America’s senior arms negotiator said Washington is taking diplomatic and military steps to put an end to Beijing’s “great wall of secrecy” that surrounds its rapid and expanding strategic weapons program.

A hand grenade attack on a wedding party wounded at least 15 people in Badakhshan province, provincial police confirmed Friday.

Afghan refugees living in Turkey are being scammed by their countrymen when they try to send money to their families in Afghanistan, a Turkish newspaper reported.

US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said Friday that 2,500 American soldiers will remain in Afghanistan beyond Christmas, dismissing US President Donald Trump’s tweet stating that all American troops in Afghanistan should be home by Christmas.

Heavy fighting in southern Helmand province, near Lashkargah city, has not only displaced thousands of people but it has also interrupted critical health services as clinics have been forced to shut down in some areas, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Thursday.

President Donald Trump’s tweet last week stating US troops should be home by Christmas could give the Taliban the upper hand, Afghanistan’s Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