Coordinated attacks in eastern, northern Afghanistan shatter tenuous cease-fire

A string of coordinated suicide bombings and attacks rocked government forces in eastern and northern Afghanistan, as well as a devastating strike in the country’s capital, shattering the hopes for a tenuous peace between Kabul and the Taliban on Monday.

The attacks in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar and Ghazni provinces, as well as a strike against government position’s in the country’s northern province of Kunduz, killed 33 people and injured scores more, said provincial government officials.

The attacks came less than a week after American commanders in country agreed to abide by an unprecedented week-long cease fire with the Taliban, beginning Tuesday, called for by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last Thursday.

The deadliest of Monday’s series of attacks took place in Kunduz, where Taliban gunmen struck a security outpost in the province’s Qala-e Zal district, killing 15. The attack took place as Afghan troops were settling in for their predawn Ramadan meal, Kunduz provincial council member Aminullah Ayaddin told Radio Free Europe. A roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan’s Ghazni province struck a minibus, ending with six dead, RFE reported.

Afghan forces and their American counterparts agreed to halt operations against the Taliban until June 14, the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. A Taliban spokesman said the group was not responsible for the Kunduz strike, The New York Times reported Monday.

The Kunduz attack has called into question Mr. Ghani’s latest gambit to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table, which officials in Kabul, the Pentagon and NATO headquarters in Brussels had hoped would mark a turning point in the 17-year war. The slew of attacks Monday is also raising concerns over whether the Afghan insurgency is cohesive enough to make peace talks a reality.

In Washington, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Monday’s attacks were the actions of an insurgency “who cannot win at the ballot box, so they turn to bombs.”

“The [Afghan] government is offering an open hand right now” to the Taliban, the Pentagon chief told reporters Monday. “This is how they have responded.”

While American forces have thus far refrained from taking action against the Taliban, U.S. troops are pressing operations against Islamic State’s Afghan faction, known as Khorasan Group in Iraq and Syria and remaining al Qaeda elements.

Outside of Kunduz, militants also reportedly launched a mass attack against government forces in Jalalabad City, the provincial capital of Nangarhar province. Provincial officials could not confirm casualty counts from the attack, while provincial leaders have laid the blame for the attack on Islamic State, Nangarhar Police Chief Ghulam Sanai Stanikzai told the Times.

U.S. and Afghan forces are in the midst of a massive offensive — dubbed Operation Hamza — against Islamic State in Nangarhar, a known Islamic State redoubt in the country. Gen. John Nicholson, the head of all American forces in Afghanistan, said his forces planned to ramp up operations against the Islamic State in the country during the anticipated lull in fighting against the Taliban.

In response, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Kabul, targeting the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. Roughly 12 people were killed and more than 30 were wounded in the attack, which took place as ministry employees were leaving work early for Ramadan, Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai told local media outlets Monday.

— This report is based in part on wire service reports.