Bagram Air Base attack: Four US soldiers killed as US seeks talks with Taliban
Bagram Air Base attack: The Taliban killed four US soldiers overnight, as the US sought talks with the militant group. The Bagram Air Base attack infuriated Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Bagram Air Base attack: The Taliban killed four US soldiers overnight, as the US sought talks with the militant group. The Bagram Air Base attack infuriated Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
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The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack that killed four American troops and the Afghan government announced it was suspending negotiations with the US on an extended troop agreement today, casting a double shadow over peace talks between the US and the Taliban scheduled to begin tomorrow.
Sky News reports that the Taliban acknowledged it was behind a rocket attack last night on Bagram Air Base, launched just hours after the US announced it would be holding peace talks with the Islamist group on Thursday. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid聽said: "Last night two big rockets were launched at Bagram which hit the target. Four soldiers are dead and six others are wounded. The rockets caused a major fire."
A senior defense official confirmed to NBC News that the four killed were Americans.
Separately, the US and Afghanistan had been discussing an extended presence for American troops in the country past 2014, when NATO forces are set to withdraw from all combat operations in the country. But in a statement released by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office, the government said today that it was suspending those talks "in view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the peace process."
Although the initial statement did not elaborate on the contradiction, a senior Afghan official told Reuters that the issue was over the "official identity" being given to the Taliban, who opened an office in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday.
The BBC's Jonathan Beale, however, reports that the real issue is anger at Afghanistan not being included in the US-Taliban talks.
The deadly Bagram attack and the Afghan government's anger cast a pall over the planned Taliban talks, which US officials had been optimistic about. 海角大神 reported yesterday that the US was cautiously upbeat over a Taliban statement "committing to two principles that the United States had been calling on the Taliban to publicly adopt: One is simply that the Taliban support an Afghan peace process, while the second is that they oppose the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries" -- the latter meant by the US as a reference to sheltering groups like Al Qaeda.
But the Monitor adds that even if Taliban negotiators are on board with such principles, that commitment may not extend to fighters on the ground -- a concern underscored by the Bagram attack last night.