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Govt says US forces spared from attacks, but Afghans paying the price
The deputy spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the reason why the US has not suffered casualties among its forces in the past 10 months is because the foreign forces are no longer fighting in Afghanistan.
Reacting to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s earlier statement about the Taliban not targeting American soldiers in Afghanistan in the past year, Meenapal said this was not because of the US-Taliban deal as Pompeo stated but because the US was no longer actively involved in the war on the ground.
Meenapal said the casualties are being sustained by the Afghan security forces and that the Taliban is now at war with the Afghan people and with the country’s own security forces.
On Sunday morning Pompeo put the lack of casualties among US troops down to the Taliban adhering to the Doha deal signed in February.
In a series of tweets Pompeo said: “Our mission in Afghanistan is to eliminate Al-Qaeda and threats to the American homeland. Don’t need 10s of 1,000s of U.S. troops on the ground to do that. We have partners: brave Afghans, NATO forces. We also have the ability to project power from afar”.
He said no US servicemen had been killed in Afghanistan in almost a year, and Afghans are finally discussing peace and reconciliation among themselves.
“Logged a lot of air miles to Qatar and Afghanistan and back for talks,” he said.
Meshrano Jirga head Fazl Hadi Muslimyar meanwhile noted his dismay at the high levels of violence being meted out by insurgents against the Afghan people.
Sarcastically he said: “I want to congratulate the Taliban that no Americans have been killed in the past year, but dozens of Afghan soldiers have been killed.”
The Taliban has not commented on government’s reaction to Pompeo’s remarks.
This comes just two days ahead of the resumption of intra-Afghan peace talks in the Qatari capital, Doha.
It also comes amid a serious spike in targeted attacks and attempted assassinations of public figures including journalists, civil society activists and government employees.
However, no group has yet to take responsibility for all these attacks.
Meanwhile, in response to Pompeo’s comments, the Taliban said in a series of tweets Sunday that no attacks against US forces since the Doha deal shows that the Islamic Emirate is fulfilling its obligations as a committed entity.
The Islamic Emirate wants the hoped for peace agreement to be implemented in the same way, the group tweeted.
“We will fulfill the same obligations when we reach an agreement with the internal” actors, the group stated.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called a United Nations report on Afghan opiates “tailor-made political propaganda” saying such publications do not help combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan.
The ministry said that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, published in late October, recorded an increase in the cultivation, production and distribution of Afghan opiates for the first time since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) imposed a ban in 2022.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the report, which the IEA has already rejected as politically motivated, appears unbalanced and relies on indirect evidence, including satellite images that are open to different expert interpretations.
According to UN estimates cited in the report, the area under poppy cultivation increased from 10,200 hectares in 2025 to 43,300 hectares in 2026, while opium production rose from 300 tonnes to 1,470 tonnes.
The ministry acknowledged that Afghanistan’s drug problem still exists and said authorities in Kabul are aware of the issue. It added that Afghan security forces conduct almost daily operations in various parts of the country to destroy drug laboratories and seize narcotics.
According to the statement, more than 7.4 tonnes of various narcotics and over 4.7 tonnes of precursor chemicals were seized in Afghanistan over the past week, while two drug laboratories were dismantled.
Cooperation between the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment and the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce has paved the way for exporting potatoes from Bamyan province to the Uzbek market.
In this regard, Sayed Karim Hashemi, President of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, and Doran Vahabov, President of the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, have agreed on the export of 100,000 tons of Bamyan potatoes to Uzbekistan. Work is underway to finalize the export agreement.
Meanwhile, the first shipment of potatoes, consisting of eight trucks, has departed for the Uzbek city of Termez through the Hairatan Port.
The chambers of commerce of both countries, in cooperation with local authorities in Bamyan, have facilitated connections between traders and farmers and coordinated the purchasing, marketing, and transportation of the produce. This initiative is expected to expand market opportunities for Bamyan farmers and strengthen trade between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan’s Prime Minister, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk in Kabul on Thursday evening, emphasizing the need to strengthen bilateral relations and expand economic cooperation between the two countries.
According to a statement from the Presidential Palace, several senior officials from both countries attended the meeting, including Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and representatives of Russia’s political and economic sectors.
Akhund described Afghanistan’s security and stability as favourable conditions for foreign investment and thanked Moscow for recognizing the Islamic Emirate and supporting Afghanistan in international forums.
Meanwhile, Overchuk praised the security situation and developments in Afghanistan, expressing Russia’s interest in investing in various sectors of the country.
He said around 70 representatives of Russia’s private sector were accompanying the delegation and were expected to hold discussions with relevant ministries and institutions of the Islamic Emirate on trade and investment agreements, as well as ways to address existing obstacles.
The Russian deputy prime minister reaffirmed his country’s support for Afghanistan in various fields.
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