Afghan Taliban Declines to Support Moscow-Backed Peace Talks
The Afghan Taliban says that it does not support Russia-sponsored multi-nation talks on Afghanistan because the process seems to be motivated solely by the “political agenda” of the organizers. The Islamist insurgency issued its reaction a day before delegates from Afghanistan as well as its immediate and far neighbors are due to meet in Moscow […]
Pakistani Islamist Leader Calls on Taliban to Join His Political Party
A Pakistani lawmaker and deputy leader of a conservative religious party, accused of links with militant groups, has invited the Pakistani Taliban to join his Islamist political party. As a three-day gathering of religious devotees and political followers got under way Thursday, the secretary general of Pakistani’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Abdul Ghafoor Haidari, called on […]
Officials: Pakistani Religious Schools Increasingly Linked to Afghan Taliban
When Afghan intelligence officials, assisted by international investigators, probed a terror attack last month that killed five Emirati diplomats in Kandahar, they traced the suspects to a conservative religious seminary in Pakistan. “The attack was planned in Mawlawi Ahmad Madrassa in Chaman, Quetta,” said Sediq Seddiqi, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior. The […]
Afghan Taliban Writes ‘Open Letter’ to President Trump
The Taliban, in a so-called “open letter” to U.S. President Donald Trump, has called on him to help end what it denounced as a “futile” and “un-winnable” American war in Afghanistan. A copy of the letter, written by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, was released to journalists Wednesday.
Progress and regress: Obama’s mixed Afghanistan legacy
Kabul, Afghanistan – It’s America’s Longest War and one that President Barack Obama promised to end in 2014. But two years later, the security situation in Afghanistan is in a downward spiral, with the Taliban and Islamic State fighters (ISIL) making gains in several provinces. Although Obama slowed his original timeline of troop withdrawals, his […]
UN investigates deadly Afghanistan air strikes
The United Nations said it was investigating an incident in which more than 30 civilians were killed in US air strikes called in support of a special forces raid on suspected Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said at least 32 people had been killed and 19 wounded in […]
Afghan forces retake Khanabad district from Taliban
Afghan government officials say security forces have retaken control of a key district that fell to the Taliban in the northern province of Kunduz. Soldiers were able to retake control of the heart of Khanabad from Taliban fighters, who had hoisted their flag in the centre of the district, Mawlawi Abdullah, a provincial council member […]
Taliban and ISIS Both Claim Quetta Hospital Bombing
Both the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) have claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at a hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Tuesday, which killed at least 70 people and injured some 120 more. The detonation took place outside the gates of the hospital’s emergency ward. It came after […]
More than 700 civilians dead, injured in Afgahn province in 9 months
Islamabad (dpa) – More than 700 civilians have died or been injured in the last nine months in the southern province of Helmand. Since the end of March last year at least 232 people have died and at least 502 have been injured, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said Thursday. The Taliban have stepped […]