At least 12 people were killed and 15 more were wounded in an explosion inside a mosque in Shakar Dara district north of Kabul on Friday afternoon, police said in a statement. The blast happened at Haji Bakhshi Mosque in Qala-e-Murad Bek area in Shakardara district of Kabul during Friday prayer, police said. Sources said the bomb was placed inside […]

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on phone and the two sides discussed the regional efforts to advance the Afghan peace process and the recent waves of violence including the attack on Sayed Al-Shuhada school that killed over 60 students and wounded 150 more. Secretary Blinken conveyed Eid greetings and expressed […]

A number of Afghan security and defense forces in Herat, who have spent months on the battlefield and are away from their families, welcome the three-day ceasefire between the Taliban and the government. They say it is better for all parties to declare a permanent ceasefire and to resolve their disagreements through negotiations. Residents also expressed their wish that the […]

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-e-Islami, called the decision to withdraw foreign troops from Afghanistan “irresponsible” as violence escalates, and he warned of another war beginning. Hekmatyar said that the decision to withdraw foreign troops from Afghanistan was “wrong” ahead of forming of a transitional government. “With the withdrawal of the foreign troops it’s clear that another war will begin […]

Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, former vice president and head of the Islamic National Movement of Afghanistan–Junbish-e-Milli–in an address to a gathering in his home province of Jawzjan on Thursday, said the Taliban must stop violence and should bow to the people’s demand for a lasting ceasefire. “We are Muslims. We should not fight against each other. If we want to […]

At least five civilians were killed on Thursday morning in Kandahar province in an IED explosion, police said. Provincial police spokesman Jamal Nasir Barakzai said that the incident occurred at 10:15 am in Salahen area of Panjwai district when a car hit a roadside mine. According to Barakzai women and children are among the dead. No further details were provided […]

Defense officials say they will maintain some US troop presence near Afghanistan for counterterrorism operations into the future, but would not say where that force would be based or whether it could be in place before all American troops leave the war-torn country. According to Military Times, David Helvey, acting assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs said during a […]

While both the Taliban and the Afghan security forces observed the first day of the three-day Eid ceasefire Thursday, four explosions were reported across the country, claiming the lives of at least nine people and wounding 18 others. No group has not yet claimed responsibility for any of the explosions. Thursday also saw people around the country calling for an […]

Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, the former vice president, and Atta Mohammad Noor, the former governor of Balkh province, on Thursday stressed the need to reduce violence and end the killing of people in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s third marshal, Dostum, said during Eid-ul-Fitr prayers in Sheberghan, the capital of Jawzjan province, the Taliban need to consider a continuous ceasefire to achieve peace. […]

The seizure of Nerkh district comes amid intensifying violence following an announcement by the group of a three-day ceasefire in Afghanistan for the Muslim religious holiday of Eid, starting this week. Afghan security forces have mounted an operation to recapture a Taliban-held district outside the capital Kabul just before the start of a three-day ceasefire at midnight, according to a […]