Two days after a historic signing ceremony between the U.S. and the Taliban, a series of attacks across Afghanistan, a possible new command from the Taliban and a disagreement over releasing Taliban prisoners threaten to derail the peace process.
in Doha, Qatar, where chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad spent a year and a half negotiating with Taliban leaders, lays out a full U.S. withdrawal, if the Taliban meet certain commitments -- to engage in national peace negotiations with other Afghans and to prevent Afghanistan from being a safe haven to terror groups, including al-Qaida, whose operatives were responsible for the Sept. 11th attacks and were harbored by the Taliban.To kick that process off, the U.S.
"We have not made a commitment to release them. It's a sovereign Afghan decision. We will discuss the question of prisoners as part of a peace deal, which has to be comprehensive," Ghani told CNN on Sunday, one day after signing a joint statement with Defense Secretary Mark Esper that says his administration will discuss the"feasibility of releasing significant numbers of prisoners on both sides," but doesn't commit to any number or time frame.
Taliban militants and villagers attend a gathering as they celebrate the peace deal and their victory in the Afghan conflict, Laghman, Afghanistan, March 2, 2020. That commitment to keep violence low is not explicit in the agreement, and instead, the Taliban spokesperson said Monday the reduction had officially ended and they would again attack Afghan security forces, albeit not U.S. forces.
At the Pentagon on Monday, Esper said the U.S. expects the levels of violence to remain reduced, but added that there will be incidents and each one will have to be assessed to see who is responsible.
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