Zarif in Trump reminder: Did you know Netanyahu pushed you into Afghan war, too?

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ran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) and US President Donald Trump

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) and US President Donald Trump

Press TV
September 10, 2019

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reminds the United States that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contributed to the launch of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan before he tried bringing about the Washington-spearheaded war on Iraq.

“Did you know, realDonaldTrump (the name of the US president’s Twitter account), that Netanyahu was also instrumental in pushing the US into the Afghanistan quagmire?” Zarif tweeted on Tuesday.

The tweet incorporated a video showing the Israeli premier’s promoting the Afghan invasion before its realization in 2001 during a congressional hearing in the US.

“His (Netanyahu’s) motto since 1986: Fight to the last American soldier,” Zarif added. He was citing a remark made by the Israeli politician in a book written by him that year, to which Netanyahu himself is seen referring during the hearing.

About 18 years on, Zarif said, the United States is now bogged down in Afghanistan and unable to “get out,” referring to Washington’s inability to strike a peace deal with the Afghan militant group Taliban, which the US overthrew through the invasion but failed to eliminate.

On Monday, Zarif had posted another tweet indicating Netanyahu’s influence in realization of the US-led invasion of Iraq two years after the invasion of Afghanistan.

In that tweet, he pointed to Netanyahu’s remarks back in 2002, during which the Israeli premier promoted a US-led military aggression against the Arab country by claiming that it would hugely benefit the region.

The United States led its allies in the invasion a year later. The war was ensued by devastating chaos in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. The tumultuous aftermath also paved the way for the emergence of Takfiri terrorists in the Middle East.

“Remember his “GUARANTEE” of “positive reverberations” in ’02?” the tweet read, and also incorporated a video of Netanyahu’s giving the pledge.

Taliban: Trump will ‘soon regret’ abandoning Afghan talks

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Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Press TV
September 10, 2019

US President Donald Trump has declared as “dead” so-called peace talks with the Taliban, prompting the militant group to declare war against American forces in Afghanistan, a development that seems to only prolong the 18-year occupation of the country.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said the US military was already pounding Taliban positions in Afghanistan with unprecedented fire.

“They are dead. As far as I am concerned, they are dead,” Trump said, when asked about the long-running talks with the militant group in Qatar.
The talks produced a draft agreement last week that included a substantial US military drawdown from the country after 18 years of occupation, putting in sight an end to what has become the longest war in America’s history.

However, the prospect of peace in Afghanistan collapsed on Saturday, when Trump said he had called off a secret meeting with Taliban leaders in Camp David, outside Washington to discuss the deal.

The decision, Trump said, was his response to a deadly bomb blast by the Taliban, which killed 12 people in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday, including an American soldier.

Trump put another nail in the coffin of the draft agreement, saying his military commanders had already stepped up war against the militant group to the highest levels in a decade.

“Over the last four days, we have been hitting our Enemy harder than at any time in the last ten years!” he wrote in a tweet.

‘US will regret walking away from talks’

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday that the militant group had tried dialogue as one of the two ways available to end the conflict, warning that the other option was armed conflict.

“We had two ways to end occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihad and fighting, the other was talks and negotiations,” Mujahid told AFP.

“If Trump wants to stop talks, we will take the first way and they will soon regret it,” he added.
Trump’s comments echoed those by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said a day earlier that the talks were “dead” because the Taliban “tried to use terror to improve their negotiating position.”

He, too, noted that America’s military operations in Afghanistan were now back on full throttle.

“We’ve killed over a thousand Taliban in just the last 10 days,” he claimed.

US likely to ramp up operations against Taliban: Top general

Meanwhile, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees Washington’s military operations in Afghanistan, said the military was likely to accelerate the pace of its operations against the Taliban.

Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of CENTCOM, said during a visit to Afghanistan that the militants overplayed their hand in the negotiations by resorting to violence.

Seemingly unrepentant, the Taliban, who are today in control of more territory than at any time since 2001 when the group’s rule ended over the country, said Sunday that more American lives would be lost in Afghanistan if the peace talks stop.

McKenzie declined to comment on the Taliban statement but said US troops would not hesitate to hit back.

“We’re certainly not going to sit still and let them carry out some self-described race to victory. That’s not going to happen,” McKenzie told reporters during a stop at Bagram Airfield in northeastern Afghanistan on Monday.

