6 Nato soldiers killed in Taliban suicide strike at Bagram base near Kabul

The head of Pakistan’s Army is expected in Afghanistan this week in the latest in a series of high- level contacts between Islamabad and Kabul to restart the peace process which was broken off in July

Pakistan- brokered peace talks between Afghanistan and Taliban insurgents could restart in early January after weeks of pressure from partners including the United States and China, officials in Islamabad and Kabul said.

The head of Pakistan’s Army, General Raheel Sharif, is expected in Afghanistan this week in the latest in a series of high- level contacts between Islamabad and Kabul to restart the peace process which was broken off in July.

The aim is to end more than 14 years of war with the Taliban, who held power in Afghanistan until 2001 but were overthrown in a US- backed campaign for harbouring the Al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks. Since then they have waged a potent insurgency against the Kabul government, stepping up their attacks since the pullout of most foreign troops in 2014.

A senior Pakistani official said the resumption of talks should take “not longer than two weeks ... I would say the first week of January we will see the process restart again.”

He said the current plan was for the meetings to be held in Pakistan. The aim was to bring Afghan and Pakistani leaders together with special representatives from China and the United States as well as Taliban representatives.

“The understanding is that all stakeholders should be there, everyone with a stake in this,” said the official, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media on the issue.

According to a Taliban official in the movement’s office in Qatar, Pakistan had also asked deputy Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of a Taliban- affiliated network blamed for a spate of recent suicide attacks in Kabul, to join the talks.

But after repeated failed efforts, prospects for any immediate breakthrough appear distant, with a high risk the process may “crash soon after takeoff”, in the words of one senior

Afghan official who has been closely involved.

“The Taliban are suffering from leadership chaos and the movement is fractured and it is not clear who is going to talk and which side is going to continue to fight,” said the official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Meanwhile, a motorcycleriding Taliban suicide bomber killed six Nato soldiers near Kabul Monday, in a brazen attack as the resurgent militant group battled to seize a key southern district in Afghanistan’s opium-growing heartland.

The military coalition did not disclose the nationality of the soldiers killed in the attack, which highlights a worsening security situation a year after the Nato combat mission ended.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack near Bagram, the largest US military base in Afghanistan, during a joint patrol of Nato and Afghan forces.

“Six ( Nato) service members died as a result of a vehicle- borne improvised explosive device attack,” the US- led coalition said in a statement, adding that three others were wounded. The bombing marks one of the deadliest attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan this year and coincides with a fierce militant offensive to capture the strategic district of Sangin in Helmand province.

Local residents reported crippling food shortages in the district, long seen as a hornet’s nest of insurgent activity, after the Taliban began storming government buildings on Sunday.

“The Taliban have captured the police headquarters, the governor’s office as well as the intelligence agency building in Sangin,” deputy Helmand governor Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar said.

“Fighting is escalating in the district,” he said, claiming the number of soldiers killed in clashes is “unbelievably high”.

Mr Rasoolyar’s comments come a day after he posted a desperate plea on Facebook to President Ashraf Ghani, warning the entire province was at risk of falling to the Taliban. The grim assessment bore striking similarities to the security situation that led to the brief fall of the northern city of Kunduz in September — the biggest Taliban victory in 14 years of war.