....an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled th… https://t.co/y8kye41ORQ — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 1567896678000

....only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even… https://t.co/M3BctNpVqu — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 1567896678000

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump pulled the plug on the Afghan Peace talks with the Taliban on Saturday saying he doubted their bonafides to negotiate a meaningful settlement.In a series of three tweets, Trump also made the astonishing disclosure that major Taliban leaders were actually headed to the United States for a secret meeting with him at Camp David on Sunday. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was also coming separately. But a terrorist attack on Thursday changed everything, he said.“They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse!” Trump tweeted.“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?” he added.It was not clear why Trump thought the Taliban, which is birthed, nurtured, and patronized by Pakistan, would stop its terrorist attacks since it has never ceased such depredations during the length of its negotiations with the US.Typically, ISI sponsored terrorists believe in physically eliminating all opposition, as their proxies have done in Kashmir since the 1980s, to gain leverage and absolute control.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered some insights in a television interview on ABC. "We had a commitment from the Taliban that said they would break from Al Qaeda publicly and permanently. We had a commitment from them that said they would reduce violence. We had a commitment that they would meet in Oslo to begin reconciliation conversation, and then the Taliban overreached,” Pompeo explained, adding,“They killed an American in an effort to gain leverage at the negotiating table, and President Trump said enough.”News that Trump had actually invited Taliban to Camp David, that too in the week leading up to the anniversary of 9/11, stunned the diplomatic community and the US commentariat. Some of them reproduced Trump’s own tweet from 2012 in which he berated his predecessor Barack Obama, saying while he (Obama) is “slashing the military, he is also negotiating with our sworn enemy the Taliban-who facilitated 9/11.”The hashtag #TalibanTrump was topping Twitter trends as analysts tried to make sense of Trump’s outreach to -- followed by a tirade at -- Taliban, which never seem to have wavered from its goal of establishing an Islamic emirate in Kabul with the backing of Pakistan, which regards Afghanistan as its “strategic depth” in its ceaseless confrontation with India.Generations of US and Indian soldiers and spooks have attested to this founding philosophy, and there has been no indication over the past several months during the peace talks that President Trump’s special representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad had persuaded Taliban to commit to any lasting peace that involved forgoing violence and terrorism.According to some accounts, the talks floundered on the Taliban insistence that they first have a formal agreement with the US, rather than with the Ghani government, which it regards as a puppet regime.On its part, the Taliban said on Sunday that Trump’s decision to cancel the talks would only have consequences for the United States. “More than anyone else, the loss will be for the United States — their standing will be hurt, their anti-peace position will be clearer to the world, their human and treasure loss will increase, and their political actions will come across as unstable,” the group said in a statement.In Washington, President Trump was torched by critics for reaching out to a primitive Pakistan-backed force that transported Afghanistan to the medieval age, and brought terrorism and violence to the region and beyond.“I sure am glad Obama killed Osama bin Laden before Trump got a chance to become friend with him,” read one scalding tweet, while another wondered why he would want to “honor the Taliban with a stay at Camp David while making our G7 allies stay at his bedbug-infested Trump Doral.” A third read, “It’s gotten so bad for @realDonaldTrump that only the Taliban would consider having Sunday brunch with him.”From Kabul, media reports said Afghan officials, commentators and citizens overwhelmingly welcomed Trump’s announcement that he was canceling a planned secret meeting with Afghan and Taliban leaders at Camp David, effectively calling off the troubled US-Taliban peace talks aimed at ending the 18-year conflict.“It was as if a poisoned bubble had suddenly burst, releasing both relief and hope into the air after weeks of mounting tension and suspicion — even as it created new fears over what would come next,” the Washington Post reported.