US steps up campaign to kill Taliban insurgents
‘If you’re the Taliban, conditions have been worsening – and they’re about to get worse’
US FORCES are preparing to redouble efforts to kill Taliban commanders in Afghanistan, in an attempt to put more pressure on the insurgents after Donald Trump called off negotiations.
US commanders are expected to step up the tempo of their campaign of airstrikes and raids targeting militant leaders, military sources said.
The Taliban is expected to respond with its own increase in operations, leaving Afghanistan braced for intensified violence in the coming weeks.
“[The Americans] have said they are really going to go after their leaders now, ” said one source.
Both sides refused to halt fighting while talks continued in Doha over the past year, as they attempted to convert military pressure into negotiating strength. “In the last 10 days we’ve killed over 1,000 Taliban,” said Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, after Mr Trump cancelled talks. “If you’re the Taliban, conditions have been worsening – and they’re about to get worse,” he added.
Asked if that meant a rise in military activity, he said: “No one should underestimate President Trump’s commitment to achieving those goals.”
Mr Trump tweeted yesterday: “We have been serving as policemen in Afghanistan, and that was not meant to be the job of our Great Soldiers, the finest on Earth. Over the last four days, we have been hitting our Enemy hard, harder than at any time in the last ten years!”
The Taliban continued its own campaign of indiscriminate bombing during the talks and warned that Mr Trump’s cancellation of negotiations would lead to more bloodshed.
The move “will harm America more than anyone else”, the group said in a statement. “It will damage its reputation, unmask its anti-peace policy to the world even more, increase its loss of life and treasure, and present its political interactions as erratic.”
Scattered violence continued across the country yesterday. A roadside bomb blast in the capital Kabul wounded three civilians. The Taliban claimed responsibility for attacks on at least two districts of north-eastern Takhar province overnight, and a heavy gun battle continued in the district of Khwaja Ghar.
The main highway between Kabul and the capital of the northern province of Baghlan remained blocked, a week after the Taliban attacked Pul-e Khumri, and gun battles continued.
Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr Trump’s lead negotiator, last week announced that a deal had been finalised “in principle”, which would involve US troops beginning to withdraw from America’s longest war. Mr Trump had invited both the insurgents and the Afghan government to a meeting at his presidential retreat, Camp David, where he hoped to seal the deal and make a grand announcement. Mr Trump said he cancelled the gathering after a Taliban bomb blast killed a US soldier. But the Taliban said it had rejected the invitation, refusing to appear alongside the Afghan government, which it denounces as a US puppet regime.
President Trump said talks with the Taliban “were dead. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead.”
The Taliban said it stood by talks: “We called for dialogue 20 years earlier and maintain the same stance today and believe America shall return to this position also.”