The Taliban has announced its intention to continue its fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan following U.S. President Donald Trump said that talks with them were "dead".
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said "We had two ways to end occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihad and fighting, the other was talks and negotiations. If Trump wants to stop talks, we will take the first way and they will soon regret it." The Taliban released the statement several hours following Trump's announcement that the U.S. withdrawing from negotiations aimed at a possible American withdrawal from Afghanistan after 18 years of war.
Trump said "They are dead. As far as I am concerned, they are dead." He tweeted "Over the last four days, we have been hitting our Enemy harder than at any time in the last ten years!" Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also recently claimed that "we've killed over a thousand Taliban in just the last 10 days."
Prior to this, the U.S. President canceled a plan to bring in Taliban leaders to talk at the Camp David presidential facility outside Washington. He said the cancellation is because of the killing of a U.S. soldier at a bombing in Kabul last week.
Senator Marco Rubio agreed with Trump, saying "I've never believed that a deal with the Taliban is either easy or imminent." Meanwhile, Senator Mitt Romney said that "it wouldn't have been my choice to have the Taliban at Camp David" while Senator Ron Johnson agreed by saying "I don't see where those negotiations go. At some point in time if you want peace you have to talk to them, I don't deny that. But right now they're murdering too many people."
Information on the possible Taliban visit to the the presidential retreat a day prior to the the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks surprised and even angered people in Washington. Some expressed concern at Trump's characteristically unpredictable negotiating style.
Trump claimed that "In terms of advisers, I took my own advice."
