Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry says government forces have gained control of a district in the country’s north from the Taliban.

Separatists are waging violence against civilians in the Kashmir Valley, in a bid to bring the region to a halt.

Pakistan is trying to avoid getting blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog, when it meets Wednesday in Paris.

More than 50 militants have been killed elsewhere in Afghanistan over the past 24 hours as the government forces have intensified crackdowns on the armed insurgents, officials said Tuesday.

At least three security officers have been killed and dozens wounded, mostly children, after the Taliban set off explosives in a truck near a police headquarters building in eastern Afghanistan, officials have said.

Two-thirds of the votes cast for incumbent Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in last month’s presidential election were cast without proper biometric verification and fraudulent, a leading rival candidate, former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said Oct. 7, joining a chorus of candidates making similar accusations.

American and Afghan commandos killed the head of an affiliate of Al Qaeda in a southern Afghanistan raid last month, according to a statement released Tuesday by Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.

Pakistan has activated at least 20 terror camps and another 20 launch pads along the Line of Control with increased efforts to ensure infiltration of as many terrorists as it can into Jammu and Kashmir before the onset of winter, officials said on Tuesday.

Eleven Taliban leaders and members have been freed in exchange for three Indian engineers who were kidnapped last year, according to TOLOnews and The New York Times.

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security claims it has confirmed that Asim Umar, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, was killed during a well-publicized Sept. 23 raid in Helmand province. For proof, the NDS released side-by-side photographs of what it claims to be Umar, both dead and alive.