We leave Kabul on an October morning as darkness gives way to light. It’s a drive filled with jerks and bumps and often at a snail’s pace due to the poor condition of the highway. We spot Afghan men alongside the road dressed in thick jackets. Winter is on the horizon. At the checkpoint, the Taliban fighters are also bundled […]

After a military retreat by Afghanistan’s National Resistance Front last week in the Panjshir Valley, the group’s head of foreign relations, Ali Nazary, appeared in Washington last Friday to vow that it would continue holding out against the Taliban and to seek military assistance for doing so. Yesterday, The New York Times reported that the NRF has hired lobbyist Robert […]

Groups such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh will take advantage of the Afghan crisis, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi cautioned on Friday ahead of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s special session in Islamabad. The 17th Extraordinary Session of the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers was called by Saudi Arabia and will be hosted by Islamabad on Dec. 19. The meeting’s […]

A drone strike hit a house just inside Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, apparently targeting a senior member of the Pakistani Taliban, but the missile failed to explode, Reuters quoting Pakistani Taliban sources said on Thursday. One of the Pakistani Taliban officials said the drone fired a missile at a hujra, or guesthouse on the compound of Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, a […]

China’s embassy in Afghanistan warned its companies and citizens on Friday not to “blindly” visit the country to inspect mineral resources, after reports of foreigners being detained without exploration permits, Reuters reported. According to the report Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has “extremely strict” standards for issuing permits for prospecting for minerals, the embassy said, adding that companies and […]

Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations announced late Thursday night that Naseer Ahmad Faiq has taken over the leadership of Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, replacing Ghulam Mohammad Isaczai. Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations wrote in an official tweet that Faiq is in charge of all activities of Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. […]

A global human rights group is accusing all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan of inflicting “extensive” casualties on civilians before the U.S.-backed government in Kabul collapsed and the Islamist Taliban took power last August. The London-based Amnesty International said Wednesday in a new report that the months leading up to the fall of Kabul were marked by “repeated war […]

Sara-e- Shahzadah, Afghanistan’s largest currency exchange market, announced early Thursday that the Afghani had gained some traction and climbed to 95 AFN against the US dollar overnight. This comes after the AFN was trading at 105 Afghanis to the dollar at close of business on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Central Bank, Da Afghanistan Bank, has said the fourth package of […]

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday warned that the world’s inaction on Afghanistan would lead to a massive humanitarian crisis and that any ensuing chaos in the country would strengthen terrorist organizations. Qureshi said in a statement that if the situation deteriorates in Afghanistan, it would not only affect Pakistan, but also other countries in the region and […]

The United Nations (UN) said Tuesday that it was alarmed by continuing reports of extrajudicial killings across Afghanistan, including hangings, beheadings and public displays of corpses. “Between August and November, we received credible allegations of more than 100 killings of former Afghan national security forces and others associated with the former Government, with at least 72 of these killings attributed […]