Taliban says it has killed Afghan government's top media officer

KABUL: Taliban fighters on Friday assassinated the Afghanistan government’s top media and information officer in capital city of Kabul, a spokesperson of the hardline militant group said.

Dawa Khan Minapal, who was the head of Government Media and Information Centre (GMIC), had been killed, an official in the federal interior ministry confirmed, without saying who was responsible.

Minapal had also served as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesperson.

Afghan govt, Taliban far from reaching peace agreement: Zalmay Khalilzad

The Afghan government and Taliban remain far from reaching a peace agreement, the US representative to the negotiations said earlier this week as Washington upped the pressure on Kabul to reach a deal.

As new explosions rocked the Afghan capital and fighting intensified over the control of three provincial capitals, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, said the Taliban are demanding a new government with the most power in their hands, while Kabul wants to bring them into the current government.

“They are far apart, and they are trying to affect each other’s calculus, and the terms, by what they are doing in the battlefield,” Khalilzad told the Aspen Security Forum.