The US and the Afghan government can talk to moderate Taliban members, but only from a position of strength, Washington’s envoy to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said on Sunday.
“I think we need to reach out to elements of the Taliban who are reconcilable,” Khalilzad said.
“But to achieve success with regard to that, work in other cases would show that the government and the coalition need to be in a much stronger position than they are,” he said.
“I do believe there are forces within the Taliban personalities that are reconcilable,” Khalilzad said.
ADDITIONAL TROOPS
Between 20,000 and 30,000 new US troops could be deployed to Afghanistan by mid-year to help Kabul combat a Taliban-led insurgency that has gained pace in recent years, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, a suicide blast in the center of Ghazni yesterday killed three people and wounded five others, police said.
The explosives, strapped to the attacker’s body, detonated as he was being driven along a crowded road in Ghazni, about 100km south of Kabul, Ghazni, provincial deputy police chief Mohammad Zaman said.
“Three civilians, the suicide attacker and his driver were killed and five civilians were wounded,” Zaman said.
It appeared that the bomb had exploded prematurely, Zaman said.
Zaman said the attacker’s target was not immediately clear.
MARINE KILLED
On Sunday, a British marine was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the British Ministry of Defence said.
His death takes to 135 the total number of British service personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
The marine was killed in an area to the northwest of Lashkar Gah, in Helmand Province.
Britain has around 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, largely based in Helmand.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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