US air strikes targeted Taliban fighters outside a key city in southern Afghanistan over the weekend, officials said Monday, with violence in the country surging despite ongoing peace talks.

Heavy fighting erupted on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, after the Taliban attacked several outposts in the area.

The US "conducted several targeted strikes in Helmand" to defend Afghan troops as they came under attack, said military spokesman Colonel Sonny Leggett.

Under a deal the Taliban signed with Washington in February, the insurgents are not supposed to hit urban areas and are meant to keep violence down.

The US committed to pulling all foreign troops from the country by next May in return for Taliban security pledges and an agreement to begin talks with the Afghan government in Qatar.

General Scott Miller, the head of the American military deployment, warned the Taliban to "immediately stop their offensive actions in Helmand Province and reduce their violence around the country".

"It is not consistent with the US-Taliban agreement and undermines the ongoing Afghan Peace Talks," Miller said in a statement.

While the Taliban have largely held back from launching major attacks on Afghan cities, they have stepped up attacks against Afghan troops.

Helmand, which along with neighbouring Kandahar province is considered a Taliban stronghold, is where international forces fought some of the bloodiest campaigns of Afghanistan's 19-year war.

US troops are still stationed in the province but in much smaller numbers than previous years.

President Donald Trump last week said that all American soldiers "should" be home by Christmas, in a surprise announcement that if acted upon would dramatically speed up the timeline for ending America's longest conflict.

Top US general: Afghanistan withdrawal still 'conditions-based'
Washington (AFP) Oct 12, 2020 –

The US withdrawal of more troops from Afghanistan will depend on a reduction in violence and other conditions agreed in February with the Taliban, the Pentagon's top general said in an interview broadcast Monday.

Five days after President Donald Trump said he wants US forces "home by Christmas," Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley stressed to NPR radio that pulling out the final 4,500 troops depends on the Taliban reducing attacks and advancing peace talks with the Kabul government.

"The whole agreement and all of the drawdown plans are conditions-based," Milley told NPR.

"The key here is that we're trying to end a war responsibly, deliberately, and to do it on terms that guarantee the safety of the US vital national security interests that are at stake in Afghanistan."

Milley noted that US troop levels had already dropped from 12,000 in the wake of the February pact, which required negotiations between the Taliban and Kabul and a sharp cut in violence.

"That's always been the agreement. That was the decision of the president on a conditions-based withdrawal," Milley said.

He said violence was well down from several years ago, but the decline in the last four to five months is "not significant."

The Pentagon has envisaged holding the level at around 4,500, expected to be reached by November, into 2021 while it sees how the negotiations in Doha progress.

But policy signals from Washington have been confused.

Last week Trump's national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, said troops would be cut to 2,500 early next year.

But on Wednesday Trump tweeted his pledge to have all troops back by December 25.

Trump's pledge came in the context of his uphill battle for reelection on November 3, and a full withdrawal in that short amount of time is seen as logistically impractical and could weaken Kabul in the peace talks.

One of the conditions in the US-Taliban agreement was for the insurgents to halt attacks on urban areas.

But over the weekend heavy fighting erupted on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, and US forces launched air strikes on Taliban fighters.

Milley declined to talk about specific numbers, saying future drawdowns "will be determined by the president."

"We the military are giving our best military advice on those conditions so that the president can make an informed, deliberate, responsible decision," he said.