Last week, Pakistan’s Counter-Terrorism Department charged Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed and 12 other key members of the group with money laundering and financing terrorist groups. If history is any guide, Saeed and his cadre will dodge the charges and continue to provide support to a wide range of terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

The war in Afghanistan may not end under Trump’s watch. President Donald Trump wants to get out of Afghanistan. But he says he’s worried that the country has become the “Harvard of terrorists” — so even if the US does end up leaving, he says he plans to keep a US intelligence presence behind to monitor the situation.

Even by the standards of Afghanistan’s long war, the Taliban attack near a school that wounded dozens of schoolchildren on Monday stood out as unusually brutal, and expressions of outrage came thick and fast from governments around the world.

The Taliban has launched several major attacks throughout Afghanistan over the past two days, including an attack on the Ministry of Defense in the capital of Kabul, and another on election workers in Kandahar. In Paktia and Kunduz, the Taliban killed dozens of Afghan security personnel.

The Taliban has overrun another district in northern Afghanistan. The district of Qush Tepa in Jawzjan province – which was previously contested – was taken by the Taliban earlier today after several days of fighting, both Afghan officials and the Taliban confirmed.

Afghanistan’s president has held talks with Pakistan’s prime minister as momentum builds for peace talks with the Taliban that are aimed at ending Afghanistan’s decades of war and conflict.

There was an air of expectation on both sides as the Taliban and American diplomats gathered to meet for the latest round of peace talks on Saturday. Afghan and Western officials say that if the Taliban express willingness to finally go to the negotiating table with the Afghan government, American diplomats might be willing to play their main negotiating card: […]

The Taliban’s “Commission for Military Affairs of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” gave media outlets a one week deadline to cease broadcasting anti-Taliban commercials or they “shall become military targets.” The Taliban has a long history of denouncing and attacking Afghan journalists and other elements of civil society. Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists to work.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban remain close allies, according to a report by a United Nations Security Council monitoring team. Indeed, Al Qaeda “has grown stronger operating under the Taliban umbrella across Afghanistan and is more active than in recent years.”

A member of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) from Jammu and Kashmir was recently killed fighting in Ghazni, Afghanistan, according to jihadist sources online. The AQIS man, known as Abdul Haseeb al-Kashmiri, was reportedly killed late last week.