This archive report was first published on 24 May 2020.
On Sunday, Afghanistan will mark the start of Eid al-Fitr, a significant Islamic holiday that signifies the end of Ramadan, the holy month of daytime fasting. In a rare gesture of peace, the Taliban and the Afghan government have announced a three-day cease-fire, providing a brief respite from the intensifying violence that has plagued the nation.
The cease-fire, which will last from Sunday to Tuesday, was announced by the Taliban in a statement on Saturday. The insurgents instructed their fighters to only resort to fighting if their positions were attacked. Hours later, President Ashraf Ghani, who had recently ordered his troops to move into offensive operations, said Afghan security forces would comply.
President Ghani welcomed the cease-fire announcement, saying, “I welcome the ceasefire announcement by the Taliban. The Afghan government extends the offer of peace.”
This is only the second brief cease-fire that both sides have agreed to since the U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban government in 2001. The first cessation of violence, during Eid in 2018, was widely celebrated across the country as a rare glimpse of what Afghanistan without war could look like.
The announcement of the latest cease-fire was widely welcomed by the United Nations, NATO, and other allies of Afghanistan who have been urging the Taliban to stop the bloodshed, which has been threatening to derail a fragile peace process.
Earlier this year, the Taliban and the United States signed an initial peace deal that lays out a phased withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the next steps of a process to end the war in a political settlement. However, all those steps have since faced hurdles, and the Taliban have intensified their attacks on Afghan forces over the past couple of months.
U.S. envoy for Afghan peace, Zalmay Khalilzad, welcomed the cease-fire, saying, “This development offers the opportunity to accelerate the peace process. Other positive steps should immediately follow: the release of remaining prisoners as specified in the U.S.-Taliban agreement by both sides, no returning to high levels of violence, and an agreement on a new date for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations.”
