KABUL: The Taliban warned Wednesday it was ready to fight back after Afghan forces were ordered to resume strikes in response to a series of deadly attacks, further unravelling a fragile peace process.
A brazen daylight assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul on Tuesday — which killed at least 24 people including infants and nurses — was followed by a blast at a funeral in the country´s restive east, leaving 24 mourners dead. President Ashraf Ghani blamed both attacks on the Taliban and Daesh, ordering Afghan troops to “resume their operations against the enemy”. But the Taliban, which denied involvement in Tuesday´s attacks, warned it was “fully prepared” to counter any strikes by Afghan forces.
“From now onwards the responsibility of further escalation of violence and its ramifications shall fall squarely on the shoulders of the Kabul administration,” it said in a statement early on Wednesday. The aggressive posturing from both sides raises fresh questions about the fate of a hoped-for peace process that is teetering just as Afghanistan grapples with a public health crisis. The authorities dismissed the Taliban´s warning, saying the group had always indulged in “violence and war”. “The Taliban cannot simply deny their involvement in violence, including the recent ones,” Ghani´s spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told reporters on Wednesday.–Agencies
