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Taliban agrees to ceasefire with Afghan forces for Eid
KABUL, June 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The Taliban announced Saturday a three-day
ceasefire with Afghan security forces for Eid, the holiday that caps off
Ramadan, though it said operations against “foreign occupiers” would
continue.
But the group warned its fighters would “strongly defend” themselves if
attacked, according to a statement sent to the media two days after the
Afghan government made its own surprise announcement of a week-long ceasefire
with the militants.
It was the first time the Taliban had agreed to a ceasefire for Eid since
the US invasion in 2001.
“All the mujahideen are directed to stop offensive operations against
Afghan forces for the first three days of Eid-al-Fitr,” the Taliban said in a
WhatsApp message.
“But if the mujahideen are attacked we will strongly defend (ourselves).”
The Taliban added that “foreign occupiers are the exception” to the order
sent to its fighters.
“Our operations will continue against them, we will attack them wherever
we see them,” it said.
President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday declared an apparently unilateral week-
long ceasefire with the Taliban.
It would last “from the 27th of Ramadan until the fifth day of Eid-al-
Fitr”, Ghani tweeted from an official account, indicating it could run from
June 12-19.
The move came days after a gathering of Afghanistan’s top clerics in the
capital Kabul called for a ceasefire and issued a fatwa against suicide
bombings and attacks.
An hour after the fatwa was issued, a suicide bomber detonated outside the
gathering, killing seven people.
Ghani said his government supported the clerics’ call.
“The government of Afghanistan not only supports the unanimous fatwa
announcement by the ulemas (scholars), but also backs the recommended
ceasefire,” he said in a statement released by his office.
In February Ghani unveiled a plan to open peace talks with the Taliban,
including eventually recognising them as a political party. At the time he
also called for a ceasefire.
The insurgents did not officially respond, but announced the launch of
their annual spring offensive in an apparent rejection of the plan, one of
the most comprehensive ever offered by the Afghan government.
Last month, the Pentagon said that senior Taliban officials have been
secretly negotiating with Afghan officials on a possible ceasefire.
Even such a brief cessation of hostilities would bring welcome relief to
civilians in the war-torn country, nearly 17 years after the Taliban regime
was toppled.
In recent years the resurgent militant group, along with the Islamic State
group, have stepped up their attacks on Kabul in particular, making it the
deadliest place in the country for civilians.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1110 hrs