The US military on Monday blamed the Taliban for a series of assassinations
in Afghanistan, claiming the lives of prominent Afghan citizens, AFP reported.

The allegations come ahead of the Afghan government’s scheduled peace
talks with the fundamentalist group in Qatar, as both sides seek a resolution
to being to an end the long-standing conflict.

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“The Taliban’s campaign of unclaimed attacks and targeted
killings of government officials, civil society leaders & journalists
must… cease for peace to succeed,” AFP quoted Colonel Sony Leggett,
spokesperson for the US forces in Afghanistan, as saying on Twitter.

Up until now, the deputy governor of the Kabul province, five
journalists, and a renowned election activist have been assassinated in the
killings that have continued since November.

The situation has taken a turn where the Taliban has denied any links to
the attack, whereas the rival group of Islamic State has taken responsibility
for some of the attacks.

The accusations have grown intense on both sides, as Taliban has accused
the US of carrying out strikes in provinces such as Kandahar, Nangarhar, and
Helmand.

As the hardline group alleged US forces to have violated an agreement on
February, 2020 that paved the way for withdrawal of all foreign forces out of
the country by the month of May in 2021, Leggett on the other hand stated that
the US would continue to cushion the Afghan forces against attacks from the fundamentalist
group.

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Zalmay Khalilzad, the US diplomat who oversaw the situation in
Afghanistan while brokering the meet last year, is travelling to Qatar where he
would be having a meeting separately with both the Afghan government and the Taliban.