WASHINGTON – United States President Donald Trump on Monday said that USpeace talks with the Taliban are over and announced that the US militaryhas dramatically scaled up attacks on the insurgents in Afghanistan.

“They are dead. As far as I am concerned, they are dead,” Trump said at theWhite House about the long-running attempt to reach an agreement with theTaliban and extricate US troops from the country after 18 years of war.

The announcement followed Trump’s dramatic cancellation of a secret plan tofly Taliban leaders in for direct talks at the Camp David presidentialretreat over the weekend.

Driving another nail into the coffin of what had appeared to be nearlycompleted negotiations, Trump said that a US military onslaught on theguerrillas was now at its fiercest in a decade.

“Over the last four days, we have been hitting our enemy harder than at anytime in the last ten years!” he said in a tweet.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that “we’ve killed over athousand Taliban in just the last 10 days.”

Trump angrily denied that the whiplash effect of his sudden shifts onAfghanistan was causing turmoil.

Until this weekend, there had been steadily mounting expectations of a dealthat would see the US draw down troop levels in Afghanistan. In return, theTaliban would offer security guarantees to keep extremist groups out.

But then on Saturday, Trump revealed that he had canceled an unprecedentedmeeting between the Taliban and himself at storied Camp David, nearWashington. He said this was in retaliation for the killing of a US soldierby the Taliban last week.

The cancelation — announced on Twitter — was the first time most Americanslearned that such a dramatic meeting was even planned.

Many in Washington were shocked and some were angry that the Taliban hadbeen on the point of visiting the presidential retreat on the eve of theanniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

There was also widespread consternation at the characteristicallyunpredictable manner of Trump’s negotiating style. But Trump denied anydiscord among government members including Vice President Mike Pence.

He accused journalists of trying “to create the look of turmoil in theWhite House, of which there is none.”

“A lot of Fake News is being reported that I overruled the VP and variousadvisers on a potential Camp David meeting with the Taliban. This Story isFalse! I always think it is good to meet and talk, but in this case Idecided not to,” he tweeted. -APP/AFP