Afghan Fighting Intensifies Amid Peace Talks

Date: 08 September 2020 - 22:01

News ID: ۸۲۵۶۶

KABUL (Dispatches) – Fighting in Afghanistan has intensified as over 70 people have been killed over the past 24 hours amid preparations for talks to end the war in the conflict-battered country, officials said Tuesday.
Afghan warplanes have targeted the Taliban hideouts in Pashtrod district of the western Farah province, killing 16 militants and wounding 11 others since Monday, said an army statement released on Tuesday.
In another incident, the armed militants gunned down an army soldier in Jawand district of the relatively troubled Badghis province Tuesday morning, member of provincial council Khan Jan Zafar confirmed.
Fighting between security forces and the Taliban outfit, according to security officials, have claimed the lives of more than 50 fighters with majority of them militants, and dozens other injured in other parts of the country over the period.
Both the Taliban and Afghan forces have intensified activities amid efforts to bring the warring sides into negotiating table.
U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad held a meeting in Doha with the head of the new Taliban team due to open talks with a team representing the Afghan government, the militant group said on Tuesday.
The negotiations are to begin in Doha after the release of the last half-dozen or so of 5,000 Taliban prisoners.
The Afghan negotiators had been expected to fly from Kabul to Doha this week, but are awaiting a signal from the Afghan government that the release - to which Western governments have objected - is going ahead.
In Doha, the head of the Taliban’s political office, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and the new head of the Taliban’s negotiating team, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, met with Khalilzad and Qatar’s deputy prime minister on Monday, Taliban spokesman Dr Mohammad Naeem said in a statement shared on Twitter.
"Issues related to the prisoners’ release and immediate start of the intra-Afghan talks were discussed,” Naeem said.