Whatever U.S. government officials may claim about the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban know that they have won. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly said on Friday that the Taliban are pushing the narrative that the United States has been “defeated,” Fox News reporter Lucas Tomilson tweeted. (The Taliban later denied making such claims after this story was initially published.)

The National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan spy agency, said on Saturday that it captured the Taliban’s shadow governor for Kabul. Identified as Mohammad, and popularly known as Haji Lala, he was involved in the recent wave of assassinations and kidnapping that have gripped the Afghan capital, a senior NDS official told The National.

At least 15 security forces members were killed and five others were wounded in a Taliban attack near the city of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province. A suicide bomber drove a vehicle loaded with explosives into a base for Afghan defence forces in the country’s east on Saturday, killing at least 15 security personnel in an attack claimed by […]

Eight soldiers were killed as a car bomb went off next to a military base in Shirzad district of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province on Saturday, said a statement of provincial government released here.

A presidential aide has asked the Taliban to honour the commitments to peace before making fresh demands. Over the past two years, the government had taken a string of steps towards peace, Waheed Omer told reporters here on Saturday.

Three Taliban militants have been killed, five wounded and four others detained during security forces’ operations in northern Balkh and Samangan provinces, said the 209th Shaheen Military Corps on Sunday.

The European Union and other diplomatic missions in Afghanistan including Australia, Canada, the UK, the US and NATO, all called out the Taliban on Sunday and demanded an end to the violence and to the destruction of vital infrastructure installations.

International troops plan to stay in Afghanistan beyond the May deadline envisaged by the insurgent Taliban’s deal with the United States, four senior NATO officials told Reuters. The move could however escalate tensions with the Taliban which is demanding a full withdrawal.

During talks with a visiting Taliban delegation, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Sunday called for the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

Members of the Afghan Republic’s religious delegation of the peace talks team on Sunday met with leaders of the International Union of Muslim Scholars in Doha to discuss the peace process.