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US and Taliban sign historic troop withdrawal deal in Doha

Taliban break off talks with Afghan govt on prisoner exchange

The Taliban on Tuesday broke off talks with the Afghan government on a prisoner exchange, a main step in peace talks being brokered by the United States after it agreed on a troop withdrawal pact with the militants.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the group’s political office in Qatar, said on Twitter a technical team would not participate in “fruitless meetings” and the release of their prisoners was being “delayed under one pretext or another”.

The late February pact between the United States and the Taliban, under which US-led international forces will withdraw in exchange for Taliban security guarantees, is the best chance yet of ending the 18-year war.

But peace hinges on talks between the US-backed Afghan government and the militants. A prisoner exchange is meant to build confidence on both sides for those talks.

A spokesman for the government said it would maintain its work on the prisoner release plan.

“We ask the Taliban to not sabotage the process by making excuses now,” said Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the National Security Council in Kabul.

The Taliban suspension of the talks could lead to an escalation of violence, which in turn could threaten the plan to withdraw US troops, a major objective of President Donald Trump.

A three-member Taliban team arrived in Kabul last month from Qatar to begin the prisoner exchange process. Last week, Afghan officials said they would release 100 Taliban prisoners who were sick or over the age of 50.

In exchange, the Taliban were expected to free 20 members of the Afghan security forces. Ultimately both sides would aim to release the 6,000 prisoners they are holding.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed the arrival in Kabul of the Taliban team as good news.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Pompeo last month travelled to Kabul and the Qatari capital of Doha in a bid to nudge the prisoner process forward.

Afghan government officials have said the Taliban were demanding the release of senior commanders involved in some of the most violent attacks in recent years.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1547125/taliban-break-off-talks-with-afghan-govt-on-prisoner-exchange
 
Afghan government frees 100 Taliban prisoners as part of peace process

The Afghan government freed 100 Taliban prisoners on Wednesday as a first step in a peace process with the hardline Islamists, despite the group’s suspension of talks on a planned prisoner exchange crucial to moving to formal talks to end years of war.

Differences over the prisoner release question have been complicating U.S. brokered attempts to create a lasting peace agreement to end more than 18 years of conflict in Afghanistan.

“The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan released 100 Taliban prisoners today based on their health condition, age and length of remaining sentence, as part of our efforts for peace,” said Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the Afghan National Security Council, which has been negotiating with the Taliban.

A February pact between the United States and the Taliban, under which U.S.-led international forces will withdraw in phases in exchange for Taliban security guarantees, is the best chance to reduce U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

But peace hinges on talks between the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the militants. A prisoner exchange is meant to build confidence on both sides for those talks.

Despite this week’s setbacks over the prisoner releases, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said progress had been made since he visited Kabul on March 23 and also met Taliban officials in Qatar to iron out the differences.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...soners-as-part-of-peace-process-idUSKCN21Q2EA
 
US special envoy for reconciliation in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated a deal with the Taliban, has said an initial prisoner exchange between the armed group and the Afghan government was an "important step" towards peace.

According to the Red Cross, the Taliban released 20 Afghan security force prisoners on Sunday after the government released 300 "low-risk" Taliban captives, who have pledged not to return to the fight and are being let go based on various factors including their health, age and length of remaining sentence.

"Both sides should accelerate efforts to meet targets specified in the US-Taliban agreement as soon as possible," he added, noting the exchange was more important than ever with prison populations threatened by coronavirus outbreaks.

Khalilzad and the Taliban signed a deal on February 29 that paves the way for US and other foreign forces to quit Afghanistan in return for various commitments from the armed group.

The deal said the Afghan government would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, while the armed group would free 1,000 Afghan security force personnel.

The exchange was supposed to have happened by March 10, allowing peace talks to begin between the Taliban and the Afghan government - but the process has been beset with problems.

Kabul has claimed the Taliban want 15 of their "top commanders" to be released, while the armed group have accused Afghan authorities of wasting time.

A small Taliban team met with the government to discuss a comprehensive prisoner swap last week, but walked out of talks after officials began releasing prisoners only gradually.

On Sunday, the Taliban told AFP news agency their decision to release a group of prisoners was "a goodwill step ... to accelerate the prisoner exchange process".

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...release-afghan-prisoners-200413062217126.html
 
Afghan prisoner exchanges, US peace plan threatened by coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic threatens to unravel a US effort to end the war in Afghanistan if Taliban and government prisoners die in custody before they can be exchanged, four sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Keeping the US peace plan on track has acquired particular urgency as the spring fighting season nears, two sources said, given the danger that accelerating violence could make it harder to contain the Covid-19 respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

While the pandemic has grounded other US envoys, Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad last week flew to Doha, where the Taliban have an office, and Islamabad following a March 23 trip by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Doha and Kabul.

“If a good number of prisoners on either side contract the disease or die in prison because of an outbreak, it will be a humanitarian issue and it will make intra-Afghan negotiations that much more difficult,” said a source familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

That both Pompeo and Khalilzad traveled as the Covid-19 disease spreads underscores the depth of Washington’s concerns that US President Donald Trump’s effort to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan could collapse, depriving him of a foreign policy victory to trumpet ahead of the November 3 US presidential election.

“The fact that they came to the region is a clear sign that the president under no circumstances wants this deal to collapse,” said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity.

It was crucial for US diplomats to have face-to-face meetings to convey the gravity of the messages, the envoy added.

The US State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

A February 29 US-Taliban deal for a US troop withdrawal after more than 18 years of intervention called for the government to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the insurgents to free up to 1,000 detainees by March 10, when they were to open talks to end decades of strife.

The Taliban, however, demanded Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government, which was not a party to that deal, release all 5,000 prisoners at once before negotiations. They have also stepped up attacks on Afghan security forces.

Ghani rejected the demand and has begun a phased release of 1,500 prisoners, while the insurgents have freed 40 detainees.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus has spread, with nearly 1,000 cases confirmed in Afghanistan, including 20 staff testing positive within the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul.

The diplomat and two other experts, also speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the prisoner exchanges could be undercut by Covid-19 because its spread into jails could ignite bitter recriminations by both sides.

Accelerating the releases and tamping down rising violence as the spring fighting season nears were among Khalilzad’s main objectives when he met Taliban negotiators in Doha last week, said a former senior Afghan official.

Khalilzad has told Afghan officials that he is “incredibly worried” that the coronavirus pandemic could undermine the US-led peace process if it spreads into the prisons, the former official added.

An expert outside of the US government noted many countries have freed prisoners because of the disease and said this could be a face-saving way for Ghani and the Taliban to accelerate the releases.

This would allow Kabul to cite humanitarian grounds for freeing Taliban detainees so that “it’s not necessarily Ghani capitulating to Taliban demands", said the expert, who deals with US and Afghan officials.

“The Taliban’s prisoners are also presumably going to start dying,” he said. “Rather than losing some of their leverage, they might also want to be perceived as releasing prisoners and not be held accountable for some dying in their custody.”

The Western diplomat said that Khalilzad and Pompeo both are concerned the Taliban will launch their traditional springtime offensive that analysts warn would make it harder to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

“That’s what Khalilzad and Pompeo are determined to stop,” he said, saying Khalilzad’s April 13 visit to Doha aimed “to convey a stern message to Taliban and prevent the spring offensive".
https://www.dawn.com/news/1551051
 
Afghanistan's Taliban reject call for Ramadan ceasefire

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban have rejected an Afghan government call for a ceasefire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and to let authorities focus on tackling the coronavirus, raising new concern about prospects for a fragile peace process.

Hopes for an end to Afghanistan’s decades of war were raised in late February when the Taliban and the United States struck a deal on the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces in exchange for Taliban security guarantees.

But the deal did not include a ceasefire, which has been left to the U.S.-backed government to negotiate with the insurgents.

A Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, said in a post on Twitter that a ceasefire would be possible if the peace process was being implemented “fully” but “hurdles” meant the Taliban would not yet lay down their arms.

“Asking for ceasefire is not rational and convincing,” Shaheen said in his post late on Thursday.

President Ashraf Ghani called on Thursday for the ceasefire for Ramadan, which began in Afghanistan on Friday, and to allow the country to focus on what he said was a critical novel coronavirus outbreak spreading all over the country.

Afghanistan has detected more than 1,300 cases of the virus but health experts say the number could be higher as testing is limited and Afghanistan’s weak health system would struggle with a widespread outbreak.

The Taliban, fighting for years to expel foreign forces, agreed in February to a week-long “reduction in violence” to secure the agreement with the United States, which was signed on Feb. 29. But they resumed attacking government forces soon after.

This week alone, dozens of members of the Afghan security forces, civilians and Taliban fighters have been killed in clashes.

In one of the latest incidents, Taliban forces attacked security checkpoints manned by members of a pro-government militia in the northwestern province of Badghis late on Thursday.

Thirteen members of the militia were killed and seven captured, said Najmuddin Burhani, spokesman for the provincial governor.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ject-call-for-ramadan-ceasefire-idUSKCN2261A8
 
Nato has urged warring sides in Afghanistan to declare an immediate ceasefire as the war-torn country reported a record number of cases for the third day straight, triggered by a surge in transmission in Kandahar, writes Akhtar Mohammad Makoii in Herat.

In a statement, Nato called for both sides “to demonstrate good will by accelerating the release of prisoners” as a confidence building measure, and to embrace the international community’s call “for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.

“The continued spread of the Covid-19 pandemic underscores the urgency of such measures. We call on the Taliban to do their part to prevent the spread of Covid-19 among the Afghan people,” NATO said.

The Nato call came hours after the Taliban rejected the president, Ashraf Ghani’s, plea for a ceasefire. Ghani, speaking on the eve of Ramadan, asked the militant group to declare a ceasefire during the holy month as the nation is struggling with coronavirus.

But the Taliban’s spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, tweeted late Thursday a rejection of the request, citing ongoing disagreements over a potential peace process and delayed prisoner exchange as reasons to keep fighting.

“Asking for ceasefire is not rational and convincing,” wrote Shaheen as he accused the government of putting prisoners’ lives at risk during the outbreak.

The Taliban have intensified their war against the Afghan government in recent days, killing about 100 security forces in the last week, according to local media. A government spokesman said 34 civilians were killed in Taliban attacks.

Wahidullah Mayar, the health ministry spokesman, said on Saturday the country is in a “very sensitive” time and and once again called on the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire.

He said: “No one is secure against the the virus, we are all vulnerable. we need an immediate ceasefires, instead of fighting with ourselves, let’s get united and fight with one enemy.”

Meanwhile, the country’s health ministry has reported a record number of cases for the third day straight. In the past 24 hours, 133 new cases were confirmed, pushing the total number of infections to 1463. The death toll from Covid-19 reached 47, with four more confirmed today.

Afghanistan reported 83 cases on Thursday and 95 on Friday. There have so far been 188 recoveries.

The number of new infections continued to surge in Kandahar on Saturday as 20 new patients tested positive for Covid-19. Kandahar has so far recorded 203 cases. In Kabul, which is the country’s worst-affected area, 16 new cases were confirmed, taking the total number to 446.

Mayar said the country’s struggle with a shortage of RNA extraction kits has been solved as the ministry received 10,000, with more arriving in coming days, and will increase number of tests.

Source Guardian
 
Afghanistan suffers upsurge in fighting and in coronavirus

KABUL (Reuters) - Clashes between Taliban fighters and Afghan forces intensified in northern Balkh and southern Logar province as warring sides fought to control checkpoints and the number of coronavirus cases in Afghanistan rises, officials said on Friday.

In recent weeks, the Taliban has attacked several provinces, ignoring a pledge to reduce violence as part of a peace deal signed with the U.S. government on Feb. 29.

The fighting also defies an appeal from international aid agencies for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

At least 14 members of the Afghan forces were killed and more than 20 injured during the Taliban’s attack on a district centre in the Zare district of Balkh province, Shamsurrahman Rahmani, the governor of Zare, said.

“The district centre is on the brink of collapse and Afghan forces may suffer more casualties if reinforcements are not deployed soon,” Rahmani said.

Taliban spokesmen have so far not commented on the clashes in Balkh that shares a border with Uzbekistan. The province has reported 173 positive cases of the coronavirus and 10 deaths.

As of May 1, Afghanistan reported 2,335 cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, and 68 deaths, but international observers and medics on the ground believe the real number of infections could be much higher.

Afghan forces said they killed Qari Momen, a Taliban commander along with eight other fighters during an airstrike in the Khanabad district of north eastern Kunduz province on Thursday night.

A Taliban spokesman could not be contacted immediately to confirm the airstrike.

In southern Logar province, Afghan forces quelled Taliban fighters from a checkpoint of the National Defense and Security Forces in the Baraki Barak district on Thursday night.

“Afghan forces repulsed the Taliban’s attack as part of an active defence operation...killed 15 Taliban fighters, wounded six others, and destroyed large quantities of weapons and ammunition,” the federal defence ministry said in a statement.

At least four members of the Afghan forces were killed and five were injured in the clashes, it stated.

The Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said 10 Taliban fighters and 14 members of the Afghan forces were killed in Logar.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ighting-and-in-coronavirus-idUSKBN22D5KO?il=0
 
Taliban not living up to commitments, U.S. Defense Secretary says

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday that the Taliban were not living up to their commitments under an agreement signed this year, amid signs the fragile deal is under strain by a political deadlock and increasing Taliban violence.

After lengthy talks behind closed doors, the Taliban and Washington signed an agreement in February for reduced violence and a move toward talks with the Afghan government, but attacks by the group have increased since then.

“I don’t think they are,” Esper told reporters when asked if the Taliban were living up to their commitment.

He added that he believed the Afghan government was also not living up to its commitment. The Afghan government was not part of an agreement between the United States and the Taliban.

Esper said the Afghan government and the Taliban “both need to come together and make progress on the terms that (are) laid out.”

Progress on moving to negotiations between the militant group and the Afghan government has been delayed, in part by the political feud between President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, who both claimed to be Afghanistan’s rightful leader following September’s disputed election.

The political deadlock comes as the Taliban has increased the pace of violence.

The Taliban have mounted more than 4,500 attacks in Afghanistan in the 45 days since signing a deal with the United States that paves the way for a U.S. troop drawdown, according to data seen by Reuters.

The United States is continuing it’s drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, which are expected to reach about 8,600 troops in this summer.

Senior Western, Afghan and independent officials tracking the ground situation say that the increase in attacks shows the insurgent group’s wilful disregard of a pledge to reduce violence made as part of the accord signed in late February.

The violence in the war-damaged nation has coincided with the rapid spread of the coronavirus infection.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ents-u-s-defense-secretary-says-idUSKBN22H2XH
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">StateDept does not consider certain attacks on ANDSF a violation of agreement,“The U.S.-Taliban Agreement does not prohibit all Taliban attacks against Afghan security forces, nor does it preclude the United States from acting in defense of Afghan forces”<a href="https://t.co/LhFDGh9X6S">https://t.co/LhFDGh9X6S</a></p>— SIGAR (@SIGARHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/SIGARHQ/status/1257743615008399360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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The leader of the Islamic State group in South Asia and the Far East has been arrested in Kabul, Afghanistan's intelligence service says.

Zia ul-Haq, also known as Sheikh Omar Khorasani, was held with two other senior leaders of the militant group.

The Taliban are the main militant group in Afghanistan but IS has been active in some areas and has carried out several bomb attacks in Kabul.

Correspondents say the arrest will be a major breakthrough if confirmed.

The other two were named as his spokesman Saheeb and chief of intelligence Abu Ali.

The operation was conducted after a tip-off by four recently arrested senior IS members, and based on security and intelligence inputs, a statement by the service said.

The agency "will continue its comprehensive and targeted operations to hunt down senior leaders of regional terrorist groups and destroy the joint hubs of these terrorist networks", the statement said, quoted by Reuters.

IS has carried out several deadly bombings in recent years, targeting Afghanistan's Shia and other minorities and killing scores of people.

A report submitted to the UN last year said Sheikh Omar Khorasani had been replaced by the central leadership of the group because of his poor performance, but this has never been confirmed.

The arrests come as violence continues throughout the country despite the signing of a troop withdrawal agreement between the US and the Taliban in February.

The Taliban, which says it is opposed to IS, has desisted from large-scale attacks since the agreement.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52623291
 
This Afghan General Fought the Taliban for Years. Now He Has Joined Them.

KABUL, Afghanistan — As a onetime police chief of the restive province of Farah in western Afghanistan, Gen. Abdul Jalil Bakhtawar was a dogged enemy of the Taliban.

Even when he faded into retirement, he always had a foot in the war. The insurgents sent suicide bombers after him. His sons, one growing to lead the local assembly and another serving as deputy governor, were on the front lines. When the assembly chief son died in a helicopter crash in a Taliban area, the insurgents took his body hostage for days.

Despite that, in a shocking turn that officials say could hurt the security of Farah Province, the retired general switched sides on Sunday, joining the Taliban.

The defection fits right into the Taliban’s propaganda push, as they focus on chipping away at the legitimacy of the Afghan government after signing a deal with the United States that has started the withdrawal of the American forces.

