The Biden administration is trying to work around longstanding terrorism-related sanctions to facilitate the delivery of aid to the struggling Afghan population. Despite the issuance of sanctions exceptions, Taliban rule in Afghanistan will cause many global banks to refuse to finance commercial transactions with the Afghan private sector. Whether U.S. sanctions on the Taliban are lifted outright will depend on […]

The Moscow meeting of ten regional states and the Taliban officials on Wednesday has produced an outcome that by far exceeds expectations. The salience of the consensus opinion is four-fold, as reflected in the joint statement issued after the event: Then, there is the ubiquitous geopolitical angle. Simply put, the Biden Administration has lost the plot. The Fox News flashed […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday Afghanistan should receive economic support and get its financial assets unfrozen as its stability was in the interest of all its neighbours, Reuters reported. Washington meanwhile said earlier this week it has no plans to release billions in Afghan gold, investments and foreign currency reserves parked in the United States that it froze […]

Russia is moving towards excluding the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) from its list of extremist organisations, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, a day after high-level talks between Moscow and Afghanistan’s new rulers. Russia labelled the IEA a “terrorist organisation” in 2003 but welcomed the IEA for talks in Moscow several times before it seized power in Afghanistan in […]

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi gave Afghanistan’s new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) rulers advice Thursday on how to gain international recognition, during a visit to Kabul. After returning to Islamabad, Qureshi said he advised Islamic Emirate leaders on how to improve their reputation. “As a neighbour and as a well-wisher and friend, I conveyed to them what sort […]

Pakistani counter-terrorism forces say they have killed three Afghan militants who belonged to the ISIS group during a raid on a hideout near the country’s border with Afghanistan. The gun battle was the latest episode of violence in Pakistan involving extremist groups that appear to have been emboldened by the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan, The Associated […]

Security forces attacked in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan Islamabad: Six Pakistani security personnel were killed in three attacks in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan in two days. Four personnel including two FC soldiers Lance Naik Mudassir and Sepoy Jamshed and two police constables Abdul Samad and Noor Rehman lost their lives in an improvised […]

The Taliban imposed further restrictions on female city government employees in Afghanistan’s capital on Thursday, barring many from returning to work next week in a sign that the group will continue to restrict women’s rights despite two decades of freedoms under the previous government. Neamatullah Barakzai, the Taliban’s head of public awareness for the Kabul municipality, said many female city […]

A roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying security forces in a former stronghold of local militants in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, killing four, police said. The attack happened in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. The area served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban until a few years ago, when the army said […]

Four militants and a soldier were killed in two separate gun battles in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday, a police officer said, as violence in the disputed region continued following a spate of attacks on civilians. More than 30 people have been killed after a rise in violence in Kashmir in recent weeks, including targeted killings of minority Hindus, Sikhs and […]