U.S. announces brief truce with Taliban

WASHINGTON — Eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end America’s longest war, the Trump administration on Friday announced a modest deal with Taliban militants to reduce violence for a week as a test of the potential for broader peace negotiations.

The Taliban agreed not to use roadside explosive devices, suicide bombs or rockets or otherwise attack for a seven-day period, the start of which was undecided but will be “very soon,” said a senior administration official attending the annual Munich Security Conference with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

“The reduction-of-violence agreement is very specific,” said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in keeping with administration protocol.

It was not clear how the brief respite would give the U.S. and the Afghan government, allies in fighting the Taliban, the confidence necessary to embark on a broader agreement. Asking the Taliban to reduce attacks for a week in the dead of an Afghan winter did not seem like a tall order, military experts said.

Administration officials had announced in September that they were near agreement with the Taliban, and President Donald Trump even spoke of inviting the Taliban to Camp David, the presidential retreat — to the consternation of many congressional Republicans and military leaders. But he abruptly pulled the plug on talks, citing a car bombing in Kabul that killed 12 people, including a U.S. service member.

Several Americans have been killed since then, including two last weekend who were shot by a gunman in an Afghan army uniform.

While Mr. Trump’s 2016 promise to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is one of his chief unfulfilled pledges as he seeks re-election, the official in Munich said it was too soon to announce a pullout of U.S. troops. Any withdrawal would be gradual and could take more than a year, military experts say.

There are roughly 12,000 U.S. military service members in Afghanistan, and about 4,000 troops from other NATO countries, nearly 18 years after the U.S. and its allies entered Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Afghanistan served as a haven for al-Qaida fighters.

“We don’t want Afghanistan to ever become a platform [for terrorism] that threatens the United States and our allies,” the official said. “We’re not looking to be there just to be there.”

Earlier Friday, Mr. Pompeo met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the Munich conference. The two posed for cameras but didn’t take reporters’ questions.

Although the Trump administration and the Taliban leadership have been negotiating off and on for a year, the Afghan government has not joined the talks. Reports from the region quoted Taliban officials saying that “intra-Afghan” talks would begin after the weeklong period of reduced violence, as early as the first week of March.