KABUL: The Taliban have attacked a third provincial capital in Afghanistanin less than a week, with an overnight assault on the western city ofFarah, a provincial governor said Friday as a US envoy was back in Qatarfor further talks on a US-Taliban deal to end America’s longest war.Mohammad Shoaib Sabet said there was no immediate word of casualties andthat airstrikes had been carried out against the militant group.

This week’s spike in violence, including two shattering Taliban carbombings in the capital, Kabul, comes as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad says heand the insurgents have reached a deal “in principle” that would begin a UStroop pullout in exchange for Taliban counterterror guarantees.Khalilzad abruptly returned to Qatar, where the Taliban have a politicaloffice, from Kabul for more talks on Thursday evening, even though earlierin the week he said the deal only needed President Donald Trump’s approvalto be final.

Objections to the agreement raised by the Afghan government and severalformer US ambassadors to Afghanistan, and the death of a US service memberin the latest Kabul bombing on Thursday, have increased pressure onKhalilzad in recent days.House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel has demanded that theenvoy testify before the House committee about the negotiations, sayingthat “I do not consider your testimony at this hearing optional.”

Few details have emerged from the nine rounds of US-Taliban talks thatended last weekend. Khalilzad has said the first 5,000 US troops wouldwithdraw from five bases in Afghanistan within 135 days of a final deal.Between 14,000 and 13,000 troops are currently in the country.However, the Taliban want all of the approximately 20,000 US and NATOtroops out of Afghanistan immediately.

The US for its part seeks Taliban guarantees that they will not allowAfghanistan to become a haven from which extremist groups such as Al-Qaedaand the local affiliate of the Daesh group can launch global attacks.