Turkish security personnel have arrested nearly 150 Afghan migrants on the border with Iran, media reports said on Saturday. The Afghan citizens were detained on Thursday in the eastern city of Bitlis after the country boosted border security to block entry from Afghanistan via Iran. Local officials said one person was arrested on suspicion of smuggling migrants inside a truck […]

Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight. But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic […]

As the Taliban shift their focus from insurgency to government, their most formidable rival is the Islamic State’s regional chapter, which has staged a string of bloody attacks in recent weeks. The latest atrocity claimed by Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) killed at least 19 people Tuesday, including a senior Taliban commander at a military hospital in Kabul, with dozens more wounded. […]

The Haqqani network has long been the most lethal and vicious element of the Taliban. Afghanistan’s newly appointed minister of interior and acting minister of refugees each have $5 million bounties on their head for their involvement with international terrorism. Sirajuddin Haqqani and his uncle, Khalil, are members of the Haqqani network, an Afghan Sunni Islamist militant organization that is […]

China’s establishment of military bases in Tajikistan reflects a shared concern with Central Asian countries about the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. Tajikistan is pivotal to China and other actors because it borders areas of Afghanistan where there is a small, but active, armed opposition to the Taliban. Regional and global powers no longer trust the Taliban’s pledges to […]