*KABUL: *The Taliban launched their annual spring offensive on Wednesday,in an apparent rejection of calls for the militants to take up the Afghangovernment’s offer of peace talks.
Operation Al Khandaq – named after a famous seventh century battle inMedina in which Muslim fighters defeated “infidel” invaders – will targetUS forces and “their intelligence agents” as well as their “internalsupporters”, a Taliban statement said.
The Taliban said the offensive was partly a response to US President DonaldTrump’s new strategy for Afghanistan announced last August, which gave USforces more leeway to go after insurgents.
The annual spring offensive traditionally marks the start of the so-calledfighting season, though this winter the Taliban continued to battle Afghanand US forces.
The group also launched a series of devastating attacks in the Afghancapital Kabul, killing and wounding hundreds of civilians.
Al Khandaq will mainly focus on “crushing, killing and capturing Americaninvaders and their supporters”, the Taliban said.
It added the presence of American bases “sabotages all chances of peace”and were key to “prolonging the ongoing war”, which began with the US-ledintervention in 2001 that overthrew the Taliban regime.
Afghanistan’s largest militant group has been under pressure to acceptAfghan President Ashraf Ghani’s February offer of peace talks, but thestatement made no mention of the proposal.
Western and Afghan experts said the Taliban announcement was an apparentrejection of the offer and heralded more intense fighting in the drawn-outwar.
“We’re in for a hot and busy summer,” a foreign diplomat in Kabul told AFP.
Afghan political analyst Ahmad Saeedi said the Taliban appeared to considerAmerica’s rejection of the group’s own request for direct peace talks withthe US in February as leaving them with “no other choice but to fight”.
“This year they will try to weaken the (Afghan) government even further.They will try to derail the election process,” the Kabul Universityprofessor told AFP.
“A weak government would eventually mean forcing the US to talk to them.”
Defense ministry spokesperson Mohammad Radmanish dismissed the Talibanannouncement as “propaganda”.
The US-backed Afghan government is under pressure on multiple fronts thisyear as it prepares to hold long-delayed legislative elections even as itssecurity forces struggle to get the upper hand on the battlefield andprevent civilian casualties.
On Sunday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd outside a voterregistration centre in Kabul, killing 60 people and wounding 129, accordingto the latest figures from the health ministry.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bomb, but Westernand Afghan officials suspect Islamic State receives assistance from othergroups, including the Taliban’s Haqqani Network, to carry out attacks. -APP/AFP