Afghan officials have dismissed US assertion that a deadly attack on a maternity hospital in the capital Kabul earlier this week was carried out by the Daesh terrorist group, blaming the Taliban for the carnage.

President Ashraf Ghani says Afghanistan’s security forces will go on the offensive against the Taliban and other militant groups, following a violent day in which gunmen stormed a maternity hospital in Kabul and a suicide bomber targeted a funeral in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Several complex and gruesome attacks, including on a hospital in Kabul and a funeral in Nangarhar, claimed more than 100 civilian casualties on Tuesday, risking further erosion of the atmosphere for delayed intra-Afghan peace talks. Amid widespread horror and anger at the attacks, President Ghani blamed the Taliban and announced Afghan security forces would drop their defensive posture and resume […]

Two explosions, about an hour apart, struck different areas of the Afghan capital late on Thursday, an official said. There were no casualties but some damage to a power station was reported.

The son of the Afghan Taliban’s late founder has been appointed as the insurgents’ military chief in a political reshuffle to check the power of his predecessor, senior militant figures have said.

The arrests were made as special forces carried out a raid on a property in Kabul on Tuesday evening, seizing weapons and explosives and killing five members of the joint network.

Five members of an Islamic State terror cell that attacked the largest American base in Afghanistan earlier this year were killed in a series of operations by Afghan commandos in and around Kabul, Afghan officials said Wednesday.

Zalmay Khalilzad will press Taliban, India and Pakistan to support a reduction in violence amid surging Taliban attacks.

The Taliban has called on the Afghan government to speed up the release of prisoners in order to pave the way for negotiations with the militant movement.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday that the Taliban were not living up to their commitments under an agreement signed this year, amid signs the fragile deal is under strain by a political deadlock and increasing Taliban violence.