Afghanistan

A top Afghan official leading peacemaking efforts with the Taliban said Wednesday that he would be open to discussing formation of an interim government with the Islamist insurgent group when the two sides begin long-awaited peace negotiations.

Afghanistan’s security forces have suffered their bloodiest week so far in the 19-year-old Afghan war. The Afghanistan's National Security Council said 291 members of Afghan National and Defense Security Forces (ANDSF) were killed and 550 others wounded in multiple Taliban attacks last week.

On Taliban-Al Qaeda ties, the NATO chief said: “The Taliban has to break ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.”

Afghanistan’s warring sides have agreed to open long-awaited peace talks in Qatar, possibly later this month, to negotiate a sustainable cease-fire and political settlement to years of conflict in Afghanistan.

[…]The decision, announced on Thursday by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, defence secretary, Mark Esper and attorney general, William Barr, targets ICC officials investigating war crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan by all sides, including the US, and will also see visa restrictions imposed on their families.

The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan sounded upbeat on Monday about the chances for peace talks starting between the Kabul government and the Taliban militant group but suggested further prisoner releases were needed first.

A new United Nations report says that the Taliban assured al Qaeda that it would maintain their close links despite the "peace" deal with the organization which the Trump administration has touted as signifying a break between the Taliban and the terror group responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks. "The senior leadership of Al-Qaida remains present in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of armed operatives, Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, and groups of foreign terrorist fighters aligned with the Taliban," the UN report said, estimating that some 400 to 600 armed al Qaeda operatives are currently in Afghanistan.

The US military withdrawal from Afghanistan is considerably ahead of schedule, an official told AFP on Wednesday, as President Donald Trump reiterated calls for the Pentagon to bring troops home. The developments came as questions loomed over the next phase of Afghanistan’s long war following a historic, three-day ceasefire that led to a major drop in civilian casualties.

A Taliban delegation has arrived in Kabul for talks over a prisoner swap, just hours after Afghan officials blamed the militant group for two deadly attacks in the country’s north and west.