It is not in the interest of anyone to have a failed Afghan state, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said in an interview this week. Speaking to China’s CGTN, Balkhi said that there is no alternative to the current government and said people need to support it. He stated the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) government […]

Afghanistan’s finance ministry announced Saturday that a contract was signed for the purchase of 350,000 tons of oil from neighboring Iran. The agreement was signed with an Iranian firm during an Afghan delegation’s visit to the neighboring country. The delegation included representatives of Afghanistan Oil and Gas Corporation, ministries of finance and foreign affairs, Da Afghanistan Bank and National Standards […]

The Ministry of Energy and Water said Saturday that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is committed to Iran’s water rights, but Afghanistan itself does not have enough water. Abdul Latif Mansoor, acting Minister of Energy and Water emphasized that the right to water is not a simple issue that can be easily understood and it is necessary to install […]

India and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to supply 10,000 metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan where nearly 19 million people – half of the population – are facing acute food insecurity, compounded by the recent earthquake that struck the eastern part of the country in June. The MoU marks the […]

A BBC Panorama investigation has uncovered evidence that the British SAS, a special forces unit, executed detainees and murdered unarmed people during operations in Afghanistan. The investigation found new evidence of scores of secret killings by the SAS, and efforts by some of the most senior figures in UK Special Forces to conceal evidence of war crimes. Panorama has identified […]

Ever since they took control of Kabul last summer, the Taliban have sought to assure neighboring countries that Afghanistan is open for business and that they can protect investments. Islamic State is making that sales pitch harder. Take Tashkent’s ambition to build a railway across Afghanistan that would connect Uzbekistan to ports in Pakistan and link Central Asia to new […]

The Promise and Peril of Rapprochement With the Taliban Since taking power last summer, Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government has been isolated internationally; not a single country has yet recognized it. But in recent weeks, Taliban officials have made a series of increasingly public overtures to a once unlikely prospective partner: India. And the interest has been reciprocated, to some extent. At […]

Anas Haqqani said this week that the Haqqani Network never existed and that when he was arrested in Qatar, he had been a harmless student on holiday. In 2014, when he was 20, Haqqani was arrested in Qatar, tried in Kabul and sentenced to death. According information obtained by Der Spiegel, the only reason he wasn’t ultimately executed was because […]

Mawlavi Haibatullah Akhundzada, supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), on Saturday in his Eid speech, warned officials not to create a gap between the government and people. “Governments have collapsed through the creation of gaps between people and government and I instruct IEA officials to stand with the people and not to create a gap between people […]

Qatar is looking to sign a security deal with Afghanistan, Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid, acting defense minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has said. Mujahid said this after returning from Doha where he met with senior Qatari officials during his two-day visit following an official invitation. He said that Qatar expressed interest in signing a cooperation agreement between the […]