As the renewed round of peace negotiation talks between the US and the Taliban entered their fifth day in Qatar, the group in a statement on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a deadly attack near Bagram base in the northern province of Parwan.
Two civilians were killed and 73 people were wounded–mostly civilians–in the coordinated attack.
There are concerns that such attacks could have a negative impact on the peace process.
Meanwhile, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai in an interview with the Associated Press criticized the US for continuing what he described as heavy military operations while asking for a ceasefire.
“The Americans have been calling for a ceasefire for the past year, (yet) while they were calling for a ceasefire they were conducting the heaviest of their operations ever in Afghanistan as well. That’s a contradiction,” AP quoted the former president as saying.
This comes after the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad on Saturday resumed talks with the Taliban. The previous peace efforts crashed in September after US president Donald Trump, in a surprise move, called off the talks with the group following an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier.
“From the beginning of these talks the Americans had some fears that perhaps those circles of the Taliban that are considered the most hardline ones, who do not endorse peace talks either with the Americans or with the Afghan government and instead prefer to reimpose their … system through the military way, might carry out attacks to sabotage the talks,” said Afghan journalist Sami Yousufzai.
“As we saw the last time, we do not want the process to be stopped again. On the contrary, we are hopeful that these talks will reach some sort of final conclusion,” said MP Ismail Atiq.
“This (today’s attack) reflects two issues, first this shows multilateralism at the leadership level of the Taliban and secondly this shows that there are other armed groups besides the Taliban,” said Mir Haidar Afazali, head of the Afghan parliament’s defense committee.
