Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday met with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, political chief of Afghanistan’s Taliban in Tianjin, Xinhua reported. The Afghan Taliban, as a critical military and political force in the country, is expected to play an important role in the peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process of Afghanistan, Wang said. He called on the […]

Fighting between the Afghan security forces and the Taliban reportedly continued in at least 20 provinces across the country in the past 24 hours including Ghazni, Takhar, Kandahar, Helmand and Baghlan provinces. In the latest incidents of violence, several rounds of rockets hit Maimana city, the center of Faryab province, and PD5 of Lashkargah city has also fallen to the […]

Anas Haqqani, a member of the Taliban’s negotiating team, confirmed Tuesday that the son of Mohammad Nabi Omari, a member of the Taliban leadership and negotiating team, was killed in a battle with government forces. In a tweet, Haqqani confirmed the killing of Omari. But he did not give any further details. The Afghan government also confirmed that Abdul Haq […]

The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) are expected to start offensives in Balkh province and across the country to retake fallen districts and areas, said Bismillah Mohammadi, acting minister of defense on Tuesday during a trip to Balkh. According to Mohammadi, if the Taliban think they can win militarily, they are wrong. “Hopefully we will witness our offensives […]

Russia is ready to provide its ally Tajikistan with any assistance needed amid a worsening conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan, Russia’s TASS news agency cited Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying on Wednesday. Reuters reported that Shoigu said the additional supply of Russian arms to Tajikistan had already been arranged and that Russia was continuing to train Tajik military personnel, against […]

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said the United States “really messed it up in Afghanistan” and that Washington should have pushed for a political settlement much earlier. In an interview with PBS News Hour on Tuesday night, Khan sai: “I think the US has really messed it up in Afghanistan.” “And people like me who kept saying that there’s no […]

Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Mohammad Hanif Atmar warned that the activities of the Taliban in his country would aggravate extremism and prepare the ground for notorious terrorist groups such as Daesh in the region. In a meeting with Iranian foreign minister’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian, held in Kabul, the senior Afghan diplomat hailed Iran’s stances in support […]

Afghanistan’s spy agency has arrested four journalists for visiting a Taliban-held border town and accused them of spreading enemy “propaganda,” officials said Tuesday. The four Afghans were detained in Kandahar after returning Monday from Spin Boldak, the border crossing with Pakistan seized by the Taliban earlier this month. Local media said the journalists were investigating government reports that the Taliban […]

When the Taliban captured a strategically important security checkpoint near Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan last month, it assigned a Tajik militant to raise the Taliban flag on the site. The militant goes by the alias Mahdi Arsalon and has a group of fighters from Tajikistan under his command, an eyewitness to the flag-raising and other sources told RFE/RL. The Taliban […]

Ex-CIA chief David Petraeus warned that the decision by President Joseph Biden’s administration to withdraw troops from Afghanistan may, in view of the current situation, plunge Afghanistan into a civil war. Speaking at an online conference organized by the Middle East Institute, Petraeus said “we accomplished the mission that took us to Afghanistan in the first place and that actually […]