Step up pressure on Taliban

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani urged the new US administration Friday to step up pressure on the Taliban and not rush to withdraw more troops.

Ghani said the Taliban have failed to live up to conditions agreed in their February 2020 deal with the United States to reduce attacks in Afghanistan and sever longstanding ties to Al-Qaeda.

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"The United States and Nato must take a very strong stand on the conditions-based approach," Ghani said in an online address to the Aspen Security Forum.

"They signed an agreement; that agreement now needs to be implemented."

Even though Taliban and Afghan government negotiators opened peace talks in Doha last year, violence in Afghanistan has soared.

Ghani said the Taliban must admit to attacking government forces and conducting a string of assassinations of public figures.

The Taliban exploited former president Donald Trump's rush to pull US forces from Afghanistan to continue attacking government forces, Ghani suggested.

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into a base for Afghan defence forces in the country's east yesterday, killing at least eight security personnel in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

The pre-dawn assault took place in the restive province of Nangarhar where the Taliban have claimed several deadly assaults targeting government forces.