A significant decrease has been witnessed in the Taliban’s attacks in major Afghan cities since the beginning of peace talks between their representatives and US special envy on Afghan peace, Zalmay Khalilzad, Afghan Islamic Press reported.
Citing high-ranking security sources, the news agency said that Taliban negotiators had promised US officials not to carry out attacks in major cities of Afghanistan.
When the US-Taliban talks started for the first time, the US asked to first stop attacks in the major cities if they were committed to peace, the source said.
According to the sources, the Taliban agreed to the US demand and stopped the attacks.
Military analyst General Attiqullah Amarkhil, however, believe that the Taliban have lost their power to conduct attacks in cities.
The security forces have been conducting offensive operations for the last several months and have targeted numerous Taliban leaders since then, he said.
He said the Taliban lost tens of key commanders over the past three month and these were the people who were leading the war, adding the problem in the leadership of the war automatically change the nature of the war.
He said every side try to show themselves strong during the peace talks but the Taliban who have still stuck to their stance of not holding talks with the Afghanistan have weakened.
Similarly, he said, international pressure on Pakistan and other supporters of Taliban were also effective.
Afghan interior ministry claimed that the Taliban have been weakened as they lost more than 500 gunmen during separate operations last month.
Nasrat Rahimi, acting spokesman of interior ministry, told AIP that the nature of Afghan forces operations has changed as their operations are offense now.
Stopping the Taliban attacks from attacks in major cities was a big achievement of Afghan security forces, he added.
Though the Taliban attacks often decrease in winter, no respite was witnessed in their attacks since the last three years. Reports posted on the Taliban official website “Voice of Jihad” show that their daily military operations have considerably decreased since the beginning of their talks with US.