The CENTCOM chief pledged a “spectrum” of attacks against the Taliban, which will also include airstrikes and raids involving Afghan commandos.

Any increase in US military action would correspond to an acceleration of Taliban attacks, he added.

According to a United Nations report that came out on September 3, airstrikes by US-led foreign forces and Afghan aircraft in Afghanistan reached 506 between May 10 and August 8, around 57 percent increase from the same period in 2018.

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Taliban Capture 3 Districts in Takhar Province

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takharBy Ayesha Tanzeem
VOA News
September 10, 2019

ISLAMABAD – The Afghan Taliban captured another district in northern Takhar province Monday night — a third to fall into militant control in the province this month. Jawad Hejri, a spokesman for Takhar’s governor, told VOA Afghan security forces retreated from the district center after two days of heavy fighting.

However, provincial officials rejected a Taliban claim of killing 20 security personnel, saying no one was hurt in the attack.

The security forces withdrew to avoid civilian casualties, and reinforcements were being sent from the center of the province, Hejri told Afghan TV channel Tolo News.

Heavy clashes in northern Takhar province have been going on for months and residents had been calling on the central government to provide more support.

Fighting continues in Khwaja Ghar district, which borders the volatile Chah-e-Aab district that fell to the Taliban last week.

Meanwhile Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, claimed Taliban fighters captured Darqad, another district in the province Tuesday morning. His claim was also confirmed by local authorities.

Afghan forces recaptured two districts in neighboring Badakhshan province this week. One of them, Warjod, had been in Taliban control for five years.

Afghanistan is preparing to hold a presidential election on September 28 opposed by the Taliban. They have told the population to stay away from election related activities, including rallies or polling booths.

Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump called off peace negotiations with the Taliban that his special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had been carrying on for almost a year.

Afghanistan clinch historic Test win over Bangladesh

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cricket_logo21TV: Afghanistan clinched historic Test victory against Bangladesh beating the hosts by 224 runs on Monday. Rashid [Khan] was declared player of the match, a title which he dedicated to Mohammad Nabi who retired from Test but will continue to play white-ball cricket. Click here to read more (external link).

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Martyrs Week, Massoud’s Death Anniversary Commemorated

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Ahmad Shah Massoud

Ahmad Shah Massoud

Tolo News: Prominent politicians, former Jihadi leaders and government officials on Monday commemorated Martyrs Week and the 18th anniversary of National Hero Ahmad Shah Massoud’s assassination by laying a wreath at the Minaret of Resistance in Massoud Square in Kabul. Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Acting Defense Minister Asadullah Khalid, head of Massoud Foundation and presidential candidate Ahmad Wali Massoud, former Vice President Mohammad Yunus Qanooni and a number of former Jihadi leaders and politicians attended the ceremony at the Loya Jirga tent in Kabul.  Click here to read more (external link).

Trump Cancellation of Taliban Talks Creates New Uncertainty in Afghanistan

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Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Ken Bredemeier
VOA News
September 9, 2019

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt cancellation of planned peace talks with Taliban leaders creates new uncertainty about his vow to end the country’s 18-year military effort to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and could lead to more bloodshed ahead of Afghan elections late this month.

Trump called off separate negotiations with the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani he was planning at his Camp David presidential retreat outside Washington on Sunday after the Taliban announced it had carried out a car bomb attack in Kabul last week that killed 12 people, including a U.S. soldier.

Trump, who fashions himself as a dealmaker from his pre-presidential days as a real estate mogul, had hoped to reach an agreement calling for withdrawal of 5,000 of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But his deal-making efforts drew wide public scorn from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike for his plan to invite the Taliban to Camp David, for decades the scene of high-level talks between U.S. and foreign leaders.

U.S. news outlets reported Vice President Mike Pence and Trump national security adviser John Bolton internally at the White House voiced objections to holding the meeting at Camp David. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Sunday that Trump wanted to confront the Taliban in person and that the administration decided it was “acceptable” to meet at Camp David.

The U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. It was started with U.S. military efforts to wipe out al-Qaida terrorist training grounds protected by the Taliban that were used to launch the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., with the 18th anniversary of the attack on Wednesday.

With Afghan peace efforts in limbo, Trump could still draw down U.S. troops without a peace accord. But analysts say the cancellation of the negotiations, at least least for the moment, could lead to a surge of violence ahead of the Sept. 28 Afghan election in which Ghani is seen as a front-runner. The Taliban said American troops “will suffer more than anyone else” with Trump’s abrupt cancellation of the peace talks.

