To defeat the Taliban, the US should focus on reining in Pakistan, says former Afghan security minister.

This year marks 16 years of unrelenting war in Afghanistan between the US-backed government and the Taliban.

With no end of the war in sight, can the Taliban forces be defeated? Is reconciliation possible?

For Amrullah Saleh, who served in Afghanistan as state minister for security reforms, to defeat the Taliban, US-backed forces must focus on Pakistan instead, calling its southern neighbour the "root cause" of violence.

"Go to the source, and go to the root cause of this," says Saleh, who also served for six years as the leader of Afghanistan's spy agency, the National Directorate of Security. "What the United States does need is [to] come out with more clarity and tell the Pakistanis: We know what you are doing and we are a superpower, but we do not have super-patience."

In this week's Headliner, Mehdi Hasan challenges former Afghan security official Amrullah Saleh on why he believes the US needs to change its strategy in order to more effectively combat the Taliban.

For more from this interview, click here.

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Source: Al Jazeera News