Outgoing US President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw 2,500 troops from Afghanistan by January 15 is coming under fire from high-ranking retired US generals, who describe it as lacking strategic calculus and a reward to the Taliban.

Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has announced a major troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. The news is being met with plenty of skepticism. “It’s time to leave Afghanistan.” That’s what the Pentagon’s new acting leader, Chris Miller, wrote in a two-page memo to Defense Department staff on Nov. 13.

The findings of a four-year military inquiry paint a brutal picture of a special forces culture of rewarding the killing of innocents and prisoners and methodically covering it up.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on a phone call with President Ghani on Wednesday evening discussed the Afghan peace process and troops level adjustment with the Afghan leader.

The Taliban captured Maymay district in the northeastern province of Badakhshan on Thursday, according to lawmakers and provincial council members, who said “several” security force members were killed in an offensive by the Taliban.

The U.S. announced plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 4,500 to about 2,500 by mid-January, prompting both domestic and international concern that the move could degrade the Afghan government’s ability to fend off Taliban advances. Crisis Group expert Andrew Watkins says the reduction could narrow diplomatic and military options for the incoming Biden administration and […]

Abstract: With the onset of inter-Afghan peace talks, it is important to take a close look at the Taliban—including their main objectives, ideological underpinnings, organizational structure, military strategies and tactics, and relationship with state and non-state actors. The Taliban is in many ways a different organization from the one that governed Afghanistan in the 1990s. Yet most of their leaders […]

At least 28 members of the Afghan security forces – including the police chief of Maymay district of Badakhshan, district acting-security director were killed as the Taliban militants overrun the Maymay district on Wednesday night, sources confirmed.

US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad discussed the Afghan peace process with Uzbekistan Foreign Minister and Diplomate in Washington DC on Thursday evening, Khalilzad said in a series of tweets.

According to a Reuter’s story quoting Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Thursday that Britain will likely follow the United States in reducing troop levels in Afghanistan.