U.S. strikes Taliban after accord

WASHINGTON — U.S. warplanes carried out an airstrike against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, just days after the two sides signed a tentative peace agreement that now seems at risk.

The U.S. planes targeted militants in Helmand province who were assaulting a checkpoint held by the Afghan army, according to Col. Sonny Leggett, a military spokesman in Kabul. He called it a “defensive strike” to aid an ally, the Afghan government.

“We are committed to peace. However we have the responsibility to defend our ... partners,” Leggett said in a tweet. Taliban fighters “appear intent on squandering this (opportunity) and ignoring the will of the people for peace.”

The incident underscored the fragility of the U.S.-Taliban agreement. Heralded by President Donald Trump, who is determined to end the war in an election year, the accord calls for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan within 14 months and for the Taliban and the Afghan government, which was not a party to the accord, to hold talks later this month on a ceasefire and a final settlement of the nearly twodecade-old conflict.

That blueprint appears threatened by the resurgence in violence and other festering disputes. Chief among them is whether Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will release as many as 5,000 Taliban prisoners before the talks begin, a Taliban demand that Ghani has so far rebuffed.

The U.S.-Taliban accord calls on both sides and the Afghan government to avoid conflict, continuing a pause in violence that began as a confidence-building step a week before the agreement was signed in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday.

But Taliban leaders appear to have decided that Trump is so eager to bring the 12,000 American forces home that he will not pull out of the deal as long as the militant group confines its attacks to Afghan government forces.

On Monday the group’s leaders ordered their fighters in a letter to resume attacks on the government forces, but not to attack U.S. and other foreign troops. Taliban fighters carried out 43 attacks on the Afghan army on Tuesday alone, Leggett said. The airstrike Wednesday was the first U.S. attack in 11 days, he added.