Taliban Leaders: Peace With US Won’t Stop Attacks on Afghan Forces

Commanders say deal was US would stop supporting Ghani govt

Taliban commanders anonymously quoted in the press are claiming that their reported peace deal with the US would not require them to stop carrying out attacks on he Afghan government, but would require the US to stop coming to the aid of the Ghani government.

If this was true, it would be very surprising, as all indications were that the peace deal was intended to be followed quickly with a ceasefire across Afghanistan while US troops are withdrawing, and power-sharing talks.

Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the treated, says this is not true, and that the US would defend the Afghan forces even after any peace deal, and that the future would be decided in intra-Afghan negotiations.

Since there is no publicly available deal yet, anonymous “commanders” can allege it to say anything they want. Since the broad terms haven’t been known to have changed for months, however, it is reasonable to assume that such dramatic changes weren’t tacked on at the last minute like this.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.