The Taliban have offered a brief period of reducing violence in Afghanistan during ongoing negotiations with United States diplomats, three officials familiar with the talks said on Thursday, a concession seen as important to finalizing a preliminary peace deal between the insurgents and the United States to end their 18-year war.

The Taliban will implement a 10-day ceasefire with U.S. troops, a reduction in violence with Afghan forces and discussions with Afghan government officials if it reaches a deal with U.S. negotiators in talks in Doha, two sources have said.

The death toll from the bombing of a mosque in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta rose to 15 on Saturday, officials said, in an escalation of militant violence.

A senior police officer has been arrested in Indian Kashmir and accused of aiding militants after he was found driving two suspected insurgents toward Jammu, Kashmir’s chief of police told reporters on Sunday.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Axios in an exclusive interview that “it is possible” Trump will cut a deal with the Taliban this year but that even if a deal can’t be struck, the president is still poised to reduce troops in Afghanistan.

Afghan forces, during a cleanup operation, have killed at least 18 Taliban militants in the country’s northern province of Takhar, Pamir Army Corps 217 said in a statement released here Saturday.

A roadside bomb attack in Kandahar province has left two American service members dead and two wounded, the U.S. military command in Kabul said in a statement Saturday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack through a post on Twitter.

The Afghan government says more than 130 Pakistanis — women and children related to former fighters of the Islamic State terror group — have been returned to other family members and will be going home to Pakistan after being held in a detention center for several weeks.

On the last Sunday of 2019, Afghans woke up to an exciting news of the Taliban insurgency agreeing to possible ceasefire, a much-needed respite from the constant violence. Reports suggested that this temporary truce with the US administration could last for as long as 10 days – a week longer than the last ceasefire between the two warring parties, during […]

The Taliban said Thursday it believes escalating military tensions between the United States and Iran are unlikely to hurt the insurgent group’s negotiations with Washington aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan.