ISLAMABAD: Afghan Talibanon Wednesday announced the start of annual spring offensive, dashing hopes of peace negotiations with the group. Taliban’s annual spring offensive marks the start of the fighting season as weather warms up. This year, the insurgents have, however, continued deadly attacks in capital Kabul and other parts even during the winter. “Our primary target will be the American invaders and their intelligence agents. Their internal supporters will be dealt with as a secondary target while the present and future mischievous plots of the mischief-mongers will be nipped in the bud,” a statement issued by the group said. The offensive has been codenamed ‘Al Khandaq’. “The planning and strategy of the Al Khandaq Jihadi operations are organized by the expert and proficient skilled cadre of the Military Commission of the Islamic Emirate which is based on guerilla, offensive, infiltrated and various other new and intricate tactics against the new war strategy of the enemy, mainly focusing on crushing, killing and capturing American invaders and their supporters,” the statement said. Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammed Radmanesh told Radio Azadi that Taliban will not get anything in their spring offensive. He said Afghan security and defence forces will stand against the militants. Afghan security forces had launched major operation ‘Nusrat’ against the Taliban last month, with air support from the US in the operation. This year’s offensive is the first after President Donald Trump unveiled Afghan strategy that led to troops surge and intensification of air strikes against the insurgents.However, recent US military estimates do not indicate any change in the Taliban position and say the group currently has control over more areas. “Besides sustaining the ongoing illegitimate occupation, the newly adopted war strategy of Trump has been ruthlessly implemented in the villages and rural areas against our oppressed Afghan people for the past nine months. Thousands of additional foreign forces are being deployed inside Afghanistan and they are supplied with new devastating weapons and vast military authorities,” the Taliban statement said. The offensive was launched after Taliban insurgents rejected all appeals by the Afghan government and international community to join the peace negotiations. In February, President Ghani offered unconditional talks to the Taliban and pledged to recognize them as a political force.The Taliban, however, insist that they are ready for talks with the Americans in the first phase on timing for the withdrawal of foreign forces. The US wants the Taliban to negotiate directly with the Kabul administration. The Afghan government did not respond to the offensive announcement, but have previously rejected such operations as ‘propaganda’. The Taliban statement dismissed as ‘deceptive efforts’ the offers for negotiations by the Kabul administration and said the appeals for talks launched by the “ineffectual and corrupt officials of the puppet regime inside and outside the country are nothing but a conspiracy orchestrated by the foreign occupiers for enervating.””Their main purpose is to distract the public opinion from the illegitimate foreign occupation of the country, as the Americans have no serious or sincere intentions of bringing the war to an end. Rather they want to intensify and prolong it by engulfing Afghanistan as well as the whole region in its flames, thus securing chances of their further influence and interference,” the Taliban statement said. Taliban said the existence of multiple American bases set up under a strategic agreement between the American invaders and the regime in Kabul, signed in September 2014, are reasons through which “America sabotages all chances of peace and plays crucial and decisive role in intensifying and prolonging the ongoing war in Afghanistan while rejecting the policy of the Islamic Emirate for peaceful negotiations.” Published in Daily Times, April 26th 2018.