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** The Taliban are Betraying Trump's Peace Deal ([link removed])
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by Con Coughlin • November 27, 2020 at 5:00 am
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testoneinstitute.org%2F16799%2Fafghanistan-taliban-peace-deal&pubid=ra-52f7af5809191749&ct=1&title=The+Taliban+are+Betraying+Trump%27s+Peace+Deal [link removed]
* While Mr Trump has fulfilled his side of the bargain by overseeing a significant reduction in America's military presence from 9,000 to 4,500 troops since the deal was signed, the Taliban has been less forthcoming in terms of honouring its side of the deal.
* The upsurge in Taliban violence certainly raises significant questions about whether Afghanistan's security forces will be able to defend the country once American forces have been withdrawn, with US forces due to be reduced to 2,500 by early next year.
* There are also concerns that, if the Taliban succeeds in seizing control of large swathes of the country, they could allow Islamist terror groups like Al-Qaeda to return and use the country as a base from which to launch attacks against the West -- the initial cause of America's military intervention following the September 11 attacks.
* The fear now is that, if Mr Trump and his senior advisors are no longer in a position to conclude the peace deal he negotiated earlier in the year, then the Taliban will simply take matters into their own hands and seize control of the country by force.

The rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan prompted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make a surprise visit this month to Doha, Qatar, where he had talks with representatives from the Taliban and the Afghan government in an attempt to get peace negotiations back on track. Pictured: Pompeo meets with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Doha, on November 21, 2020. (Photo by Patrick Semansky/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

The latest spate of terror attacks carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan suggests that the terrorist organisation remains determined to seize control of the country through violence rather than by negotiating a peace agreement with the democratically-elected Afghan government.

Under the terms of the historic agreement that the Trump administration signed with the Taliban in February, Taliban leaders undertook to negotiate a lasting peace deal with President Ashraf Ghani's administration in Kabul.

The aim of the deal, so far as US President Donald Trump was concerned, was to end America's long and costly involvement in the Afghan conflict which, most recently, dates back to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and has claimed the lives of more than 2,300 US military personnel and cost the American taxpayer nearly $1 trillion.

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