The Taliban warned that Afghanistan would become "a graveyard" for the United States today after President Donald Trump cleared the way for thousands more American troops to be sent to the war-torn country.
"If America doesn't withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, soon Afghanistan will become another graveyard for this superpower in the 21st century," Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
He added that America should think of an exit strategy "instead of continuing the war".
"As long as there is one US soldier in our land, and they continue to impose war on us, we, with a high morale will continue our jihad," Mujahid said.
Trump backtracked from his promise to rapidly end America's longest war in his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief late Monday, though he did not offer specifics.
He said he had concluded "the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable", leaving a vacuum that terrorists "would instantly fill".
While Trump refused to offer detailed troop numbers, senior White House officials said he had already authorised his defence secretary to deploy up to 3,900 more troops to Afghanistan.
Earlier Mujahid had dismissed the strategy as vague and "nothing new".
"For now I can tell you there was nothing new in his speech and it was very unclear," he told AFP.
A senior Taliban commander told
(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
