Kabul:
The Taliban and Afghan government Monday declared a 3-day ceasefire for this week’s Eid al-Fitr vacation, following a sharp spike in violence as Washington goes about withdrawing its remaining troops from Afghanistan.
Violence has soared given that May 1 — the deadline missed by the United States to withdraw the last of its troops — and although the Taliban have avoided engaging American forces, attacks against government and civilian targets have not stopped.
In the most up-to-date, the interior ministry stated Monday that at least 11 men and women had been killed by a bomb that struck a bus overnight in southeastern Zabul province.
That followed Saturday’s carnage outdoors a college in the capital Kabul when a series of bombs killed at least 50 men and women and wounded more than one hundred — most of them young girls.
Early Monday, the Taliban instructed their fighters “to halt all offensive operations against the enemy countrywide from the first till the third day of Eid”.
That was matched later in the day by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who went additional by urging the Taliban to announce a permanent truce to finish the bloody war.
Eid al-Fitr marks the finish of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and the vacation starts according to the sighting of the new moon.
Permanent ceasefire necessary
The Taliban and government have declared equivalent ceasefires in the previous to mark Islamic holidays.
On Saturday, a series of bombs detonated outdoors a girls’ college in Dasht-e-Barchi, a suburb of Kabul largely populated by the Shiite Hazara neighborhood which is frequently targeted by extremist Sunni Islamist militants.
It was the deadliest attack in more than a year and came as residents had been buying ahead of the Eid vacation.
On Sunday, on a desolate hilltop cemetery, bodies in compact wooden coffins had been lowered into graves, one by one, by mourners nonetheless in shock.
“I rushed to the scene and found myself in the middle of bodies, their hands and heads cut off and bones smashed,” stated Mohammad Taqi, whose two daughters had been students at the college but escaped the attack.
“All of them were girls. Their bodies piled on top of each other.”
‘Why are they fighting Afghans?’
Kabul resident Rashed Hashimi stated the Taliban ought to quit fighting as US forces had been leaving.
“The Taliban were saying they were fighting the foreigners, but now the foreigners are leaving,” he stated. “So, why are they fighting Afghans?”
Political analyst Fawad Kochi stated the ceasefire was a way for the Taliban leadership to give its forces a short respite from fighting that has intensified given that the US troop withdrawal formally commenced on May 1.
“The government will try all possible channels to extend the ceasefire but the Taliban will go back to the battlefield right after Eid,” he stated.
“The Taliban know that a prolonged ceasefire will split them and kill their momentum. They will never want that.”
The Taliban insist they have not carried out attacks in Kabul given that February last year when they signed the deal with Washington that paved the way for peace talks and withdrawal of the remaining US troops.
But they have clashed everyday with Afghan forces in the rugged countryside.
The United States was supposed to have pulled all forces out by May 1, but Washington pushed back the date to September 11 — a move that angered the insurgents.
Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada reiterated in a message released ahead of Eid that any delay in withdrawing the troops was a “violation” of that deal.
“If America again fails to live up to its commitments, then the world must bear witness and hold America accountable for all the consequences,” he warned.
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