This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/world/asia/taliban-says-talks-over-us-soldiers-release-suspended.html

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Taliban Say Talks Over U.S. Soldier’s Release Suspended Taliban Attack Afghan Army Base, Killing Soldiers in Their Sleep
(about 4 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban confirmed publicly on Sunday that they had been in talks with the United States over the release of an American soldier, but said the talks had now been suspended. ASADABAD, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents overran an Afghan National Army base near here on Sunday morning, killing 21 soldiers in their bunks in what appeared to be the worst single blow to government forces since 2010, according to both government and insurgent officials.
In an unrelated development, at least 19 Afghan soldiers were killed in an ambush Sunday by insurgents in eastern Kunar Province. President Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation and canceled a planned state visit to Sri Lanka in response to the attack, in the Ghaziabad district of Kunar Province, near the eastern border with Pakistan.
The unusual Taliban statement, which was emailed to journalists, said the talks had taken place “recently” with the mediation of Qatar, suggesting that meetings had taken place in Qatar, where the Taliban have an unofficial political office. The attack highlighted the vulnerability of Afghan military units, which are generally no longer accompanied by American or other NATO advisers and do not have the close air support they often enjoyed. And it raised questions about the Afghans’ ability to hold out against the insurgents on their own as the NATO mission winds down and international forces prepare to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
The talks had been rumored, but this is the first time the insurgents have publicly confirmed them. They are aimed at reviving a longstanding offer by the American government to release Taliban prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, into custody in Qatar, in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of the United States Army, the only American being held by insurgents in Afghanistan. At the same time, there were new signals that efforts to start peace talks with the insurgents were foundering. In an unusual statement released Sunday, the Taliban acknowledged that it had suspended talks with the Americans aimed at a prisoner exchange: the release of five Taliban prisoners held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp in exchange for the lone American prisoner of war held by the Taliban, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
The Taliban statement said that they had provided the Americans with a video of Sergeant Bergdahl to prove that he was still alive and in their custody. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the talks had taken place with the mediation of Qatar, but that the insurgents had broken them off because of the “complicated political situation” in Afghanistan. He did not elaborate, but may have been referring to the current presidential campaign or to Mr. Karzai’s continued refusal to sign a long-term security agreement with the United States.
It said the insurgents and the Americans had made some progress in their talks through an unnamed mediator, but then they broke off. “Due to the current complicated political situation in the country,” the Taliban statement concluded, “the leadership of the Islamic Emirate decided to suspend talks over this issue for the time being.” Although the security deal was agreed to last year, Mr. Karzai imposed additional conditions, including American help in promoting peace talks with the insurgents. The Qatar-mediated talks — which took place over the past two months, according to Mr. Mujahid — may have been part of that. The Taliban statement said that as part of the initiative, the insurgents had handed over a video showing that Sergeant Bergdahl was alive.
The wording made it clear that the Taliban were leaving a door open to resuming the talks at some point. The prisoner exchange was intended as an initial confidence-building measure to get serious peace talks underway. On the battlefield, there has been little evidence that the Taliban have any other goal but to keep on fighting, and Sunday’s attack bolstered that impression.
The statement was signed by the insurgents’ spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid. Reached by telephone, Mr. Mujahid refused to elaborate on the statement or to explain what the complicated political situation referred to. He said the talks had taken place “within the last two months.” The governor of Kunar Province, Shuja al-Mulk Jalala, said it appeared that infiltrators had let the Taliban insurgents into the base around 4 a.m., and that most of those who died had been killed in their sleep. Mr. Jalala put the death toll at 20, with eight other soldiers reported to have been taken prisoner by the insurgents.
Afghanistan is holding presidential elections April 5, and President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States that would provide for a long-term Western military presence after the end of this year. A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Gen. Zaher Azimi, later posted on Twitter to update the estimate to 21 dead and three wounded.
