Hari Sreenivasan:

An insider attack in eastern Afghanistan overnight has left at least 23 Afghan soldiers dead.

Officials said the attack took place at a military base in Ghazni province. The soldiers had been sleeping when a Taliban infiltrator, who was on duty at the base, shot and killed them before taking weapons and equipment and returning to the Taliban insurgency.

This latest attack comes just after the United States took what it's calling a "pause" in peace talks with the Taliban — and after an earlier attack Wednesday that killed two Afghan civilians and wounded dozens more near Bagram airfield.

But if and when those talks resume, they're still leaving major players out of the conversation: the Afghan government itself, as well as other prominent figures.

NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Jane Ferguson has our story.