On Monday, US President Donald Trump said that US peace talks with the Taliban were "dead" after the group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed a US service member in Kabul on 5 September.
The blast comes on the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States that ushered in the war in Afghanistan, and just after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that peace talks with the Taliban were "dead".
September 11 victims' relatives and first responders digested the news Monday with mixed feelings.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called for peace and asked the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire.
'I do not see the place these negotiations go. That's the bottom line.
The 9/11 anniversary is a sensitive day in Afghanistan's capital and one on which attacks have occurred.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers are criticizing Trump for his plan to invite the Taliban to Camp David - for decades the scene of high-level talks between US and foreign leaders. She sees the Afghan Islamic militants as "small fish" compared with the nation she feels hasn't been held sufficiently accountable for 9/11: Saudi Arabia. "We'd like to get out, but we'll get out at the right time". "That makes my blood boil", said Tallon, who lost her brother, probationary firefighter Sean Tallon.
Before he was ordered to return home from the region, US chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said his team of negotiators had drawn up a draft framework agreement that, if approved by Trump, would allow 5,000 American troops to leave five military bases in the country within 135 days.
But then on Saturday, Trump revealed that he had cancelled an unprecedented meeting between the Taliban and himself at storied Camp David.
A column of smoke was captured in photos early Wednesday morning, thought to be near the US Embassy in Kabul's "exclusion zone".
"We had two ways to end occupation in Afghanistan, one was jihad and fighting, the other was talks and negotiations", Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. "At a certain point you have to say that's long enough".
Taliban jihadis intensified their attacks amid the peace negotiations.
The anniversary ceremonies remember the almost 3,000 people who were killed when hijacked planes struck the trade center in NY, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
However, any deal that the current administration perceives as concessionary-namely, a deal awarding political power to the Taliban-is unlikely to pass, hampering short-term expectations for progress.
'If Trump desires to cease talks, we are going to take the primary manner and they'll quickly remorse it'.
But as he canceled the meeting, Trump also declared the peace negotiations "dead".
Most Afghans dreaded the "deal" between the United States and the Taliban.
"But right now they're murdering too many people". "So many people forget we're still at war".