Mr. Mujahid confirmed that the talks were about the exchange of Sergeant Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo. “The video of the soldier was sent by us to the family and friends of the soldier as requested by his family,” Mr. Mujahid said by telephone. “The video was handed over during the talks.” One of the Afghan soldiers taken prisoner, who later escaped and was interviewed in the eastern city of Asadabad, said he believed that the insurgents had entered the fortified base with the collusion of infiltrators who had been on guard duty in the base’s three watchtowers and outside its barracks. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
In the Kunar attack, meanwhile, Afghan officials said the insurgents overran an Afghan National Army outpost in Ghaziabad district of Kunar Province, killing soldiers while they slept. The Kunar governor, Shuja al Mulk Jalala, put the death toll at 20 soldiers, with eight others abducted. Gen. Zaher Azimi, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said on Twitter that 19 soldiers were killed and two wounded. “I believe these four soldiers had links with the Taliban,” he said. “They shot our soldiers while they were sleeping. When others woke up, they were taken alive, along with me.” He said that he and three other soldiers had managed to escape from the insurgents as they fled the area.
It was believed to be the worst single loss of life by Afghan forces this year. A similar attack in Kunar Province last year, in Nari district, killed 13 Afghan soldiers, who were also attacked while they slept. Local Taliban officials, reached by telephone, gave a different account, denying that they had infiltrators in the base. “When U.S. warplanes were over our heads, we conducted our operations successfully, and now that they no longer fly above us, we conduct our operations still more successfully,” said an insurgent official who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect himself from capture.
Governor Jalala said he believed the insurgents might have had infiltrators inside the soldiers’ post. A statement from the Defense Ministry said the fighting with “local and foreign terrorists” lasted four hours. “These A.N.A. soldiers resisted the enemy assault and fought to death against hundreds of both insider and outsider terrorists who assaulted them,” the statement said.
A battalion of reinforcements was sent to the area, but the soldiers were ambushed by insurgents using a suicide bomber. “They were not hurt and reached the area to begin a counterattack to chase the enemy away,” the statement said.
Afghan officials said it was the worst attack on the Afghan National Army since 2010, when the Taliban thwarted an Afghan offensive in Laghman Province and killed, wounded or dispersed an entire 100-man company, although the exact death toll was never divulged.
Last year in Kunar Province, in Nari District, which borders the district where the attack on Sunday took place, all 13 Afghan soldiers at a remote outpost were killed. Afghan officials had complained at the time that although American warplanes were operating in the area, they did not intervene to support the Afghan soldiers.
American officials say they cannot launch air raids without forward air controllers on the ground to avoid the possibility of civilian casualties, which have been a major issue of contention with Mr. Karzai.
There have been larger losses of life in attacks on the Afghan police, such as an incident last September in which 25 policemen were killed in Badakhshan, but the better-trained army has been less prone to such disasters.
Nonetheless, fatalities among Afghan soldiers have been steadily rising. Based on the latest statistics available, through last June, A.N.A. fatalities had more than doubled compared with the previous year, coinciding with a steady decrease in American and NATO forces in country.
“This incident is so painful and upsetting, and why did it happen?” said Mirdad Khan Nejrabi, head of the Afghan Parliament’s internal security committee. He criticized Mr. Karzai for appearing to show more concern for Taliban prisoners than for his own troops in the field.
Mr. Karzai’s government recently ordered the release of 65 men from Bagram Prison whom the American military had identified as insurgents likely to return to battle.
“In the name of defending civilians’ rights he always shows affinity to the insurgents, which demoralizes the security forces,” Mr. Nejrabi said.
Mr. Karzai condemned the killings in Kunar and noted that they came shortly after the Pakistani Taliban killed 23 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers close to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Terrorism is a big threat to both nations,” he said, adding that the countries should work together to combat insurgents in border areas. Insurgents on both sides of the border seek refuge on the other side, and the Pakistani government said its 23 soldiers were taken to the Afghan side of the border and killed there.