Category: Afghanistan

Central Asia’s High-Stakes Gamble With The Taliban – Analysis

Central Asian countries are taking steps to broaden relations with their southern neighbor, the Taliban-led Afghanistan, despite the hard-line group’s increasingly restrictive policies, particularly toward women. Kyrgyzstan removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations earlier this month, Turkmenistan resumed work with Afghanistan on a major gas-pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed $2.5 billion worth of cooperation agreements with Kabul […]

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Where is Afghanistan Three Years into Taliban Rule?

KEY TAKEAWAYS Lacking formal recognition from all member states, the Taliban will not be present at the U.N. General Assembly next week. Their absence speaks volumes about how the international community struggles to constrain a regime that has repeatedly defied U.N. treaties, sanctions and Security Council resolutions. Three years into Taliban rule, the Afghan people are beset by a host […]

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IEA’s leader says all laws now based on Sharia

He also said: “The conquest of Kabul is like the conquest of Makkah.” The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has reiterated that the current system is based on the Holy Quran and Sharia, opposed to previous laws that were of European and American origin. Speaking during his tour of northern provinces, Hibatullah Akhundzada criticized previous laws […]

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Muttaqi invited to upcoming Moscow format meeting on Afghanistan

The next Moscow format meeting is expected to be held in the next two weeks, Muttaqi announced on Thursday, adding that a high-level IEA delegation will attend it. Russian ambassador in Kabul Dmirtry Zhirnov, in a meeting with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi on Wednesday, invited him to participate in the next meeting of the Moscow Format […]

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Acting FM says IEA in control of 39 Afghan embassies globally

Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi says currently, 39 embassies and consulates of Afghanistan in different countries are under the control of the Islamic Emirate. Delivering the foreign ministry’s annual report, Muttaqi also said that IEA’s new ambassador to Uzbekistan will visit Tashkent next Saturday, and that Russia will remove the IEA from their list of banned groups. He stated […]

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Navigating the shadows: Afghanistan’s terrorism landscape three years after the US withdrawal and its international implications

At a July 2023 press conference, President Joe Biden somewhat angrily defended his record on the counterterrorist threat from Afghanistan: “Do you remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al Qaeda would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I […]

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Taliban’s Denial Of Al-Qaeda And TTP In Afghanistan: Strategic Deflection Or Enduring Alliances? – OpEd

United States intelligence reveals that Hamza bin Laden, son of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and previously thought dead from a 2019 U.S. airstrike, is alive and leading the Al-Qaeda. In stark contradiction to the increasing evidence from numerous international sources, the Taliban government have persistently denied that Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are present in Afghanistan. Although the Taliban, […]

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Afghanistan: Resistance In The North – Analysis

On September 11, 2024, three Taliban fighters were killed, and five were injured in an attack by the National Resistance Front (NRF) at Dawoodzi village in the Qarabagh District of Kabul Province. On September 8, 2024, two fighters of a Taliban intelligence unit were killed in an ambush set by the NRF along a frequently used route in the Tala […]

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South Asia Intelligence Review

Manipur: New dimensions of violence On September 8, 2024, a woman, identified as Nemjakhol Lhungdim (46), was killed when two groups of militants exchanged fire at Thangbuh village near Laimaton in Kangpokpi District. On September 7, 2024, five persons were killed in firing between Kuki Liberation Army (KLA) and United National Liberation Front-Pambei (UNLF-P) at the Tea Estate of Rashidpur […]

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In Dari-Language Sermon, Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan Chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Questions New Taliban Law Requiring Women Cover Their Faces In Public

On August 29, 2024, the Afghan outlet Daily Shahadat published[1] a sermon of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan and former mujahideen commander, in Dari, questioning a law[2] passed in August by the Taliban government’s Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice requiring that women be completely covered in public, including their faces, and not raise their voices. […]

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