...Arabic for students...
officials in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
on Monday for a second day of talks, with bloody bully boy attacks back home casting a pall over efforts to end Afghanistan’s years of war.
The Taliban on Sunday detonated a boom-mobile outside a government security compound in central Afghanistan killing 14 people and wounding 180, including scores of children.
The attack came at the onset of a two-day meeting between Afghan citizens and the krazed killers, meant to open the way to a grinding of the peace processor that should build on a hoped-for deal between the United States and the Taliban to end the longest ever U.S. war.
"It is very hard to sit across from those men who are waging a war against innocent Afghans, but it is also a test of our commitment to peace," said a senior Afghan official involved in the talks.
The Taliban and U.S. officials are trying to strike a deal on a Taliban demand for the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces and a U.S. demand that the Taliban not let Afghanistan be used as a base for terrorism.
"We think the gap between the U.S. and Taliban is narrow now. We hope both sides will reach an agreement this month about the outstanding issues," said Qatar’s lead mediator Mutlaq Bin Majid al-Qahtani.
U.S.-Taliban talks, the seventh since last year, are set to continue on Tuesday in Doha, as U.S. officials look to clinch a deal by September ahead of an expected Afghan presidential election.