US President Joe Biden faces “serious dilemmas” in Afghanistan as a deadline to withdraw troops nears and the Taliban show no sign of ending their bloodshed, a top US official warned. The new US leader has ordered a review of the deal Washington cut with the Taliban last year, which promised the withdrawal of all foreign forces by May 1 in return for security guarantees from the militants and a commitment to peace talks with the Afghan government. The talks are progressing painfully slowly, but scarcely a day goes by without a bomb blast, attack on government forces, or a targeted assassination somewhere in the country. “Violence level remains very, very high… which is shocking and deeply disappointing,” a senior US State Department official told AFP this week on condition of anonymity. “It is unquestionably damaging the atmosphere for any kind of a settlement of Afghanistan’s conflict.” The Taliban routinely deny responsibility for the attacks — and many are claimed by the rival jihadist group Islamic State — but Washington has no doubt who is to blame. “In our view, the Taliban are responsible for the vast majority of the targeted killings that we have seen,” the official said, adding they had created “an ecosystem of violence”. “It is clearly intended, I think, to demoralise citizens… to add to doubts that people have about their government and to add to the aura of inevitability of (a Taliban) victory,” he added.