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Bomb strapped to motorcycle kills 3, wounds 13 at police checkpoint in

The suicide attacks targeted a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation convoy and the office of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.

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In other violence, in southern Helmand province late on Monday night, three police officers were killed and two were wounded when Taliban insurgents attacked their checkpoint in Gershk district, said Abdul Qayum Qayum, the Gershk district police chief.

Nasrullah Sadieqizada, an Afghan parliament member, called the talks “Pakistani propaganda”.

Hours later, insurgents tried to storm a compound of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency in eastern Kabul but were repelled by security forces.

The Taliban have said they took part in informal talks in Norway with an Afghan delegation, reportedly made up of women, as well as meetings in Qatar in May.

Taliban claimed responsibility for the first attack that injured at least two people.

Meanwhile, the USA insisted that peace talks be “Afghan led” but then-President Hamid Karzai’s relationship with Pakistan, which is largely seen as the key to getting the Taliban to the table, was acrimonious.

Ghani has pushed for the peace process, and has encouraged closer ties with neighbouring Pakistan in a bid to achieve his goal.

Pakistan is playing a pivotal role in facilitating the peace dialogue between the two sides.

The Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid would not confirm however who had represented the Taliban at the talks but has previously denied that the main Taliban group had met with the government.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ended its combat mission in the wartorn country in December, maintaining a smaller residual force for training, leaving Afghan troops and police to face their first “fighting season” battling the Taliban on their own. John McCain, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to urge the Obama administration to put on hold plans to withdraw nearly all USA forces from Afghanistan by 2016.

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The current schedule is for the US military to draw down to an embassy presence by the end of 2016.

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