Afghanistan calls temporary Eid ceasefire with Taliban

The Afghan government has announced a temporary ceasefire with the Taliban but says fighting with other militants will continue.
President Ashraf Ghani said the week-long ceasefire would coincide with the end of the Ramadan fasting month, Eid. The Taliban have yet to respond.

Last week they denied they were in secret talks with Afghan officials.

The US state department said its forces and coalition partners in Afghanistan would "honour the ceasefire".

ens of thousands of Afghans have been killed since US-led troops drove the Taliban from power in 2001.

Previous offers of peace talks and ceasefires have come to nothing.

Earlier this week, a prominent gathering of religious clerics issued a fatwa condemning militant violence as un-Islamic - and were themselves targeted in a suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Mr Ghani said his government supported the clerics' ruling and that Afghan people wanted the conflict settled peacefully. The ceasefire is due to come into effect next week.

He made clear Afghan security forces "will only stop offensive manoeuvres against Afghan armed Taliban and will continue to target Daesh [IS] and other foreign-backed terrorist organisations and their affiliates".

"This ceasefire is an opportunity for Taliban to introspect that their violent campaign is not winning them hearts and minds but further alienating the Afghan people from their cause," he said.

The US state department, in its statement said the ceasefire does not "prohibit operations to defend Afghan and Coalition forces from attack". - Read More

Afghanistan calls temporary Eid ceasefire with Taliban - BBC