The Taliban said Saturday their special forces had killed nine Islamic State operatives and captured two others in overnight raids in the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere in Afghanistan. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban government, said that intelligence information had led security forces to an “important hideout of Daesh” in Kabul late Friday. He used a local name for […]

During the last week of September 2022, it emerged that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA, i.e., the Afghan Taliban) and Russia have signed a provisional agreement to import oil, gas, and wheat from Russia. Following this announcement, the Urdu-language website of the Islamic Emirate published an article defending the Russian-Afghan deal even though the Taliban government is yet to […]

Da Afghanistan Bank, the country’s central bank, confirmed Sunday that new banknotes would soon enter circulation and replace the old, crumbling AFN. DAB’s announcement came on the heels of US special envoy Thomas West’s comments on Friday that a decision had been made to replace the old banknotes with new notes. Afghanistan’s central bank said in a statement that the […]

The Contact Commission with the Afghan Personalities of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), said that at least 370 Afghan personalities have returned to Afghanistan in the past year. The commission’s spokesman Ahmadullah Wasiq told Bakhtar news agency that since the establishment of the commission, 370 people including ministers, deputies, and members of parliament, national security employees, journalists and prominent […]

The supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, chaired a meeting with officials from the defense ministry’s intelligence agencies Sunday and called for their cooperation in a number of areas. “Intelligence is an important organ for the success of a system,” Akhundzada said, adding that it was this that “breaks the back of the enemy […]

On July 30, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who replaced Osama bin Laden in 2011, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan. U.S. President Joseph R. Biden announced his death on August 1 saying that, “Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more.” Originally an Egyptian surgeon, al-Zawahiri had a $25 million bounty on his […]

Three Afghan women detained for protesting Taliban abuses described torture and other severe mistreatment in custody, Human Rights Watch said today. The women said they were wrongfully detained with their families, including small children. They experienced threats, beatings, dangerous conditions of confinement, denial of due process, abusive conditions of release, and other abuses. The authorities assaulted and administered electric shocks […]

Special forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) raided a Daesh hideout in capital Kabul on Friday, killing six militants, officials said. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for IEA, said that initially two militants were arrested and then a Daesh hideout was discovered and raided in PD 8 of the city. Six militants were killed in the operation. Weapons, hand […]

Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan along with his delegation met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai Saturday. At the meeting, Stanekzai called on the United Nations for help in solving economic problems, banking restrictions, treating drug addicts and other similar problems. Bennett also promised to talk to foreign […]

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said this week Tehran was ready to host an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighboring states in order to help ensure regional security. Speaking at a meeting in Tehran with Mohammad Sadiq Khan, the Pakistani prime minister’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Amirabdollahian described the relations between Tehran and Islamabad as excellent and underlined […]