A leading Republican congresswoman, Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was in office at the time of the 2001 terrorist attack, said, “Camp David is where America’s leaders met to plan our response after al Qaeda, supported by the Taliban, killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11. No member of the Taliban should set foot there.  Ever.”

Senator Bob Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said of the meeting:  “It’s another example of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, which is a high-wire act that ultimately is focused on Trump as a persona, but not in the strategic, methodical effort of creating peace.”

Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force pilot who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before winning a seat in the House of Representatives, said on Twitter, “Never should leaders of a terrorist organization that hasn’t renounced 9/11 and continue in evil be allowed in our great country. NEVER. Full stop.”

“I’m still looking for confirmation an actual, physical trip to Camp David was planned,” said Democratic presidential candidate hopeful Julian Castro.  “It’s very odd to invite a terrorist organization like that to Camp David.”

Pompeo said Trump’s planned meetings with the Taliban and Ghani, albeit separate talks with each, were set in the belief that they “could further America’s national interest” to end the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

He said “lots of bad folks have come through” Camp David over the years. He said Trump made the decision for the meetings, quoting the president as saying, “I want to talk to President Ghani. I want to talk to the Taliban negotiators. I want to look them in the eye. I want to see if we can get to the final outcome….”

Negotiators for the U.S. and Taliban have held nearly a year of peace talks. U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad last week said his team of negotiators had drawn up a draft framework agreement that, if approved by Trump, would allow 5,000 American troops to leave five military bases in the country within 135 days.

Pompeo said Khalilzad has been told to return home.

While Trump has vowed to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, Pompeo said, “We’re not going to just walk away, if it’s not right” for American security interests in protecting against terrorism.

“If the Taliban don’t behave, if they don’t deliver on the commitments that they’ve made to us now for weeks, and in some cases months, the president is not going to reduce the pressure, we’re not going to reduce our support for the Afghan security forces that have fought so hard there in Afghanistan,” he said.

The Taliban said the U.S.’s “credibility will be harmed, their anti-peace stance will become more visible to the world, their casualties and financial losses will increase, and the U.S. role in international political interaction will be discredited even further.”

Even with the initial goal of attacking the al-Qaida training grounds, the Afghan war has dragged on for years, with nearly 2,400 U.S. military personnel killed and more than 20,000 wounded in action.

But with Trump’s cancellation of the Camp David meetings, the fate of the tentative peace agreement that had been reached between the U.S. and the Taliban is in question. The Taliban said it had agreed to hold intra-Afghan talks with the Ghani government on September  23.

After Trump called off the Camp David meetings, the Afghan government said it remained “committed to working together with the United States and other allies to being a lasting peace.”

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Defeated foreigners must leave Afghanistan, fratricide must end: Zarif

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Zarif

Zarif

Press TV
September 8, 2019

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says foreign troops, who have failed in achieving their purported goal of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, must leave South Asian country so that fratricide would end there.

Zarif made the remarks in a post on his official Twitter account on Sunday in reaction to ongoing developments in Afghanistan and after the US President Donald Trump claimed that he had ended peace talks with the group over their role in a recent bombing near the US embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Trump revealed in a Twitter post on Saturday that he had planned a secret meeting with the Taliban’s “major leaders” on Sunday at a presidential resort compound in Camp David, Maryland.

“Gravely concerned about Afghanistan: Defeated foreigners must leave and fratricide must end,” Zarif said in his tweet.
He emphasized that if the foreign military presence continued in Afghanistan, it could provide foreigners with an opportunity to “exploit the situation, bringing renewed bloodshed.”

Iran’s top diplomat added that Iran is “prepared to work with Afghan government and parties—as well as neighbors—to forge lasting end to violence.”

Zarif’s remarks came after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said earlier on Sunday that real peace could be only possible if Taliban militants agreed to a ceasefire and to direct talks with the Kabul government.

The Afghan president, who has been concerned about a draft deal between the United States and the Taliban, said in a statement that the Taliban had to agree to a ceasefire in order for real peace to emerge.