It is also one of the highest-profile cases yet of how the two-decade war is splitting families, sometimes pitting fathers against sons.

“We regret that the retired general has joined the enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan, and has chosen violence over a life of dignity,” said Tariq Aryan, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s interior ministry.

In a statement, the general’s son Massoud Bakhtawar, who is the deputy governor of Farah, tried to play down the episode even as he distanced himself from his father’s actions. He said the retired general had visited his home district of Balaboluk to make peace between two warring tribes, and some are “misrepresenting” his trip.

“I repeat one more time,” his son said in the statement, “some opportunists are connecting the trip of General Bakhtawar to the deputy governor of Farah when this issue is an individual action.”

The insurgents put out pictures of the general’s joining ceremony: He was shown wearing a turban, garlands of flowers around his neck and surrounded by Taliban fighters and their white flags. And video clips of the ceremony circulating on social media showed crowds gathered around him carrying Taliban flags and chanting “long live the Islamic Emirate,” what the Taliban called their government when in power.

“It would be great if an Islamic government is put in place — it can end the bloodshed,” the retired general says in the video, speaking at a mosque and surrounded by Taliban flags. “This is a very happy occasion, and God willing, others will also be encouraged.”

There was no clear indication of what pushed the former general to join ranks with his former enemies. His phones were switched off.

Several officials in Farah described how the war has become deeply intertwined with local tribal rivalries, with each side drawing support and resources from the government or the Taliban to gain an upper hand.

Samiullah Samim, a member of Parliament from Farah, said that the Taliban had cranked up the pressure on General Bakhtawar’s relatives and that the government had not come to his rescue. For years, the general was involved in local businesses and even ran militias in support of the government, often staffed with men from his tribe and relatives who faced attacks and suicide bombings.

Then, in 2018, he ran for Parliament from Farah and was a winner in the preliminary results, only to be declared the loser in the final result of what was seen as a deeply fraudulent vote.

“For years, Commander Jalil fought for the government but the government never protected his family and his tribe,” Mr. Samim said. “He was betrayed by the government many, many times. The election wasn’t fair and transparent; Commander Jalil believes the government interfered in the election.”

Despite what the general saw as betrayals by the government, his two sons were quickly rising within it.

His oldest son, Farid Bakhtawar, became the head of the Farah provincial council, making him one of the most influential officials in the region.

But he was killed along with 20 other people in October 2018 when their helicopter crashed in Taliban territory. For several days, the Taliban refused to hand over his body. At first, the insurgents demanded in return the body of their assassin who had killed Gen. Abdul Raziq, one of the most powerful men in southern Afghanistan, and barely missed the top American commander. Then the Taliban settled for a cash payment, said Dadullah Qani, a member of the provincial council.

Mr. Qani said that even after General Bakhtawar retired, he formed a pro-government militia to keep fighting and killing Taliban. Before accepting him in their ranks, the Taliban charged General Bakhtawar about $10,000 in “death compensations” for three of their fighters killed by his militia, Mr. Qani said.

“He forgot about all the sacrifices and the blood shed for the sake of the country by his family and his men and he surrendered to a terrorist group,” Mr. Qani said.

Mr. Samim, the lawmaker, said the former general carries a lot of sway with the militia forces that are propping up the government in parts of Farah, and his switching sides could tip the balance even further toward the Taliban.

“Even if the pro-government militias don’t join the Taliban, they would be demotivated and will see this as a bad failure of government,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/world/asia/taliban-general-defect-afghanistan.html?smid=tw-share

merlin_172375422_aba85536-046e-4c7f-b623-33a349448c08-jumbo.jpg

Pictures on Taliban social media accounts showed the former Afghan police chief Abdul Jalil Bakhtawar after insurgents said he had switched sides to join them.


Waiting for blind Afghan nationalists living in the Kabul bubble to blame this to on the evil Pakistan!
 
Gunmen have stormed a hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, setting off a gun battle with government forces, officials said.

Afghan forces carried out newborn babies and their mothers as they evacuated the government-run hospital, where the medical charity Doctors Without Borders runs a maternity clinic.

Interior Ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said that over 80 women and babies were evacuated by Afghan security forces as the firefight got under way.

Photos shared by the ministry show newborn babies and their mothers being carried out of the hospital located in Dashti Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul.

"The forces are trying to eliminate the terrorists and bring the situation under control," said Arian. He later added that at least one of the attackers was shot dead.

A paediatrician who fled the hospital told AFP he heard a loud explosion at the entrance of the building.

"The hospital was full of patients and doctors; there was total panic inside," he told AFP, asking not to be named.

Black smoke rose into the sky over the hospital in Dashti Barchi, a mostly Shia neighbourhood that has been the site of past attacks by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

The 100-bed government-run facility is supported by Doctors Without Borders, which is also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Wahidullah Mayar, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.

A series of deadly attacks has taken place in the capital in recent months claimed by the ISIL group.

On Monday, security forces said they had arrested three senior ISIL members including a regional leader.

Last week, security forces killed and arrested several members of an ISIL cell that authorities said was responsible for several high-profile attacks in Kabul including one on a Sikh temple in March.

Roadside blasts in the capital on Monday, which wounded four civilians, were claimed by the group.

Afghanistan is also facing violence around the country from the Taliban even as the United States tries to usher in peace talks after signing a troop withdrawal agreement in February with the armed group.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/afghanistan-gunmen-storm-kabul-hospital-200512071439807.html
 
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has ordered the military to move to an "offensive mode" against the Taliban and other armed groups after dozens of people, including newborn babies, were killed in two separate attacks in the war-ravaged nation.

"I am ordering Afghan security forces to switch from an active defence mode to an offensive one and to start their operations against the enemies," Ghani said in a televised address on Tuesday.

ns and nurses - when gunmen stormed a maternity hospital in the capital, Kabul early on Tuesday, officials said

Shortly afterwards, the ISIL (ISIS) armed group claimed it carried out a suicide blast at a funeral in the country's restive east, which left two dozen mourners dead.

"Today, we witnessed terrorist attacks by the Taliban and Daesh groups on a hospital in Kabul and a funeral in Nangarhar, as well as other attacks in the country," Ghani said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.

The US-Taliban deal
The Taliban, which signed a peace deal with the US in February, denied its involvement in the attacks.

Ghani's move came months after Afghan forces pledged to only react defensively to Taliban's attacks since the deal was signed in the Qatari capital Doha.

The Afghan president said offensive operations were needed to "defend the country, safeguard our countrymen and infrastructure, and to repel attacks and threats by the Taliban and all other terrorist groups".

In a statement on Wednesday, the Taliban warned it was "fully prepared" to counter any offensive by Afghan forces.

"From now onwards the responsibility of further escalation of violence and its ramifications shall fall squarely on the shoulders of the Kabul administration," it said.

Jalalabad
People take injured victims of a suicide bomb attack at a funeral to a hospital in Jalalabad [Ghulamullah Habibi/EPA-EFE]
National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib said on Twitter: "There seems little point in continuing to engage Taliban in peace talks."

The latest killings raise new questions about the fate of a hoped-for peace process that is teetering as Afghanistan grapples with a public health crisis due to the coronavirus.

The Taliban have largely refrained from launching major attacks on Afghan cities and American interests since the February deal meant to pave the way for peace talks with the Kabul government.

But the so-called intra-Afghan talks hit a wall as a prisoner swap - a key part of the Doha deal - was delayed as the Ghani administration refused to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in one go.

So far, the Afghan government has released nearly 1,000 Taliban prisoners while about 100 government prisoners have been set free by the Afghan armed group.

The accord will also see all US and foreign forces quit Afghanistan over the next year. Thousands of US troops have already pulled out, while a further 8,600 are expected within months.

'Big blow' to the peace process
In a statement, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned "the two horrific terrorist attacks" in the strongest terms, and noted that the Taliban had denied responsibility and said the lack of a peace deal left the country vulnerable to such attacks.

"The Taliban and the Afghan government should cooperate to bring the perpetrators to justice," Pompeo said.

The violence came just a day after four roadside bombs exploded in a northern district of Kabul, wounding four civilians including a child. Those bombings were later claimed by the ISIL group.

Victoria Fontan, professor of peace studies at the American University of Afghanistan, said the latest violence was a "big blow to the peace agreement".

"It shows again that the Taliban can't deliver on their promises and so I would say that today marks a milestone towards the disintegration of the agreement unless drastic measures are taken immediately by all sides, especially the Taliban," she told Al Jazeera.

Mothers, newborns killed
Tuesday's first attack saw gunmen storm the Barchi National Hospital as parents brought infants and children for appointments.

The death toll rose to at least 24 people from 16 on Wednesday, Deputy Health Minister Waheed Majroh said, with 16 others wounded.

The three attackers were eventually killed in a lengthy clearance operation. Heavily armed security forces were seen carrying infants - at least one wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket.

"The fatalities also include mothers and nurses," interior ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said.

More than 100 - including three foreign nationals - were rescued, he said.

One of the wounded, Jamila, said she had taken a grandchild to the hospital for some vaccinations.

"We were outside the hospital. I wanted to go inside when they shot me, and one of my grandchildren was killed," said Jamila, who only gave one name.

The hospital is in a neighbourhood that is home to Kabul's minority Shia Hazara community - a frequent target of the ISIL fighters.

Kabul blast
An Afghan security officer carries a baby after gunmen attacked a maternity hospital in Kabul [Rahmat Gul/AP]
The hospital is supported by the humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), and a number of foreigners work there.

"It beggars belief that such a heinous act could be committed when Afghanistan is being ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic," UN Humanitarian Coordinator Toby Lanzer said.

About an hour later, a suicide bomber killed at least 24 people at the funeral of a local police commander in eastern Nangarhar province, provincial spokesman Ataullah Khogyani said.

The attacker detonated explosives in the middle of the ceremony.

"We were preparing [to stand in line for the funeral] when I heard a big blast and then saw hundreds of people on the ground," said Zabit Amir, a mourner at the funeral, which others said was attended by thousands.

"I did not even know who was alive or dead there."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...resume-offensive-taliban-200512200627406.html
 
Attacks deal Trump's long-shot Afghan peace push a fresh blow

U.S. President Donald Trump’s stalled plans to bring peace to Afghanistan have suffered a new setback with a decision by Kabul to resume offensive operations against the Taliban following two attacks on Tuesday that killed scores of Afghans.

Washington cast the attacks - one at a Kabul hospital where gunmen killed at least 24 people, including two newborns, and a suicide bombing at a funeral in Nangarhar province that killed at least 32 people - as a moment for the Afghan government and the Taliban to unite to combat such violence and to negotiate a peace deal.

An affiliate of the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the bombing, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. There has been no claim for the hospital attack in Kabul.

The Taliban denied involvement in both attacks.

Four sources - a U.S. official, a U.S. congressional aide, a European diplomat and a former Afghan official, all speaking on condition of anonymity - said the attacks were more likely to undermine the U.S. sponsored peace process than to achieve any government-Taliban reconciliation.

The government had largely suspended offensives against the Taliban since a U.S. troop reduction plan was unveiled on Feb. 29 but Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s stated intention to resume operations could start a cycle of violence, the U.S. official said. The decision could have a decisive impact on the peace deal, the official said.

“The Taliban was (probably) not ever committed to making this deal work with the Afghan government and this is the fig leaf of an excuse that will blow up (it up) and give everybody an excuse to walk away,” the official said.

The hospital attack did not seem consistent with Taliban tactics, the official said.

The official said Washington still planned to cut the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 from about 13,000 when the deal was struck and then assess whether to go lower.

“Very clearly our assessment is that the conditions are not being met” to go below 8,600, the official said, adding that it would ultimately be a political decision.

The State Department, which has led U.S. diplomacy to try to achieve an Afghan peace deal, declined comment for this report, as did the White House national security council.

“If the Afghans are going on the attack, I don’t see how you can keep a deal going,” said a U.S. congressional aide who asked not to be named. “I can’t see how the continued violence would allow the United States to continue decreasing below the 8,600.”

Asked if he was concerned that the peace effort was unraveling, Trump stressed his desire for Afghans to handle their own security rather than relying on U.S. forces.

“We’ve been there for many years, we’re like a police force. We’re not fighting in Afghanistan, we’re a police force in Afghanistan and at some point they’re going to have to be able to take care of their country,” he told reporters.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Twitter on Wednesday that the United States remained committed to a “lasting peace” in Afghanistan and “stand by our Afghan partners.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-afghan-peace-push-a-fresh-blow-idUSKBN22P3BH
 
Someone is trying hard to derail the peace agreement signed b/w US and Talibans but it wont work. In the times of Corona and a damaged US economy during the election year, Trump needs these brownie points more than ever.

Shame on the “Foreign and Local Perpetrators”, who are even killing innocent babies just to retain the power in Afghanistan. This dummy afghan government has been on life support since it was created by the US.
 
A truck packed with explosives blew up near a military court in the eastern Afghan city of Gardez on Thursday, killing at least five people in an attack claimed by the Taliban armed group.

The explosion comes two days after at least 56 people were killed in attacks elsewhere in the country, including women and newborn babies, dealing a setback to peace plans in the war-ravaged nation.

"A car bomb explosion took place near a military court in Gardez city, which is a populated area. Dozens of civilians are feared to be dead and wounded," said Tariq Arian, an interior ministry spokesman.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement the armed group was responsible for the attack.

Emal Khan Momand, a military spokesman in Paktia province where Gardez is located, said the attack was carried out by a truck packed with explosives. Five people were killed, and 14 were wounded, he said.

Arian blamed the armed group the Haqqani Network, which has ties to the Taliban and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba armed group. These groups rarely publicly claim responsibility for attacks.

The blast comes after gunmen attacked a maternity hospital in Kabul, killing 24 people, including new mothers and newborn babies, on Tuesday. A suicide blast claimed by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group at a funeral in eastern Nangahar on the same day killed 32.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attacks and said he had ordered the military to switch to offensive mode rather than the defensive stance it had adopted as the United States withdraws troops and tries to broker talks with the Taliban.

The Taliban denied any involvement in those attacks, but the government accused the group of fostering an environment in which "terrorism" thrives or of working with other armed groups who could have been involved, straining efforts by the US to bring the armed group and the Afghan government together.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...court-afghanistan-paktia-200514070025362.html
 
Drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan continuing: Pentagon

The United States is continuing its drawdown of troops from Afghanistan and is expected to meet a timeline that had been agreed upon with the Taliban earlier this year, the Pentagon said on Friday.

“That is still going forward. We expect to meet that within the timeline laid out under the agreement with the Taliban,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said during a press briefing.

Hoffman’s comments came after two brutal attacks in Afghanistan this week, though they are believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...afghanistan-continuing-pentagon-idUSKBN22R2XU
 
Knight_Rider said:
Someone is trying hard to derail the peace agreement signed b/w US and Talibans but it wont work. In the times of Corona and a damaged US economy during the election year, Trump needs these brownie points more than ever.

Shame on the “Foreign and Local Perpetrators”, who are even killing innocent babies just to retain the power in Afghanistan. This dummy afghan government has been on life support since it was created by the US.
Click to expand...

You dont need to be genius to figure out it's the Indians. But its too late, India's days are numbered, the extremists in power will now to turn kill other people, mostly Muslims in their country.

Pakistan must ensure all traces of India are wiped out in Afghanistan.
 
The United States is on track to meet its commitment to the Taliban to withdraw several thousand troops from Afghanistan by mid-July, even as violence flares, the peace process is stalled, and Kabul struggles in political deadlock.

US officials say they will reduce to 8,600 troops by July 15 and abandon five bases. By the second quarter of 2021, all foreign forces are supposed to withdraw, ending the US's longest war. Yet the outlook for peace is cloudy at best. In the absence of Afghan peace talks, the administration of US President Donald Trump may face the prospect of fully withdrawing even as the Taliban remains at war with the government.

That has concerned some lawmakers, including Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee.

She says the US needs to keep a military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan to prevent groups like al-Qaeda and the ISIL's Afghan affiliate from forming havens from which to attack the US

"Withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan won't end the war - it will just let the terrorists win," she told The Associated Press.

Serious negotiation?

Some question whether the US - Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, on February 29, which the Trump administration billed as "a decisive step to achieve a negotiated peace", was instead mainly a withdrawal agreement. Trump had campaigned on bringing troops home from foreign wars. And although the Afghan government publicly supported the deal, it did not participate directly in the negotiations and has not, in Washington's view, capitalised on the chance for peace talks.

"President Trump promised to bring our troops home from overseas and is following through on that promise," the White House said when the Doha deal was signed.

The deal stipulated that the Taliban would start intra-Afghan peace negotiations on March 10, but that has not happened. The Taliban and the Afghan government also have squabbled over a promised release of each other's prisoners.

"A lot of this boils down to: Was the US -Taliban agreement any kind of serious negotiation at all, or was it just totally a fig leaf to cover abject withdrawal? I suspect the latter," Stephen Biddle, a Columbia University professor of international and public affairs and a former adviser to US commanders in Kabul, told the Associated Press.

