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The tenuous nature of efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan were dramatically underscored Tuesday morning when gunmen attacked buildings near Afghanistan's presidential palace in Kabul as journalists were gathering to hear from President Hamid Karzai about nascent plans for peace talks with the Taliban.

According to The Associated Press, four or five "suicide attackers set up a car bomb and battled security forces outside Afghanistan's presidential palace after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. All the attackers were killed and one palace security guard was wounded, officials said."

The BBC adds that "Karzai was in the palace, but the target appears to have been the nearby Ariana hotel, which houses a CIA station."

The Guardian and other news outlets say the Taliban has claimed responsibility. "This is very much a message that 'we can still do war as well as peace'," Kate Clark, of the Afghanistan Analysts Network tells the Guardian.

Reuters says the "brazen assault ... could derail attempts for peace talks to end 12 years of war. ... A U.S. envoy was in Kabul on Tuesday to try to smooth the way forward for the stalled talks in the Gulf state of Qatar ahead of the pullout from Afghanistan of most of the NATO-led troops next year. He had been expected to meet reporters at the U.S. embassy, but the conference was called off. [As was Karzai's appearance.]"

And The New York Times notes that "the attack came just days after the Taliban opened an office in Doha, Qatar, ostensibly for starting negotiations about a peace process. It raised new questions about divisions within the Taliban and whether there is any broad commitment to peace."

Pakistan's newly-elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says the country's former military dictator Pervez Musharraf should be tried for high treason, the BBC reports.

Musharraf is currently under house arrest after returning from a self-imposed exile earlier this year. The BBC adds:

"[Musharraf] is fighting a series of charges relating to his time in power, which began with him ousting Nawaz Sharif in a 1999 military coup.

"His spokesperson described the proposed move as 'reckless and ill-conceived.'

"Mr Sharif told parliament: 'Musharraf violated the constitution twice. He overthrew an elected government in 1999 and put everything into jeopardy. He sacked judges and imprisoned them.' "

Walter Mosley fooled us: We thought he'd killed off Easy Rawlins, the protagonist of his much-loved series. But it turned out Mosley just needed a break from the work — a long break. Six years later, in May, he came back with Little Green, possibly the best Easy Rawlins to date. Like the rest of the books in the series, it's strongly influenced by Los Angeles, the city that helped shape Mosley himself.

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