TALIBAN RAMP UP ATTACKS DESPITE TRUMP CALL

The Taliban have resumed attacks against Afghan forces soon after signing a deal to end their war with the U.S. military, raising concerns that the Americans are leaving their Afghan allies vulnerable to an insurgency unwilling to let go of violence as its main leverage.

The Taliban have carried out at least 76 attacks across 24 Afghan provinces since Saturday, when they finalized an agreement for a troop withdrawal by the United States, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s national security council said. And Wednesday, the United States conducted its first airstrike against the insurgents after an 11-day lull.

A senior Afghan security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Afghan forces had still not resumed their offensive special operations but were remaining on active defense — only targeting Taliban units that were advancing on their outposts.

The deadliest of the dozens of assaults so far were on the outskirts of Kunduz in the north in the early hours of Wednesday. The Taliban’s elite Red Unit stormed Afghan army outposts there from several directions, killing at least 15 Afghan soldiers, according to Lt. Col. Mashuq Kohistani, the commander of the Afghan army battalion in the area.

“We were newly establishing the base, and our soldiers did not have proper trenches to protect themselves,” Kohistani said. “The Taliban killed 15 soldiers, one was wounded, and just two soldiers could escape alive.”

Kohistani said he had arrived at the scene to pick up the bodies in the morning and had found that many of the soldiers had been shot in the head, most likely by sniper fire.

The Kunduz attack came just hours after President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader, who negotiated and signed the agreement with the Americans.

“We’ve agreed there’s no violence. We don’t want violence,” Trump said after the call. “We’ll see what happens.”

Afghan officials have long been concerned that, without some sort of binding ceasefire, the United States’ eagerness to leave Afghanistan might make them vulnerable in future talks with the Taliban.

The wording of the U.S. deal leaves that topic to planned-for direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with few assurances that the insurgency will negotiate in good faith.