Taliban dismiss Trump's Afghan strategy as 'nothing new'

The Taliban dismissed Donald Trump's strategy for Afghanistan as vague and "nothing new" today after the US president cleared the way for thousands more American troops to be sent to the war-torn country.

"For now I can tell you there was nothing new in his speech and it was very unclear," Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, told AFP.

He added that the militants were preparing a formal statement which would be released later.

Trump backtracked from his promise to rapidly end America's longest war in his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief late Monday, though he did not offer specifics.

He said he had concluded "the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable", leaving a vacuum that terrorists "would instantly fill."

A senior Taliban commander told

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)