Karzai Demands U.S. Troops Leave Villages; Taliban Suspends Peace Talks
President Hamid Karzai demanded Thursday that the United States pull back from combat outposts and confine its troops to military bases in Afghanistan, an apparent response to Sunday’s shooting rampage by a U.S. staff sergeant.
Meanwhile, the Taliban said it was suspending preliminary peace talks with the United States because of Washington’s “alternating and ever-changing position,” and accused U.S. officials of reneging on promises to take meaningful steps toward a prisoner swap.
The announcements followed a meeting between Karzai and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta in Kabul, after which U.S. officials said the two sides had made progress discussing the contentious issue of night raids — but did not mention any discussion of a pullback.
The statements by Karzai and the Taliban reflect unprecedented strains in the U.S.-Aghan relationship, which reached a low point last month after the burning of Korans by U.S. troops set off a wave of violent protests and retaliatory killings.
Support for the war is slipping both in the United States and among Afghans. Sunday’s massacre of 16 civilians — and the transfer of the staff sergeant believed to be responsible to a U.S. base in Kuwait to await prosecution — further outraged the Afghan people.
The killings “damaged the U.S. and Afghan relationship,” Karzai’s office said. He said foreign troops must withdraw from village outposts and return to large NATO bases, and Afghan troops should assume primary responsibility for security by the end of next year—ahead of the time frame U.S. commanders have endorsed.
Karzai does not have the authority to enforce a pullback of foreign troops, however. And the United States has rebuffed previous demands that it halt night raids, ban private security companies and immediately transfer control of prisons to the Afghan