not finished yet. If anything, the Taliban is stronger and more capable today than it has been in years.

Taliban attacks aren’t limited to Afghanistan either. Militants stormed a school known to enroll the children of Pakistani soldiers at the Peshawar outpost. The Taliban gunmen opened fire, killing 9 staff members and 132 students. Grasp that figure. The war against the Taliban has been going on for years, but 141 in a single attack? Picture that number being killed in a Western nation. That is an astounding amount of victims! And this massacre occurred only weeks away from the withdrawal of most of America’s troops from the region.

By the end of the year, America is supposed to have only 9,000 troops remaining in Afghanistan. The rest will be shipped home or redeployed elsewhere. But there is copious proof that the U.S. military is abandoning an incomplete mission.

When the Taliban was ousted in 2001, the U.S.-led coalition worked feverishly to drive the Taliban into the mountains and establish a democracy in the nation. But as days, weeks, months and years ticked by, it became obvious that the Taliban would not be so easily beaten. Many did not realize that Western efforts would end so unproductively.

Look at the Taliban today. It is funded by a booming opium trade. It can supply 90 percent of the world’s demand for the narcotic, keeping the Taliban well paid and well supplied.

Then there are the attacks. The Taliban’s attacks prove that it can strike where it wants, when it wants. The attacks can be at U.S. bases, or they can be in downtown Kabul. They don’t even have to be restrained to Afghanistan. The porous border with Pakistan is vital to Taliban soldiers. It ensures not just a safe path of retreat, but also a platform from which to attack, as demonstrated in the horrific massacre in the Pakistani school in Peshawar.

The Trumpet has long forecast the U.S.’s inability to defeat the Taliban. The January edition of the Trumpet featured an article titled “Buried in Afghanistan.”

Continue to watch the Taliban and its aggressiveness in Afghanistan and Pakistan—its actions will confirm what the Trumpet has warned about for years.