Suicide bombers attacked a Shiite mosque packed with worshippers attending Friday prayers in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 47 people and wounding 70, a Taliban official said. It was the deadliest day since the U.S. military withdrawal. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the carnage at the Fatimiya mosque in Kandahar province. The attack came a week after […]

A delegation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi left for Turkey on Thursday morning at the official invitation of Turkish FM Ahmed Dawood Oglu, said the IEA’s foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi. “A series of decisions will be made on the issues of bilateral relations, trade improvement, humanitarian aid, migrants […]

An Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) Ranger vehicle was targeted in a roadside explosion on Thursday in Asadabad, the capital of eastern Kunar province. The incident happened at about 11am and the target was the IEA’s Shigal district police chief, local officials said. The Shigal police chief was killed and 11 others were injured in the blast, security sources said. […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that battle-hardened militants from Iraq and Syria are “actively” entering Afghanistan. “The situation in Afghanistan is not easy,” Putin said during a video conference with security service chiefs of ex-Soviet states, AFP reported. “Militants from Iraq, Syria with experience in military operations are actively being drawn there,” he said. “It is possible that terrorists […]

Seventeen-year-old Israr was fast asleep when his phone rang. It was 2am and the teenager was exhausted. He’d been working all day as a guard. On the other end of the line was his brother, who told Israr that men had barged into their family house, dragged their father outside, and shot him dead. “He asked me to rush back […]

The Afghan government is imposing punishments that have no comparison elsewhere in the Islamic world. Late last month, the Taliban killed four men and hung their dead bodies in public squares in the northwestern Afghan city of Herat. One lifeless corpse dangled off a crane above throngs of commuters who were stunned at the exhibition and grasping the significance of […]

The U.S. and its Western allies have repeatedly said the militant group, which swept to power in August, will be judged by actions rather than words. Leaders of the world’s top economies failed to agree on how to deal with the Taliban at an extraordinary summit, pledging only to channel aid through the United Nations as a humanitarian crisis looms. […]

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday hinted that he would visit the Afghan capital Kabul with a group of counterparts from friendly countries. “We follow the situation in Afghanistan closely. We are planning to go to Kabul with some other foreign ministers in the upcoming period,” said Çavuşoğlu at a joint news conference with his visiting Indonesian counterpart Retno […]

There is no clear path for unfreezing Afghan government funds, Qatar’s foreign minister told a conference on Wednesday, highlighting the economic challenges Afghanistan faces under its new Islamic Emirate (IEA) rulers. Qatar is hosting talks between the IEA and Western officials and is seen as having influence over the new Afghan government. Much of the Afghan central bank’s $10 billion […]

An Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) official confirmed in a statement that a meeting was held in Doha between high ranking IEA officials and ambassadors and representatives of the United States, the European Union and other Western countries on Tuesday. According to IEA foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi, Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Mawlavi Amir Khan Muttaqi also discussed the […]