Taliban says it will continue fighting after Trump negotiations cancelled

The Taliban on Tuesday vowed to continue fighting against US forces in Afghanistan after President Donald Trump said talks with insurgents were “dead,” saying Washington would regret abandoning negotiations.

“We had two ways to end occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihad and fighting, the other was talks and negotiations,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.

“If Trump wants to stop talks, we will take the first way and they will soon regret it.”

President Donald Trump  said on Monday that US peace talks with the Taliban are over and announced that the US military has dramatically scaled up attacks on the insurgents in Afghanistan.

“They are dead. As far as I am concerned, they are dead,” Trump said at the White House about the long-running attempt to reach an agreement with the Taliban and extricate US troops from the country after 18 years of war.

Speaking at a news conference in Kabul on Sunday, Sadiq Sediqi, a spokesman for President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, that the Afghan people would never accept an incomplete peace deal with the Taliban that results in their death.

Sediqi said that the Taliban leaders staying in Qatar for peace talks were “having [a] honeymoon in Doha,” adding that the “Taliban leaders [send] orders from Qatar to kill Afghans.”