Category Archives: Taliban

Australia welcomes US-Taliban agreement on Afghanistan troop withdrawal

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Peace deal will see troops withdrawn from conflict in which 41 Australians, 2,500 Americans and more than 100,000 Afghans were killed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.

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Mike Pompeo hails Taliban agreement as Trump allies voice concerns

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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.

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US and Taliban sign deal to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan

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  • US troops could leave Afghanistan within 14 months
  • Taliban agree to peace talks with other Afghans

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.

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US and Taliban sign deal to withdraw troops from Afghanistan – video

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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

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US and Taliban to sign deal paving way for troop pullout and peace talks

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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.

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Pompeo touts partial ceasefire with Taliban in push for election-year troop reduction

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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.

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Two US military service members killed in Afghanistan

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  • Roadside bomb explosion seems certain to stall Taliban talks
  • Two US service members wounded, military says

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.

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Afghanistan papers detail US dysfunction: ‘We did not know what we were doing’

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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.

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Afghanistan papers reveal US public were misled about unwinnable war

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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.

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Freed Taliban hostage Timothy Weeks says he never gave up hope

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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.

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Afghanistan’s road to peace still full of obstacles

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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.

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Donald Trump says Taliban talks back on in surprise Afghanistan visit

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  • President makes Thanksgiving visit to airbase near Kabul
  • Confirms talks with extremists have resumed

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

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Taliban prisoners released in bid to free western kidnap victims

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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.

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Afghanistan mosque bombing: death toll rises

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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.

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Prosecutors slam ‘fictional’ testimony of man accused of abusing wife after Taliban ordeal

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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.

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Afghanistan polls close after day of violence, fraud claims and chaos

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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.

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‘Voting means you’re crazy’: violence and fraud overshadow Afghanistan poll

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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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Afghanistan: dozens dead as country is rocked by triple attacks – video report

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At least nine people have been wounded in eastern Afghanistan by a suicide bomber and gunmen in an attack on Wednesday, that came 24 hours after two other attacks in the country left more than 48 people dead.  

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attacks, while no one has yet said they were behind Wednesday’s attack. 

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Man held hostage by Taliban-linked group says wife is ‘incompetent mother’

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Joshua Boyle, charged with sexual assault, tells court estranged wife Caitlan Coleman was unfit to parent the their four children

The Canadian man who spent five years held hostage in Afghanistan with his American wife has accused her of “incompetence” as a mother as his trial for sexual assault nears its conclusion.

Related: Canadian man held hostage by Taliban denies assaulting wife after release

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Donald Trump’s cancelled Taliban talks are typical of a president who blows hot and cold

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President’s snakes-and ladders approach to diplomacy raises eyebrows in Kabul and Washington

Donald Trump’s boundless faith in his own magnetism and negotiating skills has taken a knock after the cancellation of his bizarre plans for talks with Taliban chiefs. Most Afghans, including the president, Ashraf Ghani, can live with that. Since they believe Trump was selling them out, they will be glad the talks bombed.

The fact that Trump secretly planned a personal meeting with a murderous group proscribed by the US as terrorists days before the 18th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks that they assisted, is said to have raised eyebrows in Washington. That’s diplomat-speak for shock-horror.

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