Afghanistan’s warring factions are set to begin their first direct peace talks early next week in Qatar amid U.S.-led international calls for them to seize the “historic opportunity” to end the country’s long war.

A roadside bomb in Kabul targeted first Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh on Wednesday morning but he escaped unharmed, his spokesman said. The attack killed at least 10 people.

U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has held a meeting in Doha with the head of the new Taliban team due to open peace talks with a team representing the Afghan government, the Islamist insurgent group said on Tuesday.

For the first time in two decades of conflict in Afghanistan, a historically secure province, Panjshir, has come under attack. Authorities say several members of the Taliban kidnapped locals on Tuesday, with residents saying they have taken up arms to help Afghan security forces.

Representatives of Afghanistan’s warring factions have gathered in Qatar for historic U.S.-brokered peace negotiations starting Saturday that aim to find a political settlement to the South Asian country’s long war.

After clearing the latest hurdle of a prisoner swap between the Afghan government and the Taliban, there will now be a push to capitalize on the momentum to move forward with peace talks.

Six prisoners sought by the Taliban left Kabul on a flight to Doha on Thursday evening, two government sources told Reuters, as the insurgents confirmed they would start long-awaited peace talks on Saturday.

From 2009 to last year, more than 100,000 civilians were killed or injured in the war-torn nation, according to United Nations estimates.

What took so long? The U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar on 29 February specified that peace talks among the Afghan parties to the conflict would begin on 10 March. After months of delay, these intra-Afghan talks are finally set to commence, also in Doha, on 12 September.

Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai spent years lying low in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban leadership has been based since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the extremist group from power in neighboring Afghanistan.