"It gave away almost all the leverage we had in exchange for virtually nothing," he added. "It looks very much like a situation in which the Taliban have concluded that the Americans are out, and they're going to play out the string and see what happens when we're gone."

The US has been the prime backer of the Afghan government since it invaded the country soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks and overthrew the Taliban.

According to US government auditors, Washington has committed $86bn to support Afghan security forces and is still spending about $4bn a year.

The Trump administration has expressed frustration with the lack of movement toward peace talks, but it has not threatened publicly to pull back from its commitment to fully withdraw. It did conduct an air attack against the Taliban in defence of Afghan ground forces in early March just hours after Trump had what he called a good conversation by phone with a senior Taliban leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Although the withdrawal is required by the Doha agreement, US defence officials had said for many months that they wanted to reduce to 8,600 - the approximate number of troops that were supporting Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations when Trump took office.

US officials constructed the Doha agreement mainly as a way of ending US involvement in the war, rather than as an assured path to peace. The withdrawal is subject to Taliban assurances, but it does not require a peace settlement.

The deal also is seen by the US as a way to enlist the Taliban in the fight against the ISIL (ISIS) group. The US military considers the group's Afghan affiliate as a greater threat than the Taliban.

The US agreed to withdraw not just military forces but also all intelligence agency personnel, private security contractors, trainers and advisers. NATO allied forces also are to withdraw.

The Doha deal was seen at the time as Afghanistan's best chance at peace in decades of war, but the government has since been consumed with political turmoil. Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah have both declared themselves winners of last year's presidential polls, and each declared himself president.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said that getting out of Afghanistan would advance his aim of devoting more forces to the Asia-Pacific region to counter China, which he sees as the number one long-term threat to the US.

Esper has been sceptical of the Taliban's commitment to peace, and on May 5 he said neither the Taliban nor the Afghan government is abiding by the agreement.

Esper said the Taliban should return to the reduced levels of violence that existed in the week before the February 29 Doha signing.

At the time, Ghani put his government forces in a defensive stance, but on Tuesday he ordered a return to the offensive, expressing anger for two attacks, including one that killed 24 people, including infants, at a hospital.

Newborn infants receive medical care in Kabul

The Taliban denied responsibility and the US has blamed the ISIL affiliate in Afghanistan for the attack. The Taliban on Thursday said it had carried out a suicide bombing as retaliation for having been falsely accused by Ghani.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Campbell, indicated the US stance has not changed.

"Consistent with the agreement, the US military will continue to conduct defensive strikes against the Taliban when they attack our [Afghan] partners," he said Wednesday. "As the secretary of defence stated recently, this is going to be a windy, bumpy road, but a political agreement is the best way to end the war."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/track-pull-troops-afghanistan-pentagon-200515190550268.html
 
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing deal to end a months-long political stalemate, Ghani's spokesman said on Sunday, a step that could smooth efforts to end the country's longrunning war.
 
Afghan intelligence officials killed in Taliban car bombing

A car bomb attack targeting an Afghan intelligence agency installation in the eastern province of Ghazni has killed at least seven people and wounded 40 others, an official said.

"The terrorists have used a humvee in their attack. They have targeted the National Directorate of Security unit in Ghazni city," Wahidullah Jumazada, spokesman for the governor, told the AFP news agency on Monday.

"Most of the victims are intelligence personnel," Jumazada added.

The interior ministry in Kabul and a health official in Ghazni also confirmed the attack.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the armed group was behind the attack in Ghazni province, a Taliban stronghold.

The provincial capital, also called Ghazni, briefly fell under Taliban control twice in recent years. The province has in the past been the scene of many large-scale attacks against both Afghan and NATO forces.

The attack came a day after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, signed a power-sharing agreement, two months after both declared themselves the winner of last September's presidential election.

The political deal would see Ghani remain president of the war-torn nation while Abdullah would lead the country's National Reconciliation High Council.

Ghani and Abdullah, who held parallel inauguration ceremonies in March, had been locked in a power struggle since the vote. The discord prompted the Trump administration to announce it would cut $1bn in assistance to Afghanistan if the two leaders did not work out their differences.

A peace agreement between the US and the Taliban, signed on February 29, calls for American and NATO troops to leave Afghanistan. It was seen at the time as Afghanistan's best chance at peace, following decades of war.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...lled-taliban-car-bombing-200518065638873.html
 
KABUL (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire in a mosque in central Afghanistan on Tuesday evening, killing eight worshippers breaking their Ramadan fast and wounding five others, officials said.

“Unknown gunmen fired on people praying inside a mosque during iftar time,” said Wahida Shahkar, spokeswoman for the governor of Parwan province, referring to the meal eaten to break daytime fasting during the Islamic holy month.

The Ministry of Interior confirmed the attack in Parwan’s provincial capital Charekar, blaming it on the insurgent Taliban. The Taliban denied responsibility and said Afghan security forces were to blame.

The United Nations has warned of an alarming uptick in violence against civilians in Afghanistan. A shocking attack on a Kabul maternity ward last week killed 24 people, including newborn babies.

Violence increased around the country even after a Feb. 29 U.S.-Taliban pact on the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces in exchange for Taliban security guarantees.

Afghan security forces on Tuesday clashed with Taliban fighters around the city of Kunduz, a strategically important centre that has been one of the Taliban’s main targets and which the group has briefly captured twice in recent years.

Security forces largely repelled the Taliban offensive with the help of air support and Assadullah Khalid, acting minister of defence, said during a visit to the city that more than 50 insurgents and eight security force members had been killed.
 
The leader of the Taliban said on Wednesday that his group was committed to a landmark deal with the US, despite being accused of carrying out hundreds of attacks in Afghanistan since it was signed in February.

Haibatullah Akhunzada urged Washington "not to waste" the opportunity offered by the deal to end the US's longest war in a message released ahead of next week's Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"The Islamic Emirate is committed to the agreement signed with America and urges the other side to honour its own commitments and not allow this critical opportunity to go waste," Akhunzada said in a statement, using the name the Taliban called Afghanistan when they were in power.

"I urge American officials to not afford anyone the opportunity to obstruct, delay and ultimately derail this internationally recognised bilateral agreement," the reclusive leader added.

US to withdraw forces
After months of negotiations, the Taliban and the US signed a deal on February 29, which stipulates that Washington will withdraw all its troops by next year in return for security guarantees.

President Ghani, right, and his rival Abdullah, left, signed a political agreement in Kabul [Afghan Presidential Palace/Handout/Reuters]
The Doha agreement envisaged talks between Afghan leadership and the Taliban to reach a lasting peace, but that has been delayed as a prisoner swap - a key part of the agreement - has not been fully implemented.

The so-called intra-Afghan talks were also delayed by a leadership feud between President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah. Last week, they signed a power-sharing deal that will move the peace process forward.

US President Donald Trump's administration has made it a priority to end the war in Afghanistan and, in a bid to facilitate the withdrawal of their forces, US officials have been pushing for intra-Afghan peace talks.

Under the accord, the Taliban pledged to stop attacking US interests, but has continued to target Afghan forces in the provinces.

The Taliban have also stepped up attacks against Afghan forces after President Ghani ordered troops to adopt offensive posture against armed groups following two deadly attacks last week that killed dozens.

Last week, at least 24 people were killed in an attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul and a suicide blast on a funeral on the same day left 32 dead in Nangarhar province.

The Taliban denied involvement in the two attacks, although Ghani blamed the Taliban and the ISIL (ISIS) armed group for the bloodshed.

Rising civilian casualties
At least 20 people have been killed, including eight soldiers, in Taliban attacks in the past week.

Eight soldiers were killed on Tuesday in a Taliban attack in Kunduz, a strategic city in northern Afghanistan that had briefly fallen to the armed group twice in the past, officials said.

Defence Minister Assadullah Khalid, who visited Kunduz later on Tuesday, said the Taliban had "suffered big losses".

"Unfortunately, we have also lost eight brave soldiers," he told AFP news agency.

Analysts say the Taliban have been emboldened by the February deal, and Afghan government officials have reported more than 3,800 attacks, which killed 420 civilians and wounded 906, since signing the deal.

The United Nations has warned that the spike in violence has also led to increased casualties among civilians.

The Taliban were responsible for 208 civilian casualties last month - 25 percent more than April 2019 - the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement.

It said civilian casualties attributed to Afghan security forces in April numbered 172, an increase of 38 percent.

"Parties have committed to finding a peaceful solution and should protect the lives of all Afghans and not jeopardise people's hope for an end to the war," said Deborah Lyons, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/afghan-taliban-leader-committed-deal-200520084836131.html
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="ps" dir="rtl">څوک شته چې راسره بدرګه یې کړي!<br>نعره تکبییر<br>د افغانستان اسلامي امارت<a href="https://twitter.com/Emrankhalil2?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Emrankhalil2</a> <a href="https://t.co/o2s3zp158O">pic.twitter.com/o2s3zp158O</a></p>— hamdullah fitrat (@HalimyarF) <a href="https://twitter.com/HalimyarF/status/1262844236262772737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Some visuals of the public support for the taliban movement somwhere in rural Afghanistan.
 
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan has demanded that all sides reduce violence, he said on Thursday, after shuttling from Kabul to the Gulf to push a peace effort that looks increasingly precarious.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, meet with U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 20, 2020. Afghan Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS
The envoy, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, the architect of a February agreement with the Taliban clearing the way for a U.S. troop withdrawal, met Taliban leaders in Doha on Wednesday, hours after meeting government leaders in Kabul.

“‪On violence, I told the Talibs, violence by all sides must fall,” Khalilzad said on Twitter.

Violence has surged in recent days after a bloody militant raid in Kabul, which the Taliban denied responsibility for, triggered an Afghan government order for its forces to go on the offensive.

Clashes have erupted in several parts of the country with dozens killed.

The main element of the Feb. 29 agreement between the United States and the Taliban was the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces in exchange for Taliban security guarantees.

A Taliban ceasefire was not part of the pact though the militants, fighting since their 2001 ouster to expel foreign troops and bring back Islamic rule, promised to enter power-sharing talks with the U.S.-backed government.

But peace efforts have stalled over disagreement on an exchange of prisoners.

Khalilzad said he met Taliban leaders, including political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and discussed the prisoner release and reducing violence.

Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada on Wednesday released a statement for the Eid al-Fitr holiday calling for progress on peace but also telling his fighters to stay “focused on their objectives” and “consolidate ... ranks”, which government security officials criticised as inciting violence.

Earlier on Wednesday, Khalilzad met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his former rival Abdullah Abdullah.

Ghani and Abdullah signed an agreement to share power on Sunday, ending a months-long impasse over a disputed election, and raising hopes that the government would now focus on the U.S.-brokered peace process effort.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...e-demands-reduction-in-violence-idUSKBN22W2OA
 
The Taliban have announced a ceasefire with the Afghan government that will take effect when the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr begins on Sunday.

It follows a rise in attacks by the hardline Islamist group against government troops in recent weeks.

President Ashraf Ghani welcomed the announcement, and said his soldiers would respect the terms of the truce.

The three-day ceasefire is likely to raise hopes of a longer-term reduction in violence in the country.

But a similar ceasefire was announced for same festival in 2018 and was not extended.

"Do not carry out any offensive operations against the enemy anywhere. If any action is taken against you by the enemy, defend yourself," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Saturday.

He added that the ceasefire had been declared solely for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

"I welcome the ceasefire announcement," Mr Ghani wrote on Twitter shortly after. "I have instructed [the military] to comply with the three-day truce and to defend only if attacked."

Could short truce revive cautious hope?

By Secunder Kermani, BBC Afghanistan correspondent

It is only the third time that the Taliban have declared a temporary truce since the conflict began.

The first was in 2018, again during Eid celebrations, and was a key moment in galvanising the peace process. Taliban fighters and members of the security forces hugged and posed for selfies together. That will not happen this time - the Taliban have ordered their members not to enter government territory.

Earlier this year, the group signed an agreement with the US setting out a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. But while they have stopped attacks against international troops they have continued targeting Afghan security forces.

Direct negotiations between the two sides were due to begin in March but have been delayed by a dispute over the exchange of prisoners and increased fighting. This brief reprieve in violence could help build momentum for those talks to finally start, and will revive some of the cautious hope Afghans had begun to feel: that an end to the conflict might eventually be possible.

What's the bigger picture?

Afghans and international observers had hoped for a reduction in violence between the two sides following the signing of a troop withdrawal agreement between the Taliban and the US in February.

A month of killing in Afghanistan

But further talks have stalled over a prisoner swap, and attacks on government forces have escalated in recent weeks.

An attack on a maternity ward in the capital, Kabul, earlier this month prompted widespread condemnation. While the Taliban denied involvement, it prompted President Ghani to order the resumption of offensive operations against them as well as other groups.

He accused the militants of ignoring repeated calls for a reduction in violence.

Last month, the Taliban rejected a government call for a ceasefire across Afghanistan for Ramadan. They said it was "not rational" and ramped up attacks on Afghan forces.

Earlier this month, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing deal, ending months of political uncertainty.

What is in the US-Taliban deal?

The agreement signed by the US and the Taliban aims to bring peace to Afghanistan, ending 18 years of war since US-led forces ousted the Islamist group from power.

Under the agreement, US President Donald Trump announced 5,000 US troops would leave the country by May and he would meet leaders of the Taliban in the near future. US and Nato troops will withdraw from the country within 14 months, as long as the Taliban uphold their side of the deal.

The US also agreed to lift sanctions against the Taliban and work with the UN to lift its separate sanctions against the group. In return, the Taliban said they would not allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.

But US officials also agreed to the prisoner swap as a first step in talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban - who are still technically at war. The Afghan government was not included in the talks.

The two sides held historic face-to-face talks in early April, but the Taliban walked out of the discussions.

The Afghan government says the militants' demands are unreasonable. One member of the administration's negotiating team said the Taliban were seeking the release of 15 commanders believed to have been involved in major attacks.

But the Taliban's spokesman has accused the government of delaying the release "under one pretext or another".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52785604
 
MenInG said:
KABUL (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire in a mosque in central Afghanistan on Tuesday evening, killing eight worshippers breaking their Ramadan fast and wounding five others, officials said.

“Unknown gunmen fired on people praying inside a mosque during iftar time,” said Wahida Shahkar, spokeswoman for the governor of Parwan province, referring to the meal eaten to break daytime fasting during the Islamic holy month.

The Ministry of Interior confirmed the attack in Parwan’s provincial capital Charekar, blaming it on the insurgent Taliban. The Taliban denied responsibility and said Afghan security forces were to blame.

The United Nations has warned of an alarming uptick in violence against civilians in Afghanistan. A shocking attack on a Kabul maternity ward last week killed 24 people, including newborn babies.

Violence increased around the country even after a Feb. 29 U.S.-Taliban pact on the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces in exchange for Taliban security guarantees.

Afghan security forces on Tuesday clashed with Taliban fighters around the city of Kunduz, a strategically important centre that has been one of the Taliban’s main targets and which the group has briefly captured twice in recent years.

Security forces largely repelled the Taliban offensive with the help of air support and Assadullah Khalid, acting minister of defence, said during a visit to the city that more than 50 insurgents and eight security force members had been killed.
Click to expand...

Ghani getting desperate to avoid the public hanging coming his way ala Najeeb, he should probably just run away while he still has time
 
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has pledged to speed up the release of Taliban prisoners after welcoming an announcement by the armed group of a three-day ceasefire during the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

"As a responsible government we take one more step forward - I announce that I will expedite the Taliban prisoner releases," Ghani said in his Eid message on Sunday.

Speaking at the presidential palace in the capital, Kabul, Ghani also called on the Taliban to press on with the release of Afghan security personnel they are holding as soon as possible.

The release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 detained Afghan security personnel was mentioned as a "confidence-building measure" in an agreement signed between the Taliban and the United States in late February in Qatar's capital, Doha, touted as the deal that will end the US's longest war.

It was also a precondition set by the Taliban for joining intra-Afghan talks, but efforts stalled over a disagreement on the prisoner exchange.

The Taliban wants 5,000 of its prisoners released in one go - a demand Kabul has so far refused to oblige.

The Taliban statement also instructed its fighters to refrain from entering government areas and said Kabul forces were not allowed to enter territories under their control.

Following the announcement, Ghani welcomed the group's ceasefire offer and ordered his forces to comply.

In a similar holiday truce in 2018, there were unprecedented scenes of fighters from opposite sides embracing and taking selfies.

US Special Representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, who brokered the February 29 agreement, said on Twitter on Saturday that Washington welcomed "the Taliban's decision to observe a ceasefire during Eid, as well as the Afghan government announcement reciprocating and announcing its own ceasefire."

