Afghan Taliban have strongly rejected reports that they have reduced attacks on foreign and Afghan forces in the wake of the opening of office in Qatar.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said a fake email had been sent to media organisations, suggesting that Taliban had decided to decrease armed activities in Afghanistan.
“Such materials were parts of intelligence moves to spread rumors and Taliban strongly rebuff it and no such decision was taken,” he said while disowning such materials in a statement.
Taliban accepted that they were wishing to open their political office in Qatar for dialogue with international community and also demanded release of its members under custody of US in Guantanamo prison.
Sources said the US and the Taliban started another round of talks in Qatar just few days before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan. But the talks were in their initial stage and the Taliban demanded release of some prisoners as well as initial agreement about political office somewhere around Doha was discussed.
Taliban understand that Afghanistan had been engaged in a struggle and jihad for the past one and a half decade to establish an Islamic government in accordance with the request of its people.
“It is for this purpose and for bringing about peace and stability in Afghanistan that we have increased our political efforts to come to mutual understanding with the world in order to solve the current ongoing situation,” Mujahid said. But, on several occasion the spokesman had made it clear that the understanding did not mean surrendering jihad. “We must say that some sources and reports often try to distort realities. For this reason we would like to ask all the officials of the media outlets to work within the framework of unbiased journalistic ethics, avoid circulating baseless and one-sided reports and only publish that which is confirmed by relevant sources,” he said.