A week after the start of a new round of US-Taliban peace negotiations, the Taliban attacked the Kabul office of American nonprofit Counterpart International, killing at least 5 people, including 3 employees of American charity CARE, which has an Afghanistan office near the site that was targeted.
According to the Taliban, Counterpart International was targeted because it is a “US network” that conducts “harmful Western activities inside Afghanistan” and works with “foreign advisers” guilty of “various aspects of brutality, oppression, terror, anti-Islamic ideology and promotion of Western culture.”
American Ambassador to Afghanistan John R. Bass condemned the “senseless violence” of the Taliban, adding that “[t]he targeted organization helps local communities, trains journalists and supports the Afghan people.” Various Afghan analysts believe that with this attack, the Taliban demonstrated that it doesn’t actually believe in peace.
Read more: Taliban Attack Aid Group Office in Kabul, in Setback to U.S. Peace Talks