He urged the Taliban to continue to abide by the agreement, calling the halt in violence "a momentous opportunity that should not be missed" while pledging that the US would "do its part to help."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed Saturday's announcement and urged all parties "to seize the opportunity and embrace an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process", UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...elease-taliban-prisoners-200524063411899.html
 
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has started the process to release up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners as a "goodwill gesture", his spokesperson said, in a move that came after the government welcomed the armed group's surprise announcement of a three-day ceasefire during the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

The decision to release the prisoners was taken "to ensure success of the peace process", Ghani's spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire appeared to hold as there were no reports of clashes between the Taliban and Afghan forces by the end of the first day on Sunday.

Ghani said a government delegation was "ready to immediately start the peace talks" with the Taliban.

Government negotiators would be headed by Ghani's former rival Abdullah Abdullah after the two signed a power-sharing deal last week that ended a months-long political crisis.

A US-Taliban agreement signed in February in Qatar's capital, Doha, stipulated that the Afghan government would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the Taliban would free about 1,000 Afghan security forces personnel.

The prisoner swap was mentioned in the agreement as a "confidence-building measure" before long-awaited peace talks between the government and Taliban.

Before Sunday's announcement, Kabul had already released about 1,000 Taliban inmates while the Taliban had freed roughly 300 members of the Afghan security forces, according to reports.

The Taliban said they were committed to freeing prisoners, but reminded Kabul that the agreement was to "release 5,000" of their members as agreed with the US in Doha.

"This process should be completed in order to remove hurdles in the way of commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations," Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, said on Twitter.

The Taliban's offer of a ceasefire came just days after leader Haibatullah Akhunzada urged Washington "not to waste" the opportunity offered by the Doha agreement that set the stage for the withdrawal of US troops from the country after more than 18 years.

US Special Representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, who brokered the February 29 agreement, said the ceasefire was "a momentous opportunity that should not be missed" while pledging that the US would "do its part to help".

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also hailed the ceasefire, but said in a statement on Sunday that he expected "the Taliban to adhere to their commitment not to allow released prisoners to return to the battlefield".

He also urged the two sides to avoid escalating violence after Eid, the festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

US President Donald Trump's administration has made it a priority to end the country's longest war and, in a bid to pull out foreign forces, US officials have been pushing the Taliban and government leaders to hold peace talks.

Analysts, however, say the Taliban has been emboldened by the agreement with the US, and attacks by the group have continued since the signing.

War-weary residents in the capital, Kabul, expressed relief after the ceasefire was announced.

In a similar holiday truce in 2018, there were unprecedented scenes of fighters from opposite sides embracing and taking selfies.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...e-2000-taliban-prisoners-200525053352382.html
 
Trump says wants full Afghanistan pullout but hasn't set target date

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday renewed his desire for a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan but added that he had not set a target date, amid speculation he might make ending America’s longest war part of his re-election campaign.

“We’re there 19 years and, yeah, I think that’s enough... We can always go back if we want to,” Trump told a White House news conference.

Asked if the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 26 was a target, Trump said: “No. I have no target. But as soon as (is) reasonable. Over a period of time but as soon as reasonable.”

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-u...llout-but-hasnt-set-target-date-idUKKBN232387
 
clear Ghani is taking orders from his masters in Delhi and not releasing the prisoners. He is now on borrowed time especially if Trump wins the next election. A lot of key proxy commanders in Balochistan have been taken out in the last few weeks. Their operations are collapsing pretty quickly. They have closed two embassies and relocated alot of their intelligence personnel. Now with Ladakh heating up they may turn their attention elsewhere.
 
Afghan forces killed in attack blamed on Taliban

At least seven members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in an attack officials blame on the Taliban, the first deadly assault since a three-day ceasefire ended at midnight on Tuesday.

The fighters attacked a checkpoint in Parwan province north of the capital, Kabul, said Waheeda Shahkar, spokesperson for the provincial governor. "The Taliban have also suffered casualties," Shahkar said.

District police chief Hussain Shah said Taliban fighters set fire to the checkpoint, killing five security force personnel. Two more were shot dead.

The Taliban has not commented.

It is the first attack that Afghan officials have blamed on the Taliban since the end of three-day ceasefire held over the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

According to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, civilian casualties fell by 80 percent during the temporary truce.

A drop in violence has largely held since it ended on Tuesday night, although Afghan security forces carried out air strikes in the south on Wednesday that killed 18 fighters, police said.

Taliban prisoners released
The surprise truce offer from the Taliban and the lull in fighting has raised hopes that stalled peace negotiations between the fighters and the Afghan government could resume soon.

Afghan authorities have responded to the ceasefire by releasing hundreds of Taliban prisoners this week, and plan to further free an equal number of inmates in the coming days.

The Taliban has also said it plans to free a group of government prisoners.

The exchange is part of a US-Taliban deal signed in February, which excluded the Afghan government, that stipulates Kabul would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban would free about 1,000 national security personnel.

Kabul had already freed about 1,000 Taliban inmates before the ceasefire, while the Taliban had released about 300 government captives.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...ed-attack-blamed-taliban-200528084958150.html
 
At least 14 members of the Afghan army have been killed in a Taliban attack as the Afghan government said the Eid ceasefire was not over yet.

The Ministry of Defence said on Friday members of the Afghan army were killed in the province of Paktiya. Three others were also wounded in the attack that was also confirmed by the Taliban.

A day earlier, the Taliban killed at least 14 people from the security forces in northern Parwan and western Farah provinces.

Afghanistan's National Security Adviser (NSA) spokesperson Javid Faisal nevertheless wrote in a tweet on Friday that the "detente" which started during the Eid holiday, marking the end of Ramadan, was continuing.

"The ceasefire is not over yet; there have been violations because it is a complicated technical process that requires good coordination between both sides," Faisal said.

Earlier, Faisal had urged the Taliban to extend the three-day ceasefire, which came into effect on Sunday to mark the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.

"It is important to extend the ceasefire and, to avoid bloodshed, the Afghan government is ready to extend it," the NSA spokesman told a news conference on Tuesday.

Despite the violence, a prisoner swap crucial to the start of peace talks between the warring sides in Afghanistan has continued.

Taliban delegation in Kabul

The Taliban, which launched an armed rebellion after it was toppled from power by a US-led invasion in 2001, has remained silent on government appeals for an extension of the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, a five-member Taliban delegation arrived in Kabul on Thursday to work with a government team on the release of prisoners on both sides, spokesmen for both sides said on Twitter.

A US-Taliban agreement signed in February in Qatar's capital, Doha, stipulated that the Afghan government would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the Taliban would free about 1,000 Afghan security forces personnel.

But the prisoner swap has been delayed as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani refused to release all 5,000 Taliban prisoners at once. So far, Kabul has freed about 3,000 Taliban inmates, while the armed group had released about 300 Afghan security forces it held captive.

On Tuesday, the Afghan government freed 900 Taliban members from prison, the biggest such release yet, as part of a prisoner swap under the Doha agreement.

Following their release, the Taliban said on Thursday it had released 80 more Afghan security forces. That number brought the total number of released prisoners by the Taliban to 347.

The delegation will also discuss the announcement of the long-delayed intra-Afghan talks, which was also one of the elements of the Doha agreement, with the government.

Skirmishes between Taliban fighters and Afghan security forces recommenced following the end of the three-day truce at midnight on Tuesday.

"Taliban attacked checkpoints in the Syagird district of central Parwan province late on Wednesday night," a spokeswoman of the province's governor said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, meanwhile, said the government had carried out air raids on Wednesday in the southern province of Zabul despite the group's fighters not having carried out any attacks.

As per the February agreement, the US is expected to withdraw its forces after nearly 19 years in Afghanistan, leaving the Afghan government to negotiate a peace deal with the armed group to end the war.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday renewed his desire for a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan but added that he had not set a target date.

"We're there 19 years and, yeah, I think that's enough ... We can always go back if we want to," Trump told a White House news conference.

The US has already begun to withdraw its forces. By the second quarter of 2021, all foreign forces are supposed to withdraw, ending the US's longest war.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...taliban-extend-ceasefire-200529052525519.html
 
A journalist and a driver were killed when a private bus carrying employees of an Afghan television station was hit by a roadside bomb in the capital, Kabul, the network's news director and officials have said.

Four other employees were wounded in the attack, said Marwa Amini, interior ministry deputy spokeswoman.

The pair died when the bus carrying 15 employees of the Khurshid TV news station was struck, the channel's news director Jawed Farhad told AFP news agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The interior ministry said the minivan had been targeted.

"The target of the blast was the vehicle of Khurshid private TV," a ministry statement said.

Pictures shared on social media showed a white minibus with extensive damage to its front.

It was the second such attack targeting employees of the channel in less than a year.

In August 2019, two passers-by were killed when a "sticky bomb" - a type of homemade explosive attached to vehicles with magnets - struck a similar Khurshid TV van.

No group claimed responsibility for that attack, which wounded three employees.

Afghanistan is one of the world's deadliest places for journalists, who face many risks covering the country's long conflict and who have sometimes been targeted for doing their job.

Last year the Taliban warned the Afghan media to stop broadcasting what it called "anti-Taliban statements".

In 2016, a Taliban suicide bomber rammed his car into a bus carrying employees of Tolo TV, the country's largest private broadcaster, killing seven journalists.

The Taliban claimed Tolo was producing propaganda for the US military and western-backed Afghan government.

The latest attack comes during an overall drop in violence across much of Afghanistan since the Taliban offered a surprise three-day ceasefire on May 24.

While the truce ended on Tuesday night, violence has largely remained low, though Afghan security forces have suffered some attacks that authorities blame on the Taliban.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...ast-targeting-tv-workers-200530135932223.html
 
the Great Khan said:
clear Ghani is taking orders from his masters in Delhi and not releasing the prisoners. He is now on borrowed time especially if Trump wins the next election. A lot of key proxy commanders in Balochistan have been taken out in the last few weeks. Their operations are collapsing pretty quickly. They have closed two embassies and relocated alot of their intelligence personnel. Now with Ladakh heating up they may turn their attention elsewhere.
Click to expand...

He's just defeated abdullah
Although uniting the yousufzai, Safi and kakkar tribes etc is always going to be difficult although he has managed to appease them much better than his predecessors and the attacks on the Hazaras seems to have united alot of the main players in Afghanistan and I don't think they will be happy with all the blood on their hands
Zalmay seems to have decent relationships with Ghani, it all depends on baradur and it seems mullah omar junior
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Afghan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Afghan</a> Govt's Release of Taliban Will Continue: ONSC<a href="https://t.co/AKkQGSBRrv">https://t.co/AKkQGSBRrv</a> <a href="https://t.co/iX9umznzDj">pic.twitter.com/iX9umznzDj</a></p>— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) <a href="https://twitter.com/TOLOnews/status/1267287607450439680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 1, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
The United States military says it has conducted its first air raids against the Taliban since a rare ceasefire between the armed group and Afghan government forces ended more than a week ago.

There was no immediate comment from the Taliban following the announcement on Friday.

Colonel Sonny Leggett, spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, said one set of air raids took place on Friday afternoon in western Farah province, targeting 25 Taliban fighters who were attacking Afghan forces.

Hours earlier, on Thursday night, the US air forces struck an unknown number of Taliban in southern Kandahar province.

"These were the 1st US airstrikes against (the Taliban) since the start of the Eid ceasefire," Leggett wrote. "We reiterate: All sides must reduce violence to allow the peace process to take hold," he added.

Leggett did not elaborate on the air raids or their targets. However, an Afghan government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press newa agency that three senior Taliban commanders and at least 13 other fighters were killed in the Farah attacks.

On May 23, the Taliban announced a surprise three-day ceasefire with Afghan forces starting the next day to coincide with Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

The government in Kabul welcomed the move and ordered its forces to comply with the ceasefire.

There has since been an overall drop in violence across the country, with the Afghan government accelerating the release of hundreds of Taliban prisoners and saying it is ready to start the long-delayed peace talks with the Taliban.

Washington signed a landmark agreement with the Taliban in February, in which it pledged to withdraw all US troops in return for security guarantees.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...s-taliban-ceasefire-ends-200605121833558.html
 
Afghan peace talks seen this month after U.S. shuttle diplomacy

KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Talks to end the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan may begin this month, sources said on Monday, a day after the U.S. special envoy visited the capital of neighbouring Pakistan and met Taliban leaders in Qatar.

The United States signed a troop withdrawal deal with the Taliban in February, but its attempts to usher the insurgent group towards peace talks with the Afghan government have been mired in setbacks and violence surged in March and April.

The Taliban’s spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter that U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had discussed “the commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations” at the insurgent group’s political capital, Doha, on Sunday. Khalilzad had earlier met Pakistan’s army chief of staff, according to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

“The two took note of recent progress created by the Eid ceasefire and accelerated prisoner releases as well as reduced violence ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations,” the Embassy said on Monday. “(They) discussed steps required for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations.”

Disagreement over the Taliban’s demand for the release of 5,000 prisoners has also blocked progress towards resolving the conflict, in which Pakistan is considered a key regional player.

One Afghan presidential palace source and one diplomatic source told Reuters those issues were gradually being resolved and momentum had grown in recent weeks for formal talks, which were expected to begin this month, likely in Doha.

However the sources also told Reuters that due to complications from the coronavirus some negotiations might initially be held virtually.

“The ceasefire, prisoners release and reduction in violence has created a momentum for the talks to begin soon and the government is fully ready,” the Afghan palace official told Reuters, adding that President Ashraf Ghani was optimistic.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...nth-after-u-s-shuttle-diplomacy-idUSKBN23F1JI
 
A blast in a mosque during Friday prayers in the western part of capital Kabul has killed at least four people and wounded many more, Afghanistan's interior ministry said.

"Explosives placed inside the Sher Shah Suri Mosque exploded during Friday prayers," said a statement issued by the ministry, which added that the mosque's prayer leader Azizullah Mofleh was among those killed.

Interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said police have cordoned off the area and helped move the wounded to ambulances and nearby hospitals.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but a mosque attack earlier this month was claimed by an ISIL (or ISIS) group affiliate, headquartered in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

"Interestingly, every time you have the peace process gaining some momentum and pace, you have these kinds of attacks in the country," Habib Wardak, a national security analyst based in Kabul, told Al Jazeera.

"The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack that happened last week on a mosque in Kabul, so despite the fact that you have these news and press conference from the government that they have eliminated ISIL, how can they conduct such sophisticated operations?"

Friday's blast had parallels to one earlier this month, when an explosion tore apart a famous Kabul mosque and led to the death of renowned Afghan cleric Maulvi Ayaz Niazi.

"In this attack, the imam seems to be the target, not the rest of the crowd. These are the imams who have supported the peace process with the Taliban movement," Wardak said.

"The other political aspect for these kinds of attacks is that there are peace spoilers trying to convey a message that peace with the Taliban will not eradicate violence in the country because you have ISIL."

Violence has spiked in recent weeks in Afghanistan with most of the attacks claimed by the ISIL affiliate.

The United States blamed the armed group for a horrific attack last month on a maternity hospital in the capital that killed 24 people, including two infants and several new mothers.

The ISIL affiliate also took responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying journalists in Kabul on May 30, killing two.

It also claimed credit for an attack on the funeral of a strongman loyal to the government last month that killed 35 people.

Meanwhile, the US is attempting to broker peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban to end 18 years of war.

Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was in the region earlier this week trying to resuscitate a US peace deal with the Taliban.

The peace deal signed in February calls for the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops from Afghanistan in return for a commitment by the Taliban to not launch attacks on the US or its allies.

https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/protests-rock-lebanon-currency-collapses-200612060707797.html
 
The Taliban has killed or wounded more than 400 Afghan security personnel over the past week, the interior ministry said, accusing the group of increasing attacks in the run-up to expected peace talks.

Violence dropped across much of Afghanistan since the Taliban announced a three-day ceasefire on May 24 to mark the Muslim Eid al-Fitr celebration, but officials have accused the group of stepping up attacks in recent days.

"In the past one week, the Taliban carried out 222 attacks against the Afghan security forces, resulting in the death and injury of 422" personnel, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said at a news conference on Sunday.

He also accused the Taliban of targeting religious scholars in a bid to put "psychological pressure" on the Afghan government.

Bomb attacks on Kabul mosques that killed two prayer leaders this month were the work of the Taliban, Arian claimed.

"This has been the goal of the Taliban to target religious scholars, especially in the past two weeks," he said, accusing the armed fighters of being an "umbrella group for other terrorist networks".

Four people, including a prayer leader, were killed when a blast ripped through a mosque in Kabul during weekly Friday prayers.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack which came just over a week after an ISIL (or ISIS) attack at a mosque on the edge of Kabul's heavily fortified Green Zone killed a prominent prayer leader.

The Taliban condemned both attacks.

After initially reporting a drop in overall violence following the ceasefire, National Security Council spokesman Javid Faisal on Sunday said the Taliban "have not reduced, but rather increased their attacks across the country".

The council on Saturday also charged that the group had killed 89 civilians and wounded 150 in the last two weeks.

The accusations come after the government and Taliban signalled that they were getting closer to launching much-delayed peace talks.

