President Joe Biden said Monday that a U.S. missile strike over the weekend has killed the leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. For the past decade, al-Zawahiri headed al-Qaida, the Islamist terror group that spawned franchises around the world after the stunning attacks on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001.

The Islamic Republic and the Taliban have formed a committee to address violence on the border. Border clashes are continuing on Iran’s border with Afghanistan, prompting the two countries to formally meet on the issue. Iran’s Deputy Interior Minister Seyyed Majid Mir-Ahmadi said yesterday that border guards for the Taliban government in Afghanistan shot at Iranian border guards late last […]

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday that the U.S. does not “support Taiwan independence,” amid heightened threats from China about Nancy Pelosi’s reported trip to the island. “Nothing has changed about our ‘One China Policy,’” Kirby said. “We have repeatedly said that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We have said […]

The interior ministry has confirmed that a rocket hit a residential house in Sherpur, close to Kabul city center, at about 6am Sunday. The Interior Ministry’s spokesman Abdul Nafi Takour confirmed the incident but said no casualties had been reported. “It was a rocket attack this morning on a residential house in Sherpur area of Kabul city; fortunately, it did […]

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has confirmed that one of its soldiers was killed and another one wounded on Sunday when Iranian border forces opened fire along the border fence in Nimroz province. The Nimroz department of Information and Culture said in a statement the incident occurred when the Iranian border forces fired at an IEA border patrol before […]

A 17-member delegation of tribal elders arrived in Kabul on Saturday to resume peace talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This comes after a team of senior religious scholars returned to Pakistan this week after negotiations in Afghanistan with the TTP leadership, Dawn News reported. The eight-member ulema delegation was led by Mufti Taqi Usmani. Dawn News reported a source […]

Former president Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff Abdul Karim Khurram’s tweet on Pakistan’s intention regarding the imposition of a new Wakhan Corridor policy has triggered a heated debate. On July 22, Khurram wrote on his Twitter handle that Pakistan had renewed its demand for the construction of a transit road via Wakhan for trade with Tajikistan. Some sources urged the […]

Russian has underlined the need for the release of Afghanistan’s foreign assets frozen by the Biden administration. “On our part, we again drew attention to the need to unlock the national assets [of Afghanistan],” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said. Addressing a news conference on Wednesday, Ivan Nechaev said this while commenting on the results of the […]

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued a report this week in which it stated the Pentagon made $232 million in questionable salary payments to the former government of Afghanistan’s defense ministry personnel for fiscal year 2019 to May 2020. SIGAR found that during this period, the US Defense Department (DoD) disbursed $232 million to the former Afghan […]

Get Ready for a More Ambitious Chinese Foreign Policy As China prepares for this fall’s 20th Party Congress, the odds grow stronger by the day that Chinese President Xi Jinping will emerge from the meeting having secured a third term in office. This will mark a break with Chinese precedent since Deng Xiaoping wrote a two-term limit into the country’s […]