US allegedly in talks with Taliban, NATO strike kills civilians

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused NATO forces of killing over 50 Afghan civilians with air strikes. Meanwhile the US has allegedly entered into talks with the Taliban.

New Yorker magazine reported the US opened direct secret talks with senior Taliban leaders seeing that only a viable diplomatic political solution could end the war in Afghanistan. According to the report, the talks are aimed at assessing who the Taliban would consider working with and under what conditions they would require a peace process to begin. In eastern Afghanistan, US-led NATO troops may have killed a number of civilians, including women and children in Kunar province. “About 50 civilians have been martyred during international military forces operations in Ghaziabad district in Kunar province,” Karazi said in a statement. Civilian casualties by foreign troops are extremely sensitive in Afghanistan, and are becoming more so as the war continues. Forces are looking more like occupiers than liberators as the ‘counter-insurgency campaign’ nears its tenth year. NATO said it is investigating the accusations.