President Ashraf Ghani has promised to complete a Taliban prisoner release that is a key condition to beginning the negotiations with the group aimed at ending nearly two decades of war.
 
The United Nations has accused the Taliban and Afghan security forces of “deliberate” attacks against healthcare workers and facilities at a time when Afghanistan is grappling with the coronavirus epidemic.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) said it had registered 12 such acts of violence between 11 March and 23 May against healthcare facilities and workers.

Unama attributed eight of the attacks to the Taliban and three to Afghan forces, AFP reports.

One attack, an assault on a Kabul maternity hospital on 12 May, still remained unclaimed. The assault killed 25 people, including 16 mothers, according to international charity Doctors Without Borders .

“At a time when an urgent humanitarian response was required to protect every life in Afghanistan, both the Taliban and Afghan national security forces carried out deliberate acts of violence that undermined healthcare operations,” the head of Unama, Deborah Lyons, said in a statement.
 
Hundreds killed in further Taliban attacks with peace talks ahead

KABUL/KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Increased Taliban attacks are jeopardising the peace process, the Afghan government said on Tuesday after hundreds of security force personnel were killed over the past week by the Islamist insurgents.

The Taliban, fighting to reintroduce strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster from power, signed a troop withdrawal agreement with the United States in February designed to pave the way for peace talks with the Afghan government.

“Recent attacks by terrorist groups and the Taliban have hurt the peace process and it is condemnable,” Afghan Presidential Palace spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told a news conference.

There was a sharp reduction in violence following the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr last month, which officials hoped would pave the way for talks.

However, the past week has been alarming for Afghan officials with more than 400 Taliban attacks nationwide killing 291 security force members, Javid Faisal, spokesman for the government’s National Security Council, said on Monday.

“The Taliban’s actions are inconsistent with their rhetoric on peace,” he said.

The main hurdle remaining for the launch of peace talks is disagreement over the release of few hundred Taliban prisoners involved in high-profile attacks against civilians.

Afghan officials say they believe the upsurge in violence is because the Taliban want to push the government to release those prisoners and have the upper hand in future talks.

The Taliban deny that they have stepped up attacks.

A senior government official said talks which could have started this month were likely to be delayed once again because of the spike in attacks.

The northeastern province of Takhar had been hit particularly hard by violence in the last few days, with attacks on security checkpoints and an explosion at a religious school in which seven students died.

Nevertheless, peacemaking efforts were continuing. The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, met in recent days with the Taliban’s deputy leader Mullah Baradar in the Qatari capital Doha.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-attacks-with-peace-talks-ahead-idUSKBN23U203
 
Taliban prisoner issue almost resolved, peace talks expected 'soon': sources, officials

KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Peace talks between warring Afghan factions are expected to start as soon as they iron out their main differences over the release of the “most dangerous” Taliban prisoners, officials and sources from both sides said.

Despite a major push by the United States, there has been a delay in the intra-Afghan talks as the Afghan government and some key NATO members are uncomfortable about the release of Taliban commanders accused of conducting large-scale attacks that killed civilians in recent years.

An Afghan government source said the prisoner issue had largely been resolved and they would release an alternative set of prisoners with talks expected to start mid-July.

“The Taliban agreed because it was delaying the talks,” he said, adding the government had also demanded a guarantee from the Taliban that it was no longer holding any Afghan security force prisoners.

A source close to the Taliban said the group was willing to move forward so long as most of the 5,000 prisoners demanded were released.

“I don’t think releasing or not releasing 200 or 300 prisoners will matter in the process, the Taliban can agree for (those) prisoners to remain in Afghan government custody,” the source said.

Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen could not be reached for comment but has reiterated in recent weeks that the group expects the full terms of their February agreement with the United States, including the release of 5,000 prisoners, to be implemented before talks can start.

Pakistan, seen as a key regional player in getting the Taliban to peace talks, said it expected negotiations to begin very soon and was optimistic that sticking points, including the prisoner issue, would be resolved.

“I think we are almost there,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. “The impediments have been addressed one by one and now there is a general agreement that this is the way forward...I’m expecting things to be begin quickly.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...expected-soon-sources-officials-idUSKBN23X1W1
 
Russia denies report spy unit paid Taliban to attack NATO forces

Russia and the Taliban have denied a media report saying that a Russian military intelligence unit had offered money to Taliban-linked fighters to kill US troops and other members of the NATO coalition operating in Afghanistan.

The New York Times report says that US intelligence officials concluded several months ago that the Russian unit had last year secretly offered rewards to the fighters in return for successful attacks. The information was later independently reported by the Washington Post.

The officials said the Taliban-linked fighters, or elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected at least some reward money from the Russians, although it remains unclear what attacks were connected to the scheme, according to the report.

Russia on Saturday denounced the accusations, with the Russian embassy in Washington, DC calling them "baseless and anonymous".

The tweet added the claims had "already led to direct threats to the life of employees of the Russian Embassies in Washington DC and London".

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied to the New York Times that the group has "any such relations with any intelligence agency" and called the report an attempt to defame the armed group.

"These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless - our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources," he said. "That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don't attack them."

In 2019, 20 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan but there have been no reported Taliban attacks on the US positions since the two countries reached an agreement in February that paves the way for the US to withdraw from the nearly 20-year long conflict.

Severe implications
US officials have previously linked the Russian intelligence unit in question to assassination attempts and operations in Europe meant to destabilise Western powers, according to the report.

However, the most recent allegations, if true, would be the first time the unit has been proven to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops, the report said.

While the US and Afghan governments have previously accused Russia of supporting the Taliban, the allegation would represent a major escalation in Russia's involvement during a time the Trump administration has been struggling to end the US presence in the country.

The report said the determination by intelligence officials is based, at least in part, on interrogations of captured Afghan fighters and individuals accused of crimes in the country.

'Cozying up' to Russia
The unnamed officials also told the newspaper that Trump and his National Security Council had been briefed on the intelligence in March, but had not yet authorised any action in response.

"The story says that the Trump administration was told about this, including the president, in march, many many months ago, and that they debated several responses, including a diplomatic complaint up to sanctions, but so far have not acted," said Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from Maryland

"Critics are pointing out that the president did do one thing, he invited Vladimir Putin to the now cancelled G7 summit, and that’s created its own kind of controversy today," she said, referring to the so-called Group of Seven, an economic organisation composed of world powers from which Russia was expelled in 2014. The group is currently set to meet in the US in September, after delaying due to the coronavirus pandemic.

One critic is senator and former Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine who tweeted that Trump was "cozying up to Putin and inviting him to the G7 all while his Administration reportedly knew Russia was trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan and derail peace talks with the Taliban".

Officials told the Times it was not clear at what level in the government the Russian intelligence unit's plan was authorised or what larger goal the scheme was meant to achieve.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...liban-attack-nato-forces-200627151651474.html
 
Civilians killed in rocket attack on Afghanistan cattle market

At least 23 civilians were killed and dozens injured after rockets hit a cattle market in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, the Afghan government and Taliban officials said.

The warring sides blamed each other for Monday's attack on the open-air weekly cattle market in Sangin district where hundreds of villagers from neighbouring districts had gathered to trade sheep and goats.

A spokesperson for Helmand's governor said the several rockets fired by Taliban fighters landed close to the cattle market, killing 23 civilians, including children.

TOLOnews, quoting a statement from the provincial governor's office, said the incident took place in the Zol Bazar area and was followed by a car bomb explosion.

Taliban officials blamed the government officials for killing the civilians.

On Sunday, a roadside bomb in the Washer district of the same province left six civilians dead.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said the Taliban were responsible for 208 civilian casualties in April and government forces for 172.

The UN has called for a halt to the fighting and the start of intra-Afghan peace talks as part of a deal signed between the United States and the Taliban in February.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...fghanistan-cattle-market-200629105234792.html
 
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has spoken with the Taliban's chief negotiator, a spokesman for the armed group said, amid controversy in Washington over reports that President Donald Trump knew Russia had paid the Taliban bounties to kill US troops.

Pompeo and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar held a video conference late on Monday in which Pompeo pressed the armed group to reduce violence in Afghanistan and discussed ways of moving a peace deal signed between the US and the Taliban in February forward, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted.

However, there was apparently no mention during the call of allegations that some Taliban fighters received money to kill US and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.

The call came as Trump faces mounting pressure to explain why he did nothing after being reportedly told that Russian spies had offered and paid cash to Taliban-linked fighters for killing US soldiers.

Taliban has denied its fighters received any Russian bounties, and the group's Qatar-based chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar reiterated their pledge not to strike against the US.

Baradar told Pompeo that "according to the agreement, we do not allow anyone to use Afghan soil against the US and other countries," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said in a statement on Twitter on Monday.


US Congress leaders: Did Trump know about Russia and the Taliban? (2:08)

The New York Times newspaper, citing anonymous officials, had reported last week that Trump had been told about the alleged Russian bounties but did nothing in response.

Trump denied being informed of the assessment while the White House said the claim had been kept from him because the intelligence underpinning it was unverified.

But another report from the Times on Monday said Trump had received a report about the alleged Russian bounties as early as February.

That month, the US had pledged to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by mid-2021 in return for security guarantees from the Taliban in a bid to pave the way for negotiations between Afghanistan's warring sides.

The White House has promised to brief several Democrats in the House of Representatives at 8am (12:00 GMT) on Tuesday after being accused of only sharing information with Trump's fellow Republicans.

US-Taliban peace deal
Meanwhile, US peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, is touring the region in an effort to advance the peace deal.

He was in Uzbekistan on Tuesday and was expected in the Pakistani capital Islamabad later in the day or on Wednesday; he is expected to travel to Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office.

Khalilzad is also holding video conferences with Kabul leaders rather than travelling to the Afghan capital because of the dangers of COVID-19, according to a US State Department statement.

Afghanistan's dilapidated healthcare system is grappling with the pandemic, with the number of infections thought to far outnumber the official tally of more than 31,000 cases, including 733 deaths.

Will there ever be direct talks between Afghanistan's government and Taliban? (24:25)
The implementation of the US-Taliban deal has reached a critical stage, as the Taliban and the Afghan government are expected to hold negotiations on a framework for a post-war Afghanistan that would bring the armed group into the country's political arena.

The talks are expected to begin in July if both sides abide by a condition to release thousands of prisoners laid out in the US-Taliban deal.

The agreement calls for Kabul to release 5,000 imprisoned Taliban while the armed group would release 1,000 government and military personnel they hold captive.

But the prisoner releases have been marked by delays. Kabul has so far released 3,500, and the Taliban have freed about 700.

Violence in Afghanistan has continued to spike since a three-day ceasefire in May for Eid al-Fitr.

As civilian casualties rise, both the Taliban and the government blame each other. On Monday, 23 civilians were killed in an attack on a busy market in the southern province of Helmand, a Taliban heartland.

In a tweet early on Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid invited foreign and Afghan journalists to visit the area, which is controlled by the Taliban and has been off-limits to reporters, to independently check claims about the attack.

The Afghan government said a powerful bomb and mortar fire by the Taliban caused the deaths.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...ll-russia-bounty-scandal-200630080324105.html
 
The White House is under pressure to explain how much the administration knew about allegations Russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill US troops.

Officials have insisted that President Donald Trump was not "personally" informed of the alleged plot in Afghanistan in 2019.

But reports say the president received a written briefing earlier this year.

There is concern that Mr Trump might have had access to information about threats to US forces but did not act.

The intelligence reportedly arrived amid US attempts to negotiate a peace deal to end the 19-year war in Afghanistan and while Mr Trump sought to improve relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Reports by The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed US officials, said a Russian military intelligence unit had offered Taliban-linked militants bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

What's going on between Russia, US and Afghanistan?
Russia has denied the initial reports while the Taliban said it had not done any deal with Russian intelligence. The allegations come as Mr Trump seeks re-election in the November poll.

What are the new developments?
On Monday, the New York Times, citing two unnamed US officials, said the intelligence assessment had been included in the President's Daily Brief report - a written document with key government intelligence - in late February.

CNN and the Associated Press have also reported that the president received the intelligence in a written briefing earlier this year, without specifying when. Mr Trump is said to largely ignore the President's Daily Brief, relying more on oral briefings by intelligence officials a few times a week.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany did not answer when asked by reporters whether the information had been included in the president's written briefing, saying only that Mr Trump had not been "personally briefed".

Ms McEnany also said there was "no consensus within the intelligence community" about the assessment. But former intelligence officials told US media that, in previous administrations, claims of such importance would be reported to the president, even if the evidence had not been fully established.

Eight Republican Congress members attended a White House briefing led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien on Monday.

Some expressed alarm about the claims, calling for action against Russia and President Putin be taken if the intelligence reports, currently under review, were confirmed.

Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement: "If the intelligence review process verifies the reports, we strongly encourage the Administration to take swift and serious action to hold the Putin regime accountable."

In a separate statement, Representatives Liz Cheney and Mac Thornberry, who is the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said: "We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces."

Democrats were not included in the initial meeting, and they have been scheduled to take part in a briefing with White House officials on Tuesday.

Late on Monday, the Associated Press reported that top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of the classified intelligence on the topic, and that the assessment had been included in at least one of President Trump's written daily briefings at the time.

Separately, journalist Carl Bernstein reported that officials close to Mr Trump were convinced the president himself "posed a danger to the national security" given how "consistently unprepared" he was in dealing with foreign leaders.

Writing on CNN, Bernstein - one of the journalists who investigated the Watergate scandal in the 1970s - said there were special concerns over "[Mr] Trump's deference to [Mr] Putin", with the US president "inordinately solicitous of [Mr] Putin's admiration" while ignoring important matters on the bilateral agenda.

His report, based on unnamed sources with knowledge of hundreds of highly classified calls with foreign heads of state, echoes remarks made by former members of the Trump administration, including John Bolton, who served as national security adviser and said Mr Trump "remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House".

In an interview to promote his book, Mr Bolton said of Mr Trump: "I think Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle."

What is the context?
The unnamed officials cited by the New York Times' initial report said US intelligence agencies had concluded months ago that a unit of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency had sought to destabilise its adversaries by covertly offering bounties for successful attacks on coalition forces.

Watch: What is the GRU?
Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, were believed to have collected some money, the newspaper said.

Twenty American troops died in Afghanistan in 2019, but the New York Times said it was not clear which deaths were under suspicion.

The officials quoted by the New York Times said the White House's National Security Council had considered how to respond, including imposing an escalating raft of sanctions against Russia.

According to the Times story on Friday, President Trump was briefed on the reports in March. Mr Trump denied having been briefed, writing on Twitter on Sunday that neither he nor Vice-President Mike Pence had been told "about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians".
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We have reached Day 135, a key milestone in implementation of the U.S.-Taliban Agreement. The U.S. has worked hard to carry out the 1st phase of its commitments under the Agreement, including to reduce forces & depart five bases. NATO troops have come down in proportional numbers</p>— U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) <a href="https://twitter.com/US4AfghanPeace/status/1282833439939592194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Zalmay Khalilzad condemns Afghan airstrikes against Taliban as civilians among 45 killed

Afghan government forces killed 45 people, including civilians, in airstrikes against Taliban fighters in a western province bordering Iran on Wednesday, drawing condemnation from the U.S. envoy trying to start peace talks involving all sides.

“In Herat, photos and eyewitness accounts suggest many civilians including children are among the victims of an Afghan airstrike. We condemn the attack and support an investigation,” U.S. Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Twitter.

He added that the United States also “deplored” recent Taliban attacks. Khalilzad said reduced violence and an immediate start to peace talks was needed.

Ali Ahmad Faqir Yar, the governor of Adraskan district in Herat province counted at least eight civilians among the dead as he gave the death toll, but it was unclear if all of the other casualties were Taliban.

“Forty-five people had been killed so far in airstrikes by security forces in the Kham Ziarat area, Taliban were among those killed,” he said. Other local government officials in the province gave the same death toll.

Acting Defence Minister Asadullah Khalid said, during a ceremony broadcast on Tolo news channel, Taliban fighters were killed in the airstrike. His ministry issued a statement saying it was investigating the reports of civilian casualties, and would make the findings public.

Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yousuf Ahmadi said eight civilians were killed and 12 wounded, but didn’t mention any Taliban casualties.

A spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan said they were not involved in Wednesday’s airstrikes.

The United States is drawing down its troops in Afghanistan under an agreement struck in February with the Taliban.

The agreement aimed to pave the way for formal peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government, and Khalilzad is tasked with trying to bring both sides to the table.

A disagreement over the release of Taliban prisoners by the government and rising violence has hampered progress, and talks have yet to start.

https://www.brecorder.com/news/4000...-against-taliban-as-civilians-among-45-killed
 
U.S. sends envoy to press for peace talks in Afghanistan

Washington has dispatched a special envoy for Afghanistan to press for peace talks between the government and Taliban fighters, with the diplomat scheduled to visit Kabul on a trip with stops in five nations, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday.

U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad departed on Friday to travel to Doha, Kabul, Islamabad, Oslo and Sofia, the department said in a statement.

