Turkish Brigadier General Selçuk Yurtsizoğlu has assumed command of the NATO-led Train, Advise, Assist Command-Capital in Kabul, NATO’s spokesperson Oana Lungescu announced this week. “With its 600-strong contingent, Turkey is a vital contributor to the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan,” she said on her Twitter account. Turkey joined the military alliance of 29 North American and European countries in 1952. […]

An Australian court on Thursday said it will allow four Afghans to give evidence via video link in a defamation case filed by a former Australian soldier accused of being involved in killing civilians in Afghanistan, Anadolu News Agency reported. The ruling came in a defamation case filed by Ben Roberts-Smith, a special forces veteran, against Australian media outlets for […]

Sharifullah Sharifi, Commander of Special Unit of Baghlan Police, was killed in a Taliban ambush late on Thursday night in northern Baghlan province, sources said. Sources told Ariana News that the Taliban ambushed a convoy heading by Sharifi in the Khala Zai area on the Baghlan-Kunduz highway at 11:30 Thursday midnight. At least ten members of the Afghan forces were […]

Sources reveal secret negotiations between Pakistan’s government and the TTP, which ultimately fell apart. During 2020, the Pakistani government and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has, since its inception in December 2007, been openly fighting the Pakistani government, conducted secret peace negotiations, militant sources exclusively confirmed to The Diplomat. While these negotiations went into much detail, the talks eventually […]

If Biden can successfully extricate America from Afghanistan in 2021 and avoid committing America to similarly ill-fated ventures in the future, then he can shift America’s focus towards resolving many of the domestic problems that have long plagued the country. In the summer of 2011, President Barack Obama delivered a speech to the American public announcing his plan to bring […]

The Biden administration, like its predecessor, is poised to withdraw the remaining American troops from Afghanistan — at great cost to both its own and its allies’ interests. By treating Afghanistan as a small stand-alone conflict of interest only to voters in the United States, withdrawing a few thousand soldiers to end America’s longtime commitment reframes a strategic failure as […]

National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib on Saturday said a 15-member committee of political leaders within the High Council of National Reconciliation (HCNR) is expected to review the outcome of the assessments gathered on US-proposed peace plan by the State Ministry for Peace Affairs on Sunday. “The assessments were conducted and we gathered views,” Mohib said. “We hope to reach a […]

President Ashraf Ghani’s National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib at a press conference on Saturday said that the president will not be influenced by any type of political pressure unless an agreement is made for bringing real peace to Afghanistan. “We assure our people that we will not bow to pressure,” Mohib said. “Our objective is to achieve peace. The government […]

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Taliban of “deliberately” targeting journalists and other media workers, including women in Afghanistan. The watchdog said in a statement that threats and attacks against journalists have increased sharply since the start of the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

At least 26 Taliban members including three commanders were killed and 33 others wounded in an Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) operation in Faryab province on Friday night, Faryab police said in a statement. Air and ground operations were carried out in Gurziwan district, the statement read.