Taliban suspends prisoner swap, kills Afghan soldiers

Taliban members stormed an Afghan army outpost in the Kunar province located on Afghan-Pakistani border.
Twenty soldiers were killed in the raid. The Taliban also kidnapped seven soldiers during the raid. Kunar province in the eastern Afghanistan is situated on a volatile area where the Taliban is active. Death toll in yesterday's attack was the highest in recent months in a single incident. Afghan President Hamid Karzai who was scheduled to leave for Sri Lanka on a two-day state visit, cancelled the trip after the deadly attack in Kunar. The attack came around same time the Taliban announced that it suspended talks over an anticipated exchange of Taliban and U.S. prisoners. "Due to the political complexity of the current situation in the country, the leadership of (Taliban) has decided to suspend the issue for some time,"
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email to media organizations. Attacks with high casualties targeting Afghan soldiers and police have increased recently with NATO and U.S. troops set to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, leaving their areas of responsibility to soldiers and police they trained. The US officials were hoping to start discussions with Taliban representatives for the exchange of five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay with Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier who went missing in Afghanistan in 2009.