Update to this story.
WASHINGTON (CIRCA) – The Afghan Taliban has declared its first-ever ceasefire since the U.S. invasion in 2001, but it makes one important exception: it doesn’t apply to U.S. forces.
Taliban forces will cease offensive operations against Afghan forces over the Muslim Eid holiday, which runs from June 14-17 in Afghanistan. It is separate and distinct from a unilateral ceasefire declared by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday which will run until June 20. U.S. forces will also observe the Afghan ceasefire, though they will continue counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
“With the ceasefire announcement, we epitomize the strength of the Afghan government and the will of the people for a peaceful resolution to the Afghan conflict,” said Ghani on Twitter after the announcement.
It was the first unilateral ceasefire Ghani has declared since winning the presidency in 2014. The Afghan government and its American allies hope that it will bring the sides closer to peace discussions in the future. Their ultimate goal is to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and seek a diplomatic resolution to a conflict that has raged for more than 16 years.[…]
The two ceasefires come after a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, from Afghanistan’s Ulema, or religious scholar council, condemned the violence in Afghanistan which continues to claim thousands of lives each year. That influence likely had a large part to play in both ceasefire declarations, but the fact that there are two ceasefires to begin with reflects the massive division between the two sides, noted Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, in an interview.
“We want the Taliban to reconcile with the Afghan government, that’s the goal … and then the Taliban can join the government,” said Roggio. “The Taliban, first of all, don’t want them. They view the government as a puppet, they are un-Islamic, they are puppets of the West.”
But U.S. officials believe their strategy of grinding the Taliban down to force them to negotiate may be working, despite the discord. Army Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has pointed to an open letter released by the Taliban government addressed to the American people as showing that the group is possibly interested in talks.
“I think there’s a couple reasons this occurred,” Nicholson told NATO TV in April. “One is the increased military pressure that the U.S. south Asia policy puts on the enemy on the battlefield. Secondly, though, is the diplomatic pressure.”