Pressure, Not Engagement, Is the Best Way to Help Afghans One year after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, it is clear that the extremist group has changed little since it first seized control of the country in 1996. In March 2022, the Taliban decided not to reopen girls’ secondary schools throughout the country—as it had vowed to do […]

Economists have vehemently opposed Washington’s decision to establish the Afghan Fund and transfer $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s frozen assets into a Swiss account. The economists said Monday the people appointed to manage the fund do not have the expertise to do so and collectively called for Afghanistan foreign reserves to be returned to the country. One economist, Sayed Massoud, said […]

Qudratullah Abu Hamza, Balkh’s governor, warned home owners Monday that houses rented to kidnappers and Daesh militants will be confiscated. Hamza called on residents of the northern province to support the IEA security forces and to not allow such elements to settle in residential areas. He said should home owners ignore this warning, the IEA will identify houses rented by […]

A top Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) official, Haji Bashir Noorzai, has been released after almost 20 years in Guantanamo Bay. He arrived in Kabul on Monday. He was one of the last Afghans detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, according to sources. According to the IEA’s foreign minister, the US freed the official on Monday in exchange for […]

The Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Bahadur Aminian, says at least 6,000 Afghan citizens enter Iran every day and that only about half have visas. The rest enter illegally, he said, adding that these migrants risk falling victim to human traffickers. Speaking to the BBC Aminian said the only way to reduce the wave of refugees into Iran was to create […]

The Taliban’s foreign affairs ministry on Thursday condemned the United States’ decision to transfer Afghan central bank reserves into a Swiss-based trust, saying it was against international norms. On Wednesday, Washington announced it would transfer $3.5 billion in previously frozen Afghan central bank assets into a new trust fund that it said would be shielded from the Taliban and used […]

Authorities in Pakistan said they have offered the Taliban “intelligence and operational assistance” to hunt down the leader of a Pakistani militant group who is believed to be in Afghanistan. Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed organization, was designated a global terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in 2019. The issue of Azhar’s presence in Afghanistan has been […]

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday said the United States’ decision to transfer $3.5 billion of the country’s frozen foreign reserves to a Swiss fund without any input from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) was unacceptable and a violation of international norms. In a statement issued by the ministry, it said: “The Islamic Emirate, as an accountable government […]

Hundreds of people demonstrated in Kabul on Saturday against the United States’ decision to transfer $3.5 billion of the country’s frozen foreign reserves to a Swiss fund. The protesters, who gathered in front of the former Afghanistan Human Rights Commission office, chanted anti-US slogans as they blamed the United States for the ongoing humanitarian and economic crisis in Afghanistan. They […]

The US State Department has officially announced the establishment of the international financing mechanism which will see $3.5 billion worth of Afghanistan’s frozen assets being used for the benefit of the people. In a press briefing on Wednesday night, State Department spokesman Ned Price said: “Today, the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury, in coordination with international […]