Decision overturns earlier rejection of request to examine actions of US soldiers
Senior judges at the international criminal court have authorised an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, overturning an earlier rejection of the inquiry.
The ICC investigation will look at actions by US, Afghan and Taliban troops. It is possible, however, that allegations relating to UK troops could emerge in that process.
Continue reading...Call with official whom Trump mistakenly called ‘leader of the Taliban’ is first direct exchange between a US president and insurgent leadership since 2001
Donald Trump has spoken by telephone to a senior Taliban official at a time when a row over prisoner exchanges and a fresh outbreak of violence jeopardised a historic US-Taliban peace agreement signed on Saturday.
The conversation between Trump and the head of the Taliban’s political office, Abdul Ghani Baradar, was the first direct exchange between a US president and the insurgent leadership since the US military intervention in Afghanistan began in 2001.
Continue reading...Three people have been killed and 11 injured in a motorcycle bomb attack at a football match in eastern Afghanistan, as the Taliban announced an end to a partial truce two days after signing a deal with the US.
The Taliban had agreed to a week-long “reduction of violence” as a confidence-building measure ahead of the agreement signed on Saturday, in which the US pledged that all foreign forces would leave Afghanistan within 14 months, if the Taliban sat down for talks on Afghanistan’s future with government representatives.
Continue reading...Peace deal will see troops withdrawn from conflict in which 41 Australians, 2,500 Americans and more than 100,000 Afghans were killed
Australia has urged the Taliban to negotiate with the Afghan government “in good faith” as it welcomes the withdrawal of US forces from the war-ravaged country.
The foreign minister, Marise Payne, and the defence minister, Linda Reynolds, issued a joint statement on Sunday welcoming the agreement signed between the United States and the Taliban that will see the 19-year presence of coalition forces come to an end.
Continue reading...Lindsey Graham said he is ‘very suspect of the Taliban’ while John Bolton said signing the agreement is an ‘unacceptable risk’
In Doha on Saturday US secretary of state Mike Pompeo hailed the “historic talks” which led to the signing of an agreement with the Taliban which will see the US begin to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after more than 18 years of war.
But at home in Washington, the deal was not greeted with universal enthusiasm even by allies of Donald Trump such as Lindsey Graham or former aides, among them the former national security adviser John Bolton.
Continue reading...The US and the Taliban have signed a landmark peace agreement after nearly 20 years of war that could result in American troops leaving Afghanistan within 14 months.
The deal also paves the way for talks between Afghans to end one of the longest-running conflicts in the world.
Continue reading...The US and the Taliban have signed a peace agreement aimed at ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan.
According to the agreement, the US will start withdrawing thousands of troops in exchange for Taliban commitments to prevent Afghanistan from being a launchpad for terrorist attacks
Continue reading...A seven-day ‘reduction of violence’ deal will begin on Friday night, Mike Pompeo said, leading to signing of a peace agreement
The US and Taliban are due to sign an agreement on 29 February that will lead to the withdrawal of thousands of US troops and the start of comprehensive peace talks between the Afghan government and the insurgents.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, announced that the agreement would be signed once there has been a week-long “nationwide reduction in violence”, to start at midnight on Friday, according to an understanding reached by US and Taliban negotiators meeting in Doha.
Continue reading...US secretary of state calls for significant drop in violence before formal peace talks can begin
Mike Pompeo has hailed “a pretty important breakthrough” in Afghan peace talks, as officials confirmed that the Taliban had agreed to a partial week-long ceasefire as a precursor to broader peace talks and the withdrawal of at least some US troops.
But the US secretary of state said that Washington still wanted to see a significant reduction in violence before formal negotiations could begin. “If we can get there – if we can hold that posture for a while – then we’ll be able to begin the real, serious discussion which is all the Afghans sitting at a table,” Pompeo said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Two US service members were killed and two injured when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, the US military said on Saturday.
In keeping with defense department rules, the military did not identify the service members.
Continue reading...A key theme of the trove of documents published this week was the lack of coherence in Washington’s approach to Afghanistan from the outset
In the midst of Barack Obama’s much-vaunted military surge against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2010, Hayam Mohammed, an elder from Panjwai near the Pakistani border confronted an officer from the US 101st Airborne who had come into his village.
“You walk here during the day,” the elder told the soldier bitterly as the Observer listened. “But at night [the Taliban] come bringing night letters” – threats targeting those collaborating with foreign forces.
Continue reading...Interviews with key insiders reveal damning verdict on conflict that cost 2,300 US lives
Hundreds of confidential interviews with key figures involved in prosecuting the 18-year US war in Afghanistan have revealed that the US public has been consistently misled about an unwinnable conflict.
Transcripts of the interviews, published by the Washington Post after a three-year legal battle, were collected for a Lessons Learned project by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar), a federal agency whose main task is eliminating corruption and inefficiency in the US war effort.
Continue reading...Australian teacher thanks those who helped free him and says he formed tight bonds with some of his captors
Freed Taliban hostage Timothy Weeks says he never gave up hope he would be rescued during three “long and tortuous” years in captivity in Afghanistan.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his release as part of a complex prisoner swap almost two weeks ago, the Australian teacher thanked all those who helped secure his freedom, and said he had formed extraordinarily tight bonds with some of his Taliban captors.
Continue reading...Trump claims US-Taliban talks are back on but it is unclear if key disputes have been settled
Donald Trump says talks with the Taliban are back on but it is unclear if the disputes that hobbled the last attempt to reach a peace deal – cancelled by a presidential tweet in September – have been resolved.
The insurgent group responded to Trump by telling Agence France-Presse it was “way too early” to discuss resuming direct talks.
Continue reading...Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to US troops in Afghanistan on Thursday, his first visit to the country where the US has been at war since late 2001.
Related: Fired navy secretary blasts Trump over 'shocking' handling of Navy seal case
Continue reading...Afghan president Ghani hopes move will help secure release of American and Australian
Afghanistan’s president says he has ordered the release of three Taliban fighters in an effort to persuade the insurgent group to free a kidnapped American and Australian professor.
Timothy Weekes, an English teacher from Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, and Kevin King, from Pennsylvania, were abducted three years ago from outside American University of Afghanistan in Kabul by fighters in military uniform.
Continue reading...State blames Taliban for blasts targeting worshippers during Friday prayers
Police and local residents were searching for bodies in the rubble of a mosque in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, after bomb blaststhat killed at least 69 people during Friday prayers.
The explosives had been placed inside the mosque in the Jawdara area of Haska Mena district.
Continue reading...Canadian Joshua Boyle was described as manipulative and abusive to his American wife after they returned from Afghanistan
Canadian prosecutors have described Joshua Boyle as manipulative and abusive, dismissing the former hostage’s testimony as a “fictional, self-serving narrative” as the crown began its closing arguments in the high-profile trial.
On Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors attacked the credibility of Boyle, who, along with his American wife Caitlan Coleman, spent five years as captives of a Taliban-linked militia after they were kidnapped in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Bomb wounds 15, despite 70,000 police and troops at polling stations, and turnout set to be low
Afghanistan’s presidential polls have closed amid accusations of fraud and misconduct. Insurgent attacks aimed at disrupting voting in the country’s north and south caused dozens of casualties.
An upsurge in violence in the run-up to the elections, following the collapse of US-Taliban talks to end America’s longest war, had already rattled Afghanistan in the past weeks. Yet many voters yesterday expressed equal frustration over relentless government corruption and widespread chaos at polling stations.
Continue reading...Incumbent president says election is vital to give government a democratic mandate in talks with Taliban
Afghanistan must choose a new president this week, but every election over the last decade has been riddled with fraud and marred by violence, and fears are growing that the poll on may be the worst yet.
It comes as the war is raging with unprecedented intensity. Last week alone, dozens were killed when the Taliban flattened a hospital in an attack in the south, and a US drone strike hit a group harvesting pine nuts in the east. And looming over the poll is the future of controversial US efforts to negotiate a troop withdrawal with the Taliban, suspended after a tweet by President Donald Trump but not entirely dead.
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