Kabul
Taliban and Afghan government forces clashed across Afghanistan hours after the start of long-awaited peace talks in Doha on Saturday. As officials said this underscored the uphill challenge of settling a 19-year insurgency.
“With the start of intra-Afghan talks we were expecting the Taliban to reduce the number of their attacks, but unfortunately their attacks are still going in high numbers,” Fawad Aman, a spokesperson for the Afghan defence ministry, said.
Representatives from a number of countries who spoke at the inauguration of the peace talks called on the Taliban to announce an immediate ceasefire before negotiators sat down to find a way to end decades of war in Afghanistan.
No meeting between the two has been reported by either side in Doha on Sunday, but Qatar’s state news agency reported teams led by Taliban’s political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Abdullah had met the Qatari Emir.
Aman said that, on Friday, the eve of the inauguration of the talks, the Taliban had carried out 18 attacks against government forces and installations across the country, inflicting heavy casualties.“We don’t have exact information about Taliban attacks on Saturday, but I can say the number of attacks has increased intead of decreased”. Taliban attacks on Saturday night were confirmed by officials in the provinces of Kapsia and Kunduz.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that the insurgent group attacked a convoy of Afghan forces that had arrived to launch an operation along a key highway in Kunduz.
