Kabul: The Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has maintained close ties with the Taliban despite the Taliban’s assurance to the US to cut ties with the group, said a senior UN official.
“Senior figures remain in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of armed operatives,” the coordinator of the United Nations monitoring team for Daesh, al-Qaida and the Taliban, Edmund Fitton-Brown, said during a recent webinar as quoted by Tolo News.
Tolo News further reported that the Taliban “consulted on a regular basis” with al-Qaeda during the peace negotiations with the US. “[Al-Qaeda leader] Ayman al-Zawahiri remains close to the Taliban,” he said.
“The Taliban regularly consulted with Al-Qaeda during the negotiations with the United States and they offered informal guarantees that would honor their historic ties with al-Qaeda.”
The Taliban however rejected the claims and said that “certain intelligence groups” are attempting to disrupt peace in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad in a conversation with US Institute of Peace said Iran wants “the US to remain engaged in the Afghan war and is not supporting the peace process in Afghanistan.”
