The Taliban foreign minister Wednesday penned an “open letter” to the U.S. Congress, warning of a mass refugee exodus from Afghanistan unless the United States unblocks more than $9 billion in Afghan central bank assets and ends other financial sanctions against the country. Amir Khan Muttaqi wrote that the sanctions “have not only played havoc” with trade and business but […]

Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Wednesday detained relatives of two civilians killed in a controversial gunfight after the families staged a protest in Srinagar demanding that local police return the bodies for traditional burial. The two civilians were among four people killed in a shootout with government security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir earlier this week, and their families have accused […]

Islamic State claimed responsibility for two explosions that hit a heavily Shi’ite Muslim area of the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least one person and wounding at least six others including three women. The blasts were the latest in a series of attacks in Kabul claimed by the militant Sunni group in recent days, with Shi’ite areas in […]

The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan on Wednesday delivered a bleak assessment of the situation following the Taliban takeover, saying that an affiliate of the Islamic State group has grown and now appears present in nearly all 34 provinces. U.N. Special Representative Deborah Lyons told the U.N. Security Council that the Taliban’s response to Islamic State-Khorasan Province’s (ISKP) expansion “appears to […]