“The people and the government of Afghanistan pursue a dignified and sustainable peace and are committed to putting any effort into ensuring peace in the country. However, the government considers the Taliban’s obstinacy to increase violence against Afghans as the main obstacle to the ongoing peace negotiations,” the statement read, referring to the talks between the US and the militants that have produced the interim deal.

The Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire and stepped up assaults in recent weeks. Most recently, large groups of the militants have attacked the northern cities of Kunduz and Pul-e Khumri.

The Taliban on Sunday warned that Trump’s decision to cancel the talks would lead to the further loss of American lives and assets.

“The Americans will suffer more than anyone else for cancelling the talks,” the spokesman said.

 

Pompeo: Trump Correctly Called Off Taliban Talks Because of Its Terrorist Attacks

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Mike Pompeo

Mike Pompeo

By Ken Bredemeier
VOA News
September 8, 2019

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that President Donald Trump “made the right decision” to call off peace talks with Taliban leaders at his presidential retreat because of the terrorist group’s on-going attacks in Afghanistan.

“We need to see them capable of delivering on their promises” to end violence in the war-torn country before they are “rewarded” with a meeting with Trump, Pompeo told CNN. He made no commitment on whether or when peace talks would resume.

The top American diplomat said Trump’s planned Sunday meetings at his Camp David retreat outside Washington with the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, albeit separate talks with each, were set in the belief that they “could further America’s national interest” to end the 18-year U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

Negotiators for the U.S. and Taliban have held nearly a year of peace talks.   U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad last week said his team of negotiators had drawn up a draft framework agreement that, if approved by President Trump, would allow 5,000 American troops to leave five military bases in the country within 135 days.

Pompeo said Khalilzad has been told to return home.

The longest war in American history started with U.S. military efforts to wipe out al-Qaida terrorist training grounds protected by the Taliban that were used to launch the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people, with the 18th anniversary of the attack coming up on Wednesday.

Trump disclosed the Camp David talks, which he said were “unbeknownst to almost everyone,” as he called them off, following a car bomb blast in Kabul last week that killed 12 people, including a U.S. soldier.

But his attempt at brokering a final accord with the Taliban at Camp David was not without controversy.

Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force pilot who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before winning a seat in the House of Representatives, said on Twitter, “Never should leaders of a terrorist organization that hasn’t renounced 9/11 and continue in evil be allowed in our great country. NEVER. Full stop.”

In an interview on Fox News, Pompeo was asked whether it was appropriate to invite the Taliban to meet three days before another anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but he deflected the question about the timing.

He said “lots of bad folks have come through” Camp David over the years. He said Trump made the decision for the meetings, quoting the president as saying, ” I want to talk to President Ghani. I want to talk to the Taliban negotiators. I want to look them in the eye. I want to see if we can get to the final outcome…. So we found that arrangement acceptable.”

Trump, on Twitter, said the Taliban had carried out the attack “in order to build false leverage” at the talks. But he said if the Taliban “cannot agree to a cease-fire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then it probably doesn’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight.”

Trump said Ghani and the Taliban leaders had been planning to travel to the United States Saturday night.

While Trump has vowed to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, Pompeo said, “We’re not going to just walk away, if it’s not right” for American security interests in protecting against terrorism.

“If the Taliban don’t behave, if they don’t deliver on the commitments that they’ve made to us now for weeks, and in some cases months, the president is not going to reduce the pressure, we’re not going to reduce our support for the Afghan security forces that have fought so hard there in Afghanistan,” he said.

The Taliban said that U.S. military forces in Afghanistan “will suffer more than anyone else” from Trump’s abrupt cancellation of the Camp David talks.

The Taliban said the U.S.’s “credibility will be harmed, their anti-peace stance will become more visible to the world, their casualties and financial losses will increase, and the U.S. role in international political interaction will be discredited even further.”

Even with the initial goal of attacking the al-Qaida training grounds, the Afghan war has dragged on for years, with nearly 2,400 U.S. military personnel killed and more than 20,000 wounded in action.

The U.S. currently has about 14,000 military personnel in Afghanistan although Trump has vowed to sharply draw down that force.

But with Trump’s cancellation of the Camp David meetings, the fate of the tentative peace agreement that had been reached between the U.S. and the Taliban is in question. The Taliban said it had agreed to hold intra-Afghan talks with the Ghani government on September  23.

After Trump called off the Camp David meetings, the Afghan government said it remained “committed to working together with the United States and other allies to being a lasting peace.”

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