The Taliban today described Nato's plan to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 as "irrational", reiterating its demand for all foreign troops to leave immediately or risk more bloodshed.
In a five-point statement released in response to a Nato summit that wrapped up in Lisbon yesterday, the Taliban said delaying the withdrawal of foreign troops would only lead to more "tragic events and battles".
US president Barack Obama, who is due to review his Afghanistan war strategy next month, has already committed to a gradual drawdown of US troops from July 2011, his counterpart Hamid Karzai saying he wants Afghans in control by 2014.
That target was agreed by Nato leaders in Lisbon yesterday, although some US and Nato officials have said a spike in violence and problems in building up a capable Afghan army and police force to take over could make it hard to meet the goal.
Mark Sedwill, the top Nato civilian representative in Kabul, said last week the transition could spill over into 2015 in some of the most violent areas of Afghanistan.
Mr Obama said yesterday his aim was to halt major combat operations by the end of 2014 but others were cautious.
Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said no security vacuum would be left behind and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the transition would be shaped by security rather than timetables.
The Taliban dismissed all such talk as "irrational".
"Because until then, various untoward and tragic events and battles will take place as a result of this meaningless, imposed and unwinnable war. They should not postpone withdrawal of their forces even be it for one day," it said in a statement.
Brigadier general Josef Blotz, a senior spokesman for Nato forces in Afghanistan, said the transition was not "calendar-driven but conditions-based", with the end of 2014 set as the target date.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were overthrown by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, with record casualties on all sides of the conflict despite the presence of about 150,000 foreign troops.
Major US and Nato-led operations have started in the past 18 months across Taliban strongholds in the south, with commanders saying they have halted the Islamist group's momentum but also warning that hard fighting still lay ahead.
The militants, meanwhile, have spread the insurgency out of the south and east near the Pakistan border into once peaceful areas in the north and west.