Taliban restart secret talks with Afghanistan in Qatar: report

[October 18, 2016]  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Taliban and the Afghan government restarted secret peace talks in September and have held two rounds of discussions in Qatar, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources.

Citing a Taliban official, the Guardian said a senior American diplomat was present at the meetings in Qatar, where the Islamist group has a diplomatic office.

The newspaper said the talks were attended also by Mullah Abdul Manan, the brother of Afghan Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who died in 2013.

Officials in Kabul could not be immediately reached for comment.

Previous Pakistan-brokered peace talks yielded little progress and ground to a complete halt when the United States killed former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in Pakistan in May.

Under new Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada fighting has raged across Afghanistan during the summer months, with the Taliban attacking the northern city of Kunduz and threatening Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

No Pakistani official took part in the latest talks, according to the Guardian.

Relations between the governments in Kabul and Islamabad have deteriorated over the past year, with Afghanistan and the United States alleging Pakistan harbors the Taliban and was not doing enough to bring the group to the negotiating table.

Pakistan denies providing the Taliban a safe haven.

Taliban new leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada is seen in an undated photograph, posted on a Taliban twitter feed on May 25, 2016, and identified separately by several Taliban officials, who declined be named. Social Media/File Photo

The Taliban have gathered strength over the past two years, carrying out major attacks in Kabul and taking over swaths of territory for the first time since being ousted during the 2001 U.S.-led military intervention.

The United States has continued to provide air power and other military support to Kabul, preventing the Taliban from making more ground.

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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