KABUL: At least 20 soldiers are believed to have been killed and others injured during a Taliban attack on a key Afghan-US military base in Helmand province on Friday.
The pre-dawn assault on the Shorab compound came during a pause in peace talks between Taliban and US officials in the Qatari capital Doha.
Militants, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, engaged in a heavy firefight with Afghan forces at the base where US troops are also stationed.
Officials in Helmand later claimed that all nine of the assailants who had taken part in the raid were killed, and there were no reports of any US military casualties.
The Shorab attack is the first major one to be conducted by the Taliban since the group began direct peace talks with US diplomats in a bid to bring an end to the long-running conflict in Afghanistan.
It came as Taliban and US negotiators — led by Washington’s special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad — took a break from their latest round of discussions in Doha, which both sides have described as positive.
Ahead of the talks, the Taliban had said that the focus of the meeting was the total withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, with the insurgents guaranteeing that Afghan soil would never again be used against US interests or any other nation.
Citing US and European officials with knowledge about the progress of the Doha talks, The New York Times reported that the US was looking at keeping its troops in Afghanistan for up to five years, with the Taliban agreeing to join a provisional government.
However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the report was propaganda by the “anti-peace crowd” with Afghans “inching closer toward peace.”
In a statement Mujahid said: “No talks have been held in the meetings regarding an interim government and elections, nor has the US side proposed anything regarding staying in Afghanistan for four or five years.”
On the Shorab assault, another Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, said the attackers had caused serious damage to a fleet of helicopters inside the base.
But Helmand governorate officials denied Ahmadi’s account, adding that nine assailants had taken part in the attack and all of them had been killed.
Despite the peace talks, fighting has continued to take place in Afghanistan between the Taliban and US-backed Afghan forces.
Former Afghan diplomat Ahmad Saeedi said the Shorab attack and previous military pushes were normal attempts to try and gain an upper hand in negotiations.
“Whenever peace talks reach an important stage, the warring sides try to have military gains so they can bargain at the peace table from a position of strength,” Saeedi told Arab News.
At least 20 soldiers killed in Taliban attack on Afghan-US base
At least 20 soldiers killed in Taliban attack on Afghan-US base
- Helmand officials deny death toll claiming all 9 militant attackers were killed
- Deadly assault comes during break in Taliban-US peace talks
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
