Every few days, bodies are dumped on the outskirts of the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. Some have been shot or hanged, some beheaded. Many have handwritten notes stuffed into their pockets, accusing them of being members of Afghanistan’s branch of the Islamic State. No-one claims responsibility for the gruesome, extra-judicial killings, but the Taliban are widely assumed to be […]

Taliban diplomats have started work in the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and at Afghan consulates in other Pakistani cities, two Taliban officials and two Afghan diplomats told VOA Thursday. VOA has obtained copies of official Taliban notifications sent to the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad. Pakistani officials say they have allowed the deployments even though Pakistan has not yet […]

Turkmen officials are due to travel to Kabul this week to discuss the development of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, Reuters reported. The pipeline, which would carry 33bn m3/year of gas from Turkmenistan’s Galkynysh field to southeast Asia, was first discussed in the 1990s. But the project has struggled to secure financing, in part because of security concerns over the section […]

The United States’ Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, spoke with Prime Minister Imran Khan in Riyadh yesterday on the sidelines of the “Middle East Green Initiative (MGI)” Summit. In the regional context, the Imran Khan underscored the importance of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan for Pakistan and the region. Pakistan’s Prime Minister stressed the need for the international […]

Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi attended a meeting in Doha on Wednesday evening with representatives and ambassadors of 14 countries to discuss the relationship between the new Afghan government and the international community. During the meeting Muttaqi called on the international community to urge the United States to release Afghanistan’s national reserves. Muttaqi said that for the first […]

Former US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said former president Ashraf Ghani’s “intransigence,” the Afghan elite’s “selfishness” and Afghan soldiers’ lack of will to fight was to blame for the rapid takeover of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) in August. On Ghani’s refusal to change his views, or agree to the formation of a new interim government, Khalilzad […]

Unidentified gunmen attacked a police patrol overnight in northwest Pakistan, killing four before fleeing the scene, a police official said Wednesday. No group claimed responsibility for the attack in Lakki Marwat, a town in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Police official Umar Khan said a search operation for the culprits was still underway. Khan provided no further details and […]

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, foreign aid has frequently been framed as a possible lever the international community can use to push them to moderate their rule. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres argued after the takeover that “humanitarian assistance is an entry point for effective engagement with the Taliban.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasized […]

In some provinces, teenage girls have been allowed to return to secondary schools, though some teachers and parents still have doubts about what this means about Taliban rule. When Narges and her younger sisters were finally allowed to return to school last month, they braced for the new world outside their family’s gate. Following their mother’s lead, each layered on […]

A catalog of “waste, fraud and abuse” reports made against the United States’ reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan have been “temporarily” removed from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) website. In an expose by CNN, a US State Department spokesperson told CNN they had asked SIGAR to “temporarily” remove the reports, owing “to safety and security concerns regarding our […]