Taliban putting pressure to return to negotiating table

Ahmed Sultan

In early September, Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation at the US State Department, Zalmay Khalilzad, unveiled an initial agreement for peace with the Talibn, for the first time after 18 years of fighting against the group.

Nonetheless, the same agreement collapsed less than a week later when US President Donald Trump said his country would suspend negotiations with the Taliban.

Trump also cancelled out an expected meeting with the leaders of the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. He said he had to cancel out negotiations with the Afghan group after it staged an attack on US troops and killed one soldier.

Strategy

The Taliban staged a series of bloody attacks ahead of Trump’s decision to suspend negotiations with it.

The attacks mainly targeted Afghan police and army personnel as well as the troops of the US-led alliance in Afghanistan.

The Taliban was thinking that the US wanted to pull out of Afghanistan at any cost, think tank, Middle East Center for Studies, said. This was why it stepped up its attacks against US troops.

Meanwhile, the international intelligence organization, Soufan Group, said the Taliban negotiates and fights at one and the same time.

The group, Soufan said, maintained its attacks in order to practice maximum pressure on the US.

Last card

The Taliban launched two attacks on two polling stations in Qandahar and Jalalabad before the September 28 presidential elections. The two attacks left 16 people injured.

The organization issued a statement earlier, in which it warned voters against participating in the elections.

The Taliban said it would attack polling stations.