According to the latest report released by the United Nations Sunday, the number of suicide attacks carried out by extremists in Afghanistan has increased dramatically over the past two years.

In 2005 only 17 suicide attacks were registered, while the next year represented a peak with no more than 123 attacks occurring across the Middle Eastern country.

So far, 77 suicide bombings have been reported until July in Afghanistan, specialists expecting the number to hit an unwanted record this year. Suicide attacks were not a common event in the country before 2005, despite a surge of foreign troops.

Exactly six years ago, a first suicide attack took the life of Ahmed Shah Massoud, a prominent Mujahideen commander during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the leader of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan or Northern Alliance.

Just two days before the bloody attacks on the United States occurred, two alleged al-Qaeda members dressed as journalist claimed to want to interview Massoud at Khvajeh Ba Odin, but instead detonated an explosive device hidden inside their video camera.

One of the attackers was killed on the spot, while the other one was shot dead by security forces when he tried to escape. In his previous statements Massoud warned that fierce terrorist attacks will occur and his stern predictions turned out to be true on September 11.

According to the same report, no suicide attack took place in 2002, even if the coalition forces launched a powerful offensive in Afghanistan in October 2001 as a response to the 9/11 attacks.

Two suicide bombings occurred a year later, one of them targeting a bus belonging to the German Army. Four German servicemen lost their lives when the attacker detonated his deadly charge in Kabul.

Only three suicide attacks were reported in 2004, but since then the number of such incidents began soaring dramatically. Now, every week media and army statements report suicide attacks which take dozens of lives in the war-torn country.