The United States is drawing down its troops in Afghanistan under an agreement struck in February with the Taliban.

The agreement aimed to pave the way for formal peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government, and Khalilzad’s task is to try and bring both sides to the table.

Khalilzad plans to press for a deal on prisoner exchanges and a reduction in violence, two issues that have hampered progress toward starting peace talks.

“Although significant progress has been made on prisoner exchanges, the issue requires additional effort to fully resolve,” the State Department said in its statement.

On Wednesday, Khalilzad condemned an attack by Afghan government forces that killed 45 people, including civilians, in airstrikes against Taliban fighters in a western province bordering Iran.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-a...peace-talks-in-afghanistan-idUKKCN24Q0U9?il=0
 
Yanks want out quick but Afghan puppet government is scared so is killing more and more people to sabotage this deal.

Indians are also crying now, trying to create a mess because they know once this deal is done, they will be back to Dehli with their tales between their legs.
 
KingKhanWC said:
Yanks want out quick but Afghan puppet government is scared so is killing more and more people to sabotage this deal.

Indians are also crying now, trying to create a mess because they know once this deal is done, they will be back to Dehli with their tales between their legs.
Click to expand...

Yes it's imperative imran khan and his government assist in making sure the peace process and the yank troops withdrawel has a smooth transition, once this happens then India and this Afghan puppet regime have their work cut out.
 
Afghan women have to take guns if they don't want to be under Taliban, only way to beat the scumbags is when both the genders works towards it if not back to being slaves.
 
Taliban accuses Afghan government of recapturing freed prisoners

The Taliban has accused the Afghanistan government of recapturing previously released prisoners from its ranks, an allegation rejected by the Afghan authorities.

The government has released more than 4,000 Taliban fighters, while the group has released nearly 700 prisoners under a US-Taliban agreement that aims to pave the way for peace talks among the Afghans.

Suhail Shaheen, Taliban spokesman at its Doha office, on Saturday wrote on Twitter that the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Intelligence, had conducted surprise operations against the released fighters.

He said the administration in Kabul would "bear responsibility for the consequences" if the alleged detentions did not stop.

Shaheen also said the released prisoners had adhered to instructions from the Afghan government to stay at home and not return to the battlefields.

But a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Security Council Adviser, Javid Faisal, on Sunday said a number of released prisoners have returned to the battlefields.

Faisal also rejected the Taliban's claims that there had been operations to re-arrest released prisoners.

'Worst approach'
Meanwhile, the US State Department in a statement on Saturday said its envoy for Afghan reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad had set off to visit Doha and Kabul and press parties on "final prisoners exchange and reduced violence".

The US is drawing down its troops in Afghanistan under the agreement with the Taliban struck in February. Khalilzad's task is to try and bring all stakeholders in Afghanistan to the table.

His trip comes amid resistance from the Afghan government to release some 600 remaining Taliban prisoners and an escalation in violence by the Taliban.

On Saturday night, two car bombs in a southern Afghan province left two soldiers dead and wounded three, provincial spokesman Omar Zwak said.

The Afghan government said the use of violence by the Taliban to gain more in talks was the "worst approach" the armed group has chosen.

UNSC report

The Taliban, meanwhile, has criticised a UN Security Council report (PDF), released on June 2, which highlights factors that contribute to the fragility of the US-Taliban agreement.

"The member states of the security council must also not fall victim to false intelligence or give credence to the information by anti-peace elements who seek the continuation of war in Afghanistan," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

The most notable finding in the 28-page-report was the alleged ties the Taliban maintains with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

"Relations between the Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network ... and al-Qaeda remain close, based on friendship, a history of shared struggle, ideological sympathy and intermarriage," said the report.

"The Taliban regularly consulted with al-Qaeda during negotiations with the United States and offered guarantees that it would honor their historical ties."

But Mujahid noted that al-Qaeda fighters found "secure zones in their own countries and all left our country for their own homelands".

The report also said there are reported divisions within the Taliban's political office, a claim Mujahid described as a "fabrication".

"We have proven the unity of our ranks, no individual has so far rebelled and there exists no evidence about anyone disobeying the leadership of the Islamic Emirate or joining another group," he said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...apturing-freed-prisoners-200726105413675.html
 
Don't worry , once the yanks are out no more cowardly attacks on pakistan from the foreign bodies who are hell bent on disruption.
 
Afghan gov't, Taliban agree Eid al-Adha ceasefire

The Taliban has announced a three-day ceasefire in Afghanistan during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha starting on Friday.

The move, announced on Tuesday, could signal the start of the long-delayed peace talks after President Ashraf Ghani signalled negotiations with the Taliban could start next week.

The Taliban proposed the ceasefire after President Ghani described progress in a contentious prisoner exchange that has thrown up numerous hurdles to talks starting.

"To demonstrate the government's commitment to peace, the Islamic Republic will soon complete the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners," Ghani told officials, referring to the number of inmates the government originally pledged to free under the US-Taliban deal in February.

"With this action, we look forward to the start of direct negotiations with the Taliban in a week's time," Ghani added.

The president's spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi told the AFP news agency that Kabul would observe the ceasefire, but cautioned the temporary nature of it did not go far enough.

"The people of Afghanistan demand a lasting ceasefire and the start of direct talks between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan," Sediqqi said.

Kabul's readiness to start talks comes after the Taliban last week indicated they, too, are prepared to negotiate after the Eid holidays.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid ordered the group's fighters "to refrain from carrying out any operation against the enemy during the three days and nights of Eid al-Adha so ... our countrymen would spend the Eid with confidence and joy".

But any attack "by the enemy" would be met with force, he added.

The truce is only the third official respite in Afghanistan's conflict since the war started in 2001, with other ceasefires in June 2018 and May this year to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

The ceasefires prompted widespread relief across Afghanistan but were short-lived, with the fighters returning to the battlefields straight afterwards to resume near-daily attacks.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...ee-eid-al-adha-ceasefire-200728161448858.html
 
At least 17 people have been killed in Afghanistan in a powerful car bomb blast in Logar province.

The explosion came on the eve of a ceasefire declared by the Taliban during the festival of Eid.

The Taliban have denied responsibility for the attack, while the Islamic State has not yet commented.

The attack was believed to have been carried out by a suicide bomber, Dedar Lawang, spokesman for Logar's governor, told the AFP news agency.

The blast happened near the governor's office and where many people were shopping for the festival.

"The terrorists have once again struck on the night of Eid al-Adha and killed a number of our countrymen," interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack had "nothing to do" with the group.

The Taliban and Afghan government have agreed on a three-day ceasefire starting Friday, the first day of Eid.

There are hopes of a permanent truce but peace talks have been delayed due to prisoner exchanges. An agreement was made that the government would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 of its security personnel.

The Afghan government has released more than 4,400 Taliban prisoners, while a spokesman for the insurgents said on Thursday that a total of 1,005 government inmates had now been set free.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53603921
 
A ceasefire between the Taliban and Afghan government appears to be holding for the third and final day, as hundreds of the armed group's prisoners are released in a bid to bring peace talks closer.

The government has released 317 Taliban prisoners since the beginning of the three-day Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha on Friday, the country's office of National Security Council said on Twitter on Sunday.

Calm prevailed across much of Afghanistan, with officials not reporting any major clashes between the two sides since the truce began to mark Eid.

President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban have both indicated that long-delayed negotiations could begin straight after Eid.

Under a deal signed by the Taliban and the US in February, the "intra-Afghan" talks were slated to start in March, but were delayed amid political infighting in Kabul and as a contentious prisoner swap dragged on.

The deal stipulated that Kabul would free about 5,000 Taliban prisoners in return for 1,000 Afghan security personnel held captive by the Taliban.

Including the newly released prisoners, the total number of Taliban prisoners freed from Afghan custody has reached 4,917 prisoners, the National Security Council said.

The 317 were among an additional 500 Taliban prisoners that Ghani ordered freed on Friday as a goodwill gesture.

However, he said on Friday he had "no authority" under the country's constitution to release the remaining 400 inmates because of their involvement in serious crimes.

He added he would soon call a consultative Loya Jirga - a traditional grand assembly of Afghan elders - to decide their fate.

The Taliban says it has freed all 1,000 Afghan prisoners it had pledged to release in a deal with the US, fulfilling their side of the exchange.

Deadly violence has rocked Afghanistan since the US-Taliban deal was agreed, with more than 3,500 Afghan troops killed in attacks by armed fighters, according to Ghani.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...s-taliban-fighters-freed-200802102720818.html
 
Fighters have attacked a prison compound in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, and a battle with security forces is under way, according to officials, in an attack claimed by the ISIL (ISIS) group that left at least 11 people killed and 42 others wounded.

The complex assault on Sunday began with a suicide bomber detonating a car laden with explosives near the entrance of the government-run facility, followed by multiple attackers opening fire on security guards.

Afghan police and special forces were deployed to the scene and an hours-long gun battle with the assailants ensued.

Afghan officials said the death toll could rise.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Bilal Sarwary, a freelance journalist based in Kabul, said he was told by an inmate that a number of prisoners were also wounded.

"Several security towers were being controlled by the militants," Sarwary added. "It was still not clear how the group got so many weapons and ammunition in the heart of Jalalabad."

There were also reports of dozens of prisoners escaping from the facility. Nangarhar police spokesman Tareq Aziz told AFP news agency that about 100 inmates tried to escape but many of them were captured by security forces.

But Ahmad Ali Hazarat, the head of Nangarhar provincial council, told AFP that a "large number" of them had managed to escape.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the armed group's propaganda arm, Amaq.

Earlier, a Taliban spokesperson said on Twitter that the group was not involved in the attack, which came on the final day of a rare truce between it and the Afghan government to mark the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday.

The prison attack came a day after the Afghan intelligence agency said a senior ISIL commander was killed by Afghan special forces near Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province.

Nangarhar has been hit by regular attacks, several of them claimed by ISIL.

On May 12, a suicide bomber killed 32 mourners at a funeral for a police commander in the province, in one of the deadliest attacks this year also claimed by ISIL.

A United Nations report last month estimated there are around 2,200 ISIL members in Afghanistan, and that while the group is in "territorial retreat" and its leadership has been depleted, it "remains capable of carrying out high-profile attacks in various parts of the country, including Kabul".

Efforts to get peace talks under way between the Taliban and the Kabul government have stalled after the Taliban and the United States signed an agreement in February, touted as the deal to end Washington's longest war.

The agreement struck in Qatar's capital, Doha, lays out plans for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan in exchange for security guarantees from the Taliban.

Last week, a UN report said almost 1,300 civilians, including hundreds of children, were killed in Afghanistan in the first six months of the year, a 13 percent drop compared with the same period in 2019.

The report credited the drop in part to the reduction of operations by international forces in support of Afghan government forces and also to a decrease in the number of attacks by ISIL.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...on-afghanistan-jalalabad-200802154944039.html
 
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has agreed to release 400 Taliban prisoners after an Afghan grand assembly, known as the Loya Jirga, passed a resolution to approve the move.

The resolution recommending the release of the prisoners was passed on Sunday at the end of a three-day Loya Jirga, a traditional Afghan meeting of tribal elders and other stakeholders held to decide on momentous issues.

"In order to remove the hurdles for the start of peace talks, stopping bloodshed, and for the good of the public, the jirga approves the release of 400 prisoners as demanded by the Taliban," Jirga member Atefa Tayeb announced.

Following the announcement, President Ghani said: "Today, I will sign the release order of these 400 prisoners."

The prisoners' fate was a crucial hurdle in launching peace talks between the two sides. The Afghan government has released almost all the Taliban prisoners on the list, but authorities have baulked at freeing the final 400.

According to an official list seen by AFP news agency, many of the inmates are accused of serious offences, with more than 150 of them on death row.


The list also includes a group of 44 fighters of particular concern to the United States and other countries for their role in "high-profile" attacks.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday pushed for the release of the detainees while recognising the decision would be "unpopular".

On Sunday, delegates at the Loya Jirga said they wanted international guarantees that the Taliban would not return to the battlefield.

"The prisoners release was the only hurdle that has now been removed by the Jirga decision. The agreement was that once the 5000 Taliban members are released, the ceasefire will be discussed in the intra-Afghan talks," Mushtaq Rahim, a founding member of Afghanistan Affairs Unit, an Afghan think tank, told Al Jazeera.

"So for the time being, one can say that we are all set for the intra-Afghan talks that is going to open the way for negotiations among Afghan in order to settle on future outlook of Afghan political setup, agree on giving up the armed violence and engage in the political progress," Rahmi further said.

Intra-Afghan peace talks
No date has been set, but negotiations between Kabul's political leadership and the Taliban are expected to begin next week and will most likely be held in Qatar, where the Taliban maintains a political office.


The Afghan negotiations were laid out in a deal signed by the US and the Taliban in February. At the time of its signing, it was touted as Afghanistan's best chance at ending decades of war.

The deal called for the government to free 5,000 prisoners and for the Taliban to free 1,000 government and military personnel in its custody as a goodwill gesture ahead of the start of negotiations.

Grand moot on Afghan peace kicks off in Kabul
Some 3,200 Afghan community leaders and politicians gathered amid tight security in Kabul to advise the government on whether the prisoners should be freed [Andalou]
Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad spent more than a year and a half negotiating the deal with the Taliban to provide for the withdrawal of American soldiers after nearly 19 years in Afghanistan.

The withdrawal began earlier this year, but roughly 8,600 US soldiers remain in Afghanistan, and their return will depend on the Taliban honouring its commitment to fight against other armed groups and ensure Afghanistan is not again used to attack the US or its allies.

In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the US plans to cut its troop levels in Afghanistan to "a number less than 5,000" by the end of November.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...taliban-prisoner-release-200809063717608.html
 
Afghanistan's government has started releasing the last 400 Taliban prisoners, paving the way for long-delayed peace talks.

Eighty prisoners were set free Thursday, officials said, some whose crimes include attacks on Afghans and foreigners.

The release was a condition to begin negotiations to end 19 years of conflict in the country.

Peace talks are expected to start in Qatar within days of the full release.

Afghan assembly approves Taliban prisoner release
Who are the Taliban?
The release was "to speed up efforts for direct talks and a lasting, nationwide ceasefire", Afghanistan's Office of the National Security Council said in a Tweet.

On the weekend, an Afghan grand assembly of elders approved the release of the 400 Taliban prisoners accused of "major" crimes after authorities initially refused to free the militants.

The prisoners include some 44 insurgents who are of particular concern to the United States and other countries for their roles in high-profile attacks.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani warned on Thursday that their release was a "danger" to the world, reported AFP.

"Until this issue, there was a consensus on the desirability of peace but not on the cost of it," Mr Ghani said.

The Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan by a US-led invasion in 2001.

The group has gradually regained its strength to control more territory than at any point since that time.

Earlier this year, the US and the Taliban agreed on a peace deal to end the 19-year-long conflict in Afghanistan.

The deal was meant to pave the way for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which had previously only agreed to talk to the US.

Negotiations for the US and Taliban had agreed that 5,000 Taliban prisoners would be released before they entered talks with the Afghan government.

Thousands were freed - however, 400 remained in prison. About 150 of them are on death row, according to AFP.

The move comes as the US announced its troop level in the country would drop below 5,000 by November.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53775035
 
An attack on one of the only women taking part in negotiations with the Taliban was a "cowardly and criminal" attempt to disrupt the Afghan peace process, the US envoy has said.

Zalmay Khalilzad said he was "relieved" that Fawzia Koofi had escaped Friday's shooting "without serious injury".

Ms Koofi was shot in the right arm while travelling with her sister.

The Taliban have denied they were behind the attack, which came as the two sides prepared for talks.

The militant group has previously refused to negotiate directly with the Afghan government, but agreed to take part in the talks aiming to end almost two decades of conflict after reaching an agreement with the US in February.

As part of the agreement, the Afghan government had to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners. On Thursday, it began releasing the last 400 militants. Talks are expected to start in Qatar after the final prisoner is released.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53795870
 
France has objected to the release of three men jailed for the murders of French nationals in Afghanistan as part of Kabul's decision to release 400 Taliban prisoners as the last phase of fulfilling a condition set out in a deal between the Taliban and the US government.

The group of prisoners, whose release has begun, include two men who murdered Bettina Goislard, an employee of the UN refugee agency, in November 2003, and a former Afghan soldier who killed five French soldiers and injured 13 others in Kapisa province eight years ago.

"France is particularly concerned by the presence, among the individuals liable to be released, of several terrorists convicted of killing French citizens in Afghanistan," the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The Afghan government and the Taliban are set to meet to launch an intra-Afghan peace process within days of the prisoner release being completed, a move that has drawn widespread condemnation after it emerged that many of the inmates were involved in attacks that killed tens of Afghans and foreigners.

"It firmly opposes the liberation of individuals convicted of crimes against French nationals, in particular soldiers and humanitarian workers," it said.

"As a result, we have immediately asked the Afghan authorities not to proceed with the release of these terrorists."

Goislard's family has also strongly denounced the move.

The release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners in return for 1,000 captive Afghan security personnel was agreed in a landmark deal between the US and the Taliban in February as a condition for intra-Afghan peace talks.

Disagreement over the release of the prisoners, who include individuals accused in connection with some of Afghanistan's bloodiest attacks, has already delayed peace negotiations for months.

The Afghan government had released almost all the Taliban prisoners on the list, but authorities baulked at freeing the final 400.

Many of the inmates are accused of serious offences, with more than 150 of them on death row.

The list also includes a group of 44 fighters of particular concern to the US and other countries for their role in "high-profile" attacks.

Last week, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani agreed to release those 400 Taliban prisoners after an Afghan grand assembly, known as the Loya Jirga, passed a resolution to approve the move.

At the extraordinary meet, more than 3,000 public figures from across the country backed the government's calls for a permanent ceasefire and international guarantees that the fighters would not resort to violence again.

It also called for both sides to commence the much-delayed intra-Afghan talks.

On Friday, the Afghan government said it had released the first 80 of the 400 Taliban prisoners in the run-up to direct negotiations between the two sides.

Talks are expected to be held in Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...-taliban-killed-citizens-200816054618786.html
 
Multiple rockets struck Afghanistan's capital of Kabul on Tuesday, shaking the main diplomatic district and sending foreign embassies into lockdown, officials and sources said.

The Interior Ministry's spokesman, Tariq Arian, said the rockets were fired from two vehicles in the northern and eastern part of the Afghan capital.

It was not immediately clear if there were casualties or who was behind the attack on Afghanistan's independence day at a time when the United States is withdrawing troops and encouraging peace talks to end almost 19 years of war.

Sources told the Reuters news agency the diplomatic area was quickly placed under lockdown after the blasts, as workers in embassies took cover in safe rooms.

Smoke billowed, alarms shrilled and shrapnel flew, said Reuters witnesses who heard at least four rockets landing near the Green Zone area, home to many foreign embassies and NATO headquarters.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...-district-kabul-official-200818053700065.html
 
At least 14 security forces have been killed in three attacks across Afghanistan, as violence keeps the country in its grasp and the start of the peace talks remains delayed.

At least nine security forces were killed and one wounded when the Taliban attacked a checkpoint in the northern Takhar province on Saturday, the police chief spokesman for the province said.

Taliban attacks in the northeastern province of Badakhshan also left four security forces dead, that province's spokesman said.
 
The Taliban chief has finalised a negotiating team that is to have decision-making powers in upcoming intra-Afghan negotiations, a top Taliban negotiator told The Associated Press.

Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada hand-picked the 20-member team, 13 of whom comprise about half of the Taliban's leadership council, lead Taliban negotiator Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai told AP.

The negotiating team will have the authority to set agendas, decide strategy and even sign agreements with the political leadership of the Afghan government in Kabul, Stanikzai said.

"This is a powerful team ... All decision-making powers are with the negotiation team," Stanikzai said.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who signed the peace deal with Washington on February 29 paving the way for the intra-Afghan negotiations and a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, will keep the post as head of the Taliban's political office in Qatar.

The critical intra-Afghan talks, which were laid out in the peace deal signed in the Qatari capital Doha, were expected to begin August 20 but have been plagued by relentless delays.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...am-intra-afghan-talks-ap-200824040953615.html
 
Afghanistan has resumed the controversial release of hundreds of Taliban prisoners.

A Taliban official told the AFP news agency that 200 prisoners had been freed by the Afghan authorities since Monday, while the Taliban reportedly released four Afghan commandos.

The release of Taliban inmates has been a pre-condition to negotiations to end 19 years of conflict in the country.

Peace talks are expected to start in Qatar within days of the full release.

An unnamed senior Afghan official told AFP that "dozens" of prisoners had been released on Monday, with the remaining prisoners due to follow suit "within a couple of days".

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai praised the resumption of the prisoner release, which he described as a "positive step towards peace in Afghanistan".

The release of 5,000 militants formed part of a peace deal reached by the US and the Taliban in February, which was meant to pave the way for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

In August, the Afghan government began to free the final 400 Taliban prisoners, after the move was approved by an Afghan grand assembly of elders.

But not all of the group was released, with both France and Australia objecting to the release of prisoners accused of fatal attacks against their nationals, including humanitarian workers.

According to a report by the Washington Post last week, three Afghans accused of involvement in the deaths of US troops are among the final group.

The Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan by a US-led invasion in 2001, but now control more territory than at any point since that time.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53980978
 
A roadside bomb in Kabul targeted Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh on Wednesday morning, his spokesman said, but he escaped the attack unharmed.

Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian told AFP that, based on initial reports, two people had been killed and another 12 wounded in the blast.

"Today, once again the enemy of Afghanistan tried to harm Saleh, but they failed to get to their evil aim, and Saleh escaped the attack unharmed," Razwan Murad, a spokesman for Saleh's office, wrote on Facebook.

He told Reuters the bomb targeted Saleh's convoy and some of his bodyguards were injured.

Health ministry officials said two bodies and seven injured people had been transported to the hospital so far.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which comes just before long-awaited peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Qatar's capital, Doha.

Saleh, a former intelligence chief, has survived several assassination attempts, including one on his office last year that killed 20 people.

Officials and diplomats have warned that rising violence is sapping the trust needed for the success of talks aimed at ending an armed conflict that began when the Taliban was removed from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...b-attack-kabul-spokesman-200909044320211.html
 
The first peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to begin in the Gulf state of Qatar on Saturday, after months of delay.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the meeting "historic" as he flew to Doha for the opening ceremony.

The talks were due to start after a US-Taliban security deal in February.

But disagreements over a controversial prisoner swap stalled the next stage, as did violence in Afghanistan, where four decades of war are at a stalemate.

A delegation of leading Afghans left Kabul for Doha on Friday - 11 September, the day 19 years ago of the deadly attacks on the US which led to the end of Taliban rule.

The head of the delegation, Abdullah Abdullah, said they were seeking "a just and dignified peace".

On Thursday the Taliban confirmed they would attend, after a final group of six prisoners were released.

What to expect from the talks
These are the first direct talks between the Taliban and representatives of the Afghan government. The militants had until now refused to meet the government, calling them powerless and American "puppets".

The two sides are aiming for political reconciliation and an end to decades of violence, which began with the 1979 Soviet invasion.

The talks were meant to begin in March but were repeatedly delayed by a dispute over the prisoner exchange agreed in the February US-Taliban deal, as well as violence in the country.

The separate but linked US-Taliban agreement set out a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces, in exchange for counter-terrorism guarantees.

That agreement took over a year to finalise, and the government-Taliban talks are expected to be even more complicated. Many worry that fragile progress made in women's rights could be sacrificed in the process.

The talks also present a challenge to the Taliban, who will have to bring forward a tangible political vision for Afghanistan. They have so far been vague, stating they wish to see an "Islamic" but also "inclusive" government.

The talks may provide more evidence of how the militant group has changed since the 1990s, when they ruled using a harsh interpretation of Sharia law.

You can feel the buzz in the glittering great halls of the Sheraton Grand Doha hotel: Afghan negotiators, officials, journalists rushing in from their chartered flight from Kabul; foreign diplomats who've spent years inching towards this moment now hurrying to and fro; and a few Taliban slipping through the crowds on the eve of the big day.

It's been a long time coming in a war which exacts such a heavy price. There's anticipation. Apprehension too.

All that's certain is after an opening ceremony with hours of speeches - the "show" as some call it - there will be "Afghan talks."

How long they will talk this time, about what, and in which way, is still uncertain.

Everyone emphasises these are Afghan decisions. And there's no agreement yet, even within each side.

It's the start of a protracted process with no certainty of success. But even a start is something in a war which seems endless.

What was in February's deal?
The US and its Nato allies agreed to withdraw all troops within 14 months, while the Taliban committed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.

The US also agreed to lift sanctions against the Taliban and work with the UN to lift its separate sanctions against the group, as well as cutting its troop numbers in the country from about 12,000 to 8,600 and closing several bases.

US-led troops have been present in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, after launching air strikes to oust the Taliban in 2001 following the deadly 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks in New York. The Taliban, who protected al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, had refused to hand him over.

The Afghan government did not take part in the February accord, but had expected to begin peace talks with the Taliban in March.

The deal also provided for a prisoner swap of about 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 detained Afghan security personnel to be finalised before the planned start of the March talks.

What's happened since?
Government and Taliban negotiators disagreed over the numbers of prisoners to be freed and who they would be. The continuing violence also held things up.

Some of the men the Taliban wanted freed were commanders believed to have been involved in major attacks.

"We cannot release the killers of our people," a government negotiator said at the time.

According to a report by the Washington Post last month, three Afghans accused of involvement in the deaths of US troops were also a sticking point.

Progress was slow, but in August the Afghan government began to free the final 400 Taliban prisoners, after the move was approved by a grand assembly, or loya jirga of elders.

Not all of the group of 400 were released straight away, after both France and Australia objected to freeing six prisoners accused of fatal attacks against their nationals, including humanitarian workers.

Their release and transfer to Doha on the eve of talks removed the final hurdle.

The US's longest war
At 19 years, the conflict in Afghanistan - codenamed Operation Enduring Freedom and later Operation Freedom's Sentinel - has been the longest in US history.

At the outset in 2001, the US was joined in its fight by an international coalition, and the Taliban were quickly removed from power. But the militant group morphed into an insurgent force that dug in and launched deadly attacks against US-led forces and the Afghan military, as well as Afghan government officials.

The international coalition ended its combat mission in 2014. The total coalition death toll by that point was nearly 3,500. More than 2,400 US military personnel have been killed. The UK lost more than 450 of its soldiers.

The Watson Institute at Brown University estimated in November 2019 that more than 43,000 civilians had been killed, with 64,000 Afghan security personnel and 42,000 anti-government fighters dead. The true numbers will never be known.

The US continued its own, scaled-back combat operation after 2014, including air strikes. The Taliban meanwhile continued to gain momentum and now control more territory than at any time since 2001.
Click to expand...

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53976968.
 
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday welcomed the launch of intra-Afghan dialogue, saying Pakistan has fulfilled its commitment and it is now for the Afghans to work towards durable peace through a negotiated settlement of the dispute.

He, however, reassured the Afghans that Pakistan would continue supporting their peace efforts.

The long-awaited dialogue between the warring Afghan factions is set to begin on Saturday (today) in Doha, Qatar, after repeated delays over prisoners’ release.

The 21-member Afghan government team led by Masoom Stanekzai reached Doha on Friday evening.

The Taliban side is, meanwhile, being led by Sheikh Abdul Hakim Haqqani, a hardline cleric and close confidant of the insurgent group’s chief Maulvi Hibatullah Akhunzada.

Haqqani recently replaced Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who had signed an agreement with the US in February. The Taliban delegation for the talks also has 21 members.

The release of the last group of six “dangerous” Taliban prisoners by Afghan government paved the way for the start of the talks, which were to begin originally on March 10 under the US-Taliban agreement.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, Chief of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan Foreign Minister Hanif Atmar and ambassadors would witness the start of the dialogue between the Afghan government’s team and Taliban negotiators.

The event, being described by many as ‘historic’ has been welcomed by a number of world leaders, including US President Donald Trump.

Islamabad says it facilitated the US-Taliban agreement and contributed to breaking the stalemate on the prisoners’ release.

“I warmly welcome the announcement regarding commencement of Intra-Afghan Negotiations on 12 September 2020. Finally, our combined efforts have brought forth the day that the Afghan people have been yearning for,” Prime Minister Khan said.

He recalled that Pakistan too had suffered from the fallout of the Afghan conflict in the shape of terrorism, which caused both human and economic losses.

Speaking about Pakistan’s contribution to efforts for Afghan reconciliation, Mr Khan said: “Pakistan has played a pivotal role in facilitating the Afghan peace process to this juncture. We feel deeply gratified today as we have fulfilled our part of the responsibility.”

“It is now for the Afghan leaders to seize this historic opportunity, work together constructively, and secure an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement,” he added.

The prime minister urged all sides to honour their commitments, persevere, and staunchly pursue the goal of peaceful settlement of the dispute, which is now in its 19th year.

“For its part, Pakistan will continue to remain in full support and solidarity with the Afghan people as they march forward in this consequential journey for peace and development,” he said.

In a related development, the commander of US CENTCOM, Gen Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., met Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa at the General Headquarters.

“Geostrategic environment, regional security, Pak-US military cooperation, including Afghanistan peace process and Kashmir situation, (were) discussed,” said the Inter-Services Public Relations.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1579176/seize-historic-moment-pakistan-tells-kabul-taliban
 
Afghan-Taliban talks: Government calls for ceasefire

The Afghan government has called for a humanitarian ceasefire with the Taliban, as the first-ever peace talks between the two sides began in Qatar.

Abdullah Abdullah, who led the government’s delegation, stressed that there was “no winner through war”.

The Taliban did not mention a truce, reiterating instead that Afghanistan should be under Islamic law.

The US encouraged both sides to reach an agreement, telling them: “The entire world wants you to succeed”.

Afghanistan has seen four decades of conflict, with tens of thousands of civilians killed.

The historic talks began on Saturday, one day after the 19th anniversary of the deadly 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks in New York, that led to the US beginning military operations in Afghanistan.

The conflict in Afghanistan has been the longest in US history.

Why are these talks so important?
These are the first direct talks between the Taliban and representatives of the Afghan government. The militants had until now refused to meet the government, calling them powerless and American “puppets”.

The conflict is still continuing in Afghanistan, and the government says 12,000 civilians have been killed since February.

At Saturday’s opening ceremony, the head of Afghanistan’s peace council, Abdullah Abdullah, called for an immediate ceasefire, telling Reuters “one of the top most issues on the minds of the people is reduction in violence in a significant way”.

He added that his delegation “represents a political system that is supported by millions of men and women from a diversity of cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds in our homeland”, and that they hoped “to close the gates of war and pain forever”.

Taliban leader Mullah Baradar Akhund, meanwhile, said he hoped negotiations would “move forward with patience”.

He added he wanted Afghanistan to be “independent, united, and… have an Islamic system in which all tribes and ethnicities of the country find themselves without any discrimination”.

The United States reached its own deal with the Taliban in February, and described the talks as a “truly momentous” opportunity.

“I think everyone sitting here today knows that it took hard work and sacrifice to reach this moment,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

“The entire world wants you to succeed, and is counting on you to succeed.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-54134707
 
oled up at a mud-brick house in eastern Afghanistan's mountainous Paktika province, 28-year-old Mujahid Rahman says he can't remember how long he's been battling the Americans. Seven or eight years is his best guess. The past three years have been particularly tough, the Taliban subcommander says. He tells of being held prisoner by the Americans at Bagram Airfield from early 2009 to August 2010, and then enduring an even grimmer month and a half at an interrogation center run by the Kabul government's intelligence agency. He speaks of comrades who have been killed, disabled, or captured, and how he and his small band of fighters were driven away from their home base in neighboring Ghazni province. He sounds worn out, on the verge of giving up.

But he stiffens when a Newsweek reporter asks if the Taliban should strike a deal with the Americans and the Kabul government. "No!" he practically shouts. The fight will continue until the Americans are defeated, he insists, no matter how long it takes and what the sacrifices. He recalls a prison guard at Bagram who was gleefully preparing to return home to America. The soldier gave Rahman a bottle of juice as a farewell gift and asked how long the Afghan expected to remain behind bars, and what he hoped to do afterward. "Time in jail and time in the jihad mean nothing to us," Rahman claims to have told the American. "Your watch's battery will run down, and its hands will stop. But our time in the struggle will never end. We will win."

His words continue to haunt us. We've covered the war in Afghanistan from the start, and we've always been fascinated by the contrast between the two sides' attitudes toward the conflict. It's summed up in an expression often attributed to a captured Taliban fighter: "You have the watches. We have the time." The insurgents seem utterly confident that both God and time are on their side. Everything else is irrelevant detail: the anniversaries, deadlines, and timelines, and all the economic, financial, and political constraints that occupy the waking hours of U.S. policymakers. The insurgents show no interest in numbers or statistics or schedules; they focus only on the victory they're sure will someday be theirs.

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When Mullah Mohammed Omar and his religious students launched their battle against the country's brutal and rapacious mujahedin warlords in 1994, they didn't set a target date for the capture of Kabul; they just started fighting. Later they would recall their surprise at how quickly they took the capital, after just two years of fighting; they had assumed the war would take far longer. Five years later, when America attacked, they were no less surprised by how fast their Islamic emirate collapsed. But they set about rebuilding their shattered movement, still with no set time frame. "We never have calendars, watches, or calculators like the Americans do," says a former Taliban government minister who is now a leading member of the insurgency's propaganda cell. "From the Taliban point of view, time has not even started yet."

Oct. 7 marks the 10th anniversary of America's war in Afghanistan, the longest in U.S. history. On that date in 2001, American bombs began raining down on the Taliban's forces, decimating their ranks. Thousands of Omar's men were killed and wounded; stunned survivors of the massive explosions could only stagger around aimlessly, some bleeding from the nose and ears. The Taliban seemed finished. And yet a decade later the United States is still fighting a war that has taken the lives of nearly 1,800 U.S. troops and now costs more than $9 billion a month, according to the Congressional Research Service. Many Americans have grown fed up with the seemingly endless carnage and expense. President Obama has set a 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of most, if not all U.S. forces, but that's not fast enough for a lot of Americans.

In fact, at least four of the Republican presidential candidates have urged a quicker pullout. "My hunch is the American people want to be out of there as quickly as we can get it done," former Utah governor Jon Huntsman said on a TV talk show earlier this year. Opinion polls suggest he's right. For the GOP candidates, the tantalizing question is whether they can find a way to subscribe to that view without laying themselves open to the charge of being weak on national security. It's clear that America's Afghanistan commitment will be an issue on Election Day 2012.

By then the White House desperately wants to show real progress in Afghanistan. This past June, when then–defense secretary Robert Gates made his farewell tour of U.S. bases in Afghanistan, he repeatedly told the troops that he expected positive strides there by the end of the year—and sure enough, the Taliban have been largely expelled from their longtime stomping grounds in the south and east—even from their birthplace, Kandahar. But those impressive gains have been mostly ignored in favor of headline-grabbing insurgent strikes in Kabul: the Mumbai-style rampage at Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel in June, the 20-hour siege outside the U.S. Embassy on Sept. 13, the suicide-bomb assassination of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani by a supposed Taliban peace envoy on Sept. 20.

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And while Americans argue about whether Afghanistan is worth the effort, the Taliban are fighting for their homes. Some have been making war ever since the creation of the Taliban in 1994, and at least a few are veterans of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, back in the 1980s. Now they're taking encouragement from the onset of the U.S. military drawdown. "We have not warmed up yet, but the enemy is already leaving," gloats Mullah Abdul Jabar, a Taliban subcommander from Helmand province. That rush to the exits is not good, according to Seth Jones, a RAND Corporation specialist on the Afghan war. In an analysis of Obama's withdrawal timetable published this past May, he warned: "As Winston Churchill observed over a century ago during the British struggles in the Northwest Frontier, time in this area is measured in decades, not months or years. It's a concept that doesn't always come easy to Westerners."

No senior commanders of any consequence have switched sides or given up the fight.

As tenacious as the Taliban may be, they still have serious weaknesses. For one thing, they're almost totally dependent on their safe havens in Pakistan, where their leaders live openly. Pakistan is also the Afghan insurgents' chief portal for cash, supplies, munitions, and explosives, without which the Taliban would be hard-pressed to survive. And yet Pakistani authorities seem unwilling to interfere with Taliban leaders or their operations. In fact, senior American officials say the Pakistanis are pouring resources into the Haqqani network, a Taliban-allied group of Afghan insurgents who are believed to have played major roles in the Rabbani assassination and the attacks on the Inter-Continental and the U.S. Embassy. (The Pakistanis vehemently deny any such collusion.)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has repeatedly given Pakistan what amounts to an ultimatum. "The message they need to know is: we're going to do everything we can to defend our forces," Panetta told reporters two days after the embassy siege. "I'm not going to talk about how we're going to respond. I'll just let you know that we're not going to allow these types of attacks to go on." The CIA already has paramilitaries leading local forces inside Pakistan's tribal areas, but so far their targets have been limited to Al Qaeda commanders. Will their mission now expand to target the Haqqanis? Or will the administration nerve itself to send regular troops over the border? One U.S. official with vast experience of Afghanistan tells Newsweek he thinks it's "more than evens" that the U.S. could send troops over the border by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, America's forces try to intercept Taliban recruits, funds, weapons, and explosives as they pour in from Pakistan. U.S. and Afghan patrols on the border keep discovering and destroying massive caches of explosives—often a ton or more—waiting to be moved deeper into Afghanistan and used in the IEDs, truck bombs, and car bombs that cause most coalition casualties these days. Only 40 pounds or so are needed for an IED that can destroy an armored vehicle. "We found 300 percent more caches this past winter than the previous winter," says Australian Maj. Gen. Michael G. Krause, a senior coalition planner in Kabul. "Already we believe the enemy is running short of ammunition and supplies." A senior U.S. intelligence officer agrees. "We can hear commanders squawking about the lack of ammo and supplies," he says. "We hope the tension will break down the sense that they can wait us out."

But the Taliban insist it's the Americans who will quit first. "When a U.S. soldier arrives here, he starts his stopwatch, counting every second, minute, and hour until he gets home," says the former government minister. Unlike American soldiers, young Taliban have few home comforts to miss, he says. "Our young fighters are having an ideal life with a motorbike, an AK-47, an RPG, long hair, and a holy cause to fight for," he says. "They are not thinking of time and consequences, only of the endless fight for victory." He says that if the young fighters measure time, it's only by the length of their hair: "It takes about a year for their hair to grow one-half-meter long."

The incessant boasts about their endurance may sound like propaganda, but when challenged on that score, the fighters have a compelling answer: despite all the deaths and injuries, the long stretches in prison, the lack of funds, food, and medical care, and their spartan existences far from their loved ones, relatively few Taliban have ever defected. No senior commanders of any consequence have switched sides or given up the fight, and only a few thousand low-level fighters have joined the Kabul government's amnesty and reintegration programs. "If the Taliban were worried about the length of the war and how much longer they can sacrifice, there would have been big defections already," says the former minister. "That just hasn't happened. And we still get all the new recruits we need."

Thanks to the insurgency's dauntingly high casualty and capture rates, those youngsters are the Taliban's lifeblood. Most of them know nothing of recent history and have no interest in the past or future, according to the older hands. "Sixty percent of our fighters are too young to remember Sept. 11 or the Taliban's collapse," says a senior Taliban operative known as Zabibullah. "They only know that there are invaders and their puppets occupying our land, and that they must be defeated no matter how long it takes." That attitude is what keeps the insurgency going, he adds: if the Taliban worried about how long the struggle will take and the odds against them, the insurgency would have collapsed years ago. "The U.S. never believed we could survive for long against B-52s, drones, SEAL commando raids, and an endless supply of dollars thrown at us by the richest nation on earth," he says. "If we ever thought about the odds and time frames, we would be finished."

Jabar is another insurgent who looks at first glance like a beaten man. The 26-year-old Taliban subcommander is encamped in a village near the Pakistani border, where he's being treated for migraines and a left hand that is partially paralyzed and missing three fingers. That doesn't keep him and his seven fighters from engaging in firefights with U.S. and Afghan forces. "Only Allah knows how many times we have ambushed and attacked the enemy over the past few years," he says. "I can only remember a dozen of them." He joined the Taliban as soon as he could grow a beard, he says, and he recalls being present as a new recruit at a speech by the brutal senior commander Mullah Dadullah Akhund shortly before he was killed in 2007. "There is no time limit in winning this war," declared Dadullah, who had lost his left leg fighting the Soviets in the 1980s.

Jabar says he hasn't seen his wife and three children since February 2010, when U.S. Marines drove him and his men out of Marja, his home district. Occasionally he phones home, but he knows he's taking a chance: the call might give away his position and bring down a Special Forces raid or a drone strike. On the phone to his eldest son, Jabar says that if he dies in combat he hopes the boy will grow up to take his place in the Taliban's ranks. "I'm sure we'll still be fighting when my son becomes a man," Jabar says. "He'll be proud to take my place." The boy is about 6 years old.

https://www.newsweek.com/10-years-afghan-war-how-taliban-go-68223?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
 
Rebels have stepped up attacks on security forces in northwest Pakistan, raising fears of a revival of their activity and a return of lawlessness near the border region with Afghanistan.

The ethnic Pashtun border region was for years a haven for rebels who fled the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But the Pakistani military cleared out the strongholds in a 2014 offensive, driving most of the fighters into Afghanistan.

But since March, the al-Qaeda-linked Pakistan Taliban, facing the risk of losing havens on the Afghan side of the border if its Afghan Taliban allies make peace there, has unleashed a wave of attacks on Pakistani security forces.

Bolstering its bid to re-establish itself in the borderlands, the Pakistan Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), struck an alliance in July with half a dozen small rebel factions.

"The group's capability and military strength has increased, as has their reach," said Mansur Khan Mahsud, executive director of the Islamabad-based FATA Research Centre.

September has seen near-daily incidents, from roadside bombs to sniper attacks, to ambushes and the killing of residents accused of collaborating with government forces.


The rebels have killed at least 40 soldiers since March, according to a Reuters tally of official figures.
At least 109 people were killed in 67 attacks between January and July - twice the number of 2019, according to the FATA Research Centre.

"TTP's regrouping is concerning both because of its own activities and its links to groups like al-Qaeda," said Elizabeth Threlkeld, a former State Department official who served in Pakistan, now deputy-director for the South Asia programme at the Washington-based Stimson Center.

"It could again provide significant support to international terror groups if it continues to regain ground."

Unintended consequences
Rebel violence surged in Pakistan after it was pressed to sign on to the US-led so-called "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001, attacks, even though it had for years supported the Afghan Taliban.

Soon the Pakistani government found itself under attack from home-grown Taliban but the military succeeded in pushing it out of the region in 2014, forcing the Pakistani Taliban into Afghanistan.

Millions of residents were displaced by the fighting but since then, rebel violence in Pakistan has largely ceased.


But now fears are growing that the surge of Pakistan Taliban violence is an unintended consequence of efforts to make peace in neighbouring Afghanistan.

In February, the Afghan Taliban and the United States struck a deal allowing for the withdrawal of US forces in exchange for Afghan Taliban guarantees they would not harbour other rebels.

The United Nations said in a report in July there were more than 6,000 Pakistani fighters in Afghanistan, most affiliated with the TTP, who could be heading home if they lose their refuge.

"It's a concern for everyone," a Western security official based in Pakistan told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan's military did not respond to a request for comment on the violence but its spokesman said on Twitter recently that the attacks were "meant to derail (the) Afghanistan Peace Process".

For those living in the area, insecurity is again becoming a daily worry.


The TTP issued a statement this week telling residents to leave "until peace returns".

"Our war against Pakistan is continuing and you will continue to see daily attacks," the group said.
 
So the American's have accepted defeat in Afghanistan?

Afghan's should be proud, defeated the british, the soviets and now the americans.
 
Trump tweet gave Taliban upper hand in negotiations: Afghan peace official tells Financial Times

KABUL (Reuters) - A tweet by President Donald Trump calling for U.S. troops to be home by Christmas has given the insurgent Taliban the upper hand in negotiations, the top Afghanistan peace official told the Financial Times newspaper.

Trump posted the tweet last week, hours after his national security adviser said Washington would reduce its forces in Afghanistan to 2,500 by early next year. The Taliban has welcomed the announcement.

“Nobody has given any clarity,” Abdullah Abdullah, the head of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, said in an interview published by the Financial Times on Thursday.

The Taliban “might see it in their advantage” and come back by force if the United States withdrew, he said.

A February deal between the United States and the Taliban said foreign forces would leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban, which agreed to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and a power-sharing formula with the Afghan government.

This week the United States took part in airstrikes against the Taliban at the start of an offensive in southern Helmand province, during which its forces took major checkpoints and closed in on the provincial capital.

Diplomats and officials have warned that rising violence is sapping the trust required for successful peace talks in Doha.

In a sign that negotiations were continuing, a Taliban spokesman and an Afghan government negotiator said on Wednesday some of their negotiators had met after a pause to discuss disputed issues and “present solutions”.

Amnesty International’s head of South Asia, Omar Waraich, said in a statement the situation could deteriorate rapidly as tens of thousands of people were trapped by the fighting.

He said both sides must ensure civilians are protected and can leave the war zones safely to avert a humanitarian disaster.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-official-tells-financial-times-idUSKBN2701O2
 
At least 19 people were killed and 22 wounded when gunmen stormed Kabul University in Afghanistan’s capital in an attack that ended after hours of fighting with security forces.

Hamid Obaidi, spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, told AFP news agency Monday’s attack started when government officials were arriving for the opening of an Iranian book fair organised on campus.

Witnesses said hundreds of people were sent fleeing and scrambling over walls of the campus when the attack took place.

“The attack is over, but sadly 19 people have been killed and 22 more wounded,” Interior Ministry spokesperson Tariq Arian told AFP.

“Three attackers were involved. One of them blew up his explosives at the beginning, two were brought down by the security forces.”

Witnesses said the attack followed an explosion in the area and students spoke of chaos and confusion.

“We were studying inside our classrooms when suddenly we heard a burst of gunfire,” said student Fraidoon Ahmadi, 23.

“Some students have fled … it is chaotic and students are terrified,” he added.

Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramerz told AFP most of those killed were students.

Afghan media reported the book exhibition was being attended by several dignitaries at the time of the shooting.

Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday that Iranian Ambassador Bahador Aminian and cultural attache Mojtaba Noroozi were scheduled to inaugurate the fair, which was to host some 40 Iranian publishers.


Speaking from Kabul, Al Jazeera’s Filio Kontrafouri said that the operation to secure the university took several hours.

“Security forces had to protect thousands of students and staff members while also trying to apprehend the gunmen.”

Also speaking from Kabul, Mushtaq Rahim, a conflict, peace and security specialist, told Al Jazeera the incident is likely to negatively affect the peace talks which are already facing challenges.

“People start questioning the whole process even at a time when they [negotiators] are closing in on a potential peace deal,” he said.

“Seeing these heinous attacks on civilians and civilian installations creates a negative mood among the public and the government will also have to take on a harsh approach to manage people’s expectations.”

The Taliban said it was not involved in the incident that took place at Afghanistan’s biggest university, but several education centres have been attacked over the years by armed groups, including ISIL (ISIS).

Last year, a bomb outside the campus gates on Kabul University killed eight people.

In 2016, 13 people were killed when gunmen attacked the American University in Kabul.

At least 24 students were killed last month when ISIL fighters carried out a suicide bombing at an education centre in the capital’s Shia-majority neighbourhood of Dashte Barchi.

Violence has plagued Afghanistan while government and Taliban negotiators have been meeting in Qatar to try to broker a peace deal that would allow the United States to withdraw its troops and end its longest war.

The intra-Afghan talks came after the US and Taliban signed an agreement in February to end hostilities and work towards peace.

As part of the deal, the US agreed to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban pledged to honour American security interests.

The Taliban has been waging a deadly armed rebellion since it was toppled from power in 2001 in a US-led invasion.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/2/gunshots-fired-inside-kabul-university-officials
 
Afghan government and Taliban representatives said they have reached a preliminary deal to press on with peace talks, their first written agreement in 19 years of war.

The agreement on Wednesday lays out the way forward for further discussion but is considered a breakthrough because it will allow negotiators to move on to more substantive issues, including talks on a ceasefire.

“The procedure including its preamble of the negotiation has been finalised and from now on, the negotiation will begin on the agenda,” Nader Nadery, a member of the Afghan government’s negotiating team, told Reuters.

The Taliban spokesman confirmed the same on Twitter.

US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad said that the two sides had agreed on a “three-page agreement codifing rules and procedures for their negotiations on a political road map and a comprehensive ceasefire”.

The agreement comes after months of discussions in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in negotiations encouraged by the United States. In Afghanistan, the two sides are still at war, with Taliban attacks on government forces continuing unabated.

The Taliban has refused to agree to a ceasefire during the preliminary stages of talks, despite calls from Western capitals and global bodies, saying that would be taken up only when the way forward for talks was agreed upon.

United Nations envoy for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons welcomed the “positive development” on Twitter, adding that “this breakthrough should be a springboard to reach the peace wanted by all Afghans”.

Last month, an agreement reached between Taliban and government negotiators was held up at the last minute after the Taliban baulked at the document’s preamble because it mentioned the Afghan government by name.

The Taliban refused to refer to the Afghan negotiating team as representatives of the Afghan government, as they contest the legitimacy of the administration led by President Ashraf Ghani.

A European Union diplomat familiar with the process told Reuters that both sides had kept some contentious issues on the side to deal with separately.

“Both sides also know that Western powers are losing patience and aid has been conditional … so both sides know they have to move forward to show some progress,” said the diplomat, requesting anonymity.

In a statement on Wednesday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry welcomed the agreement and said it was “another significant step forward”.

“The agreement reflects a common resolve of the parties to secure a negotiated settlement. It is an important development contributing towards a successful outcome of intra-Afghan negotiations, which we all hope for,” it said.

The Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 by US-led forces. A US-backed government has held power in Afghanistan since then, although the Taliban have control over wide areas of the country.

Under a February deal, foreign forces are to leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the Taliban.

US President Donald Trump has looked to hasten the withdrawal, despite criticism, saying he wanted to see all American soldiers home by Christmas to end the US’s longest war.

The Trump administration has since announced that there would be a sharp drawdown by January, but at least 2,500 troops would remain beyond then.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Tuesday warned NATO against withdrawing troops prematurely and said it should “ensure that we tie further troop reductions in Afghanistan to clear conditions”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...ban-announce-breakthrough-deal-in-peace-talks
 
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