President Ashraf Ghani is expected to chair a key meeting of Afghanistan’s political leaders on Thursday, amid reports that an 11-member team of Afghan politicians plan to travel to Doha by the end of this week for talks with the Taliban on the peace process.

Thursday’s meeting is expected to address the agenda of the talks in Doha and the timeline for the trip.

An Afghan police officer, Ahmad Shah, fought the Taliban alone for 18 hours in the southern province of Kandahar and said that the Taliban are undertaking a massive propaganda campaign about the military offensives to demoralize the Afghan security forces.

Ahmad Shah and 14 other policemen were deployed at a checkpoint in the suburbs of Kandahar city when the Taliban attacked them. Ahmad Shah, who was wounded, did not surrender and resisted the Taliban for 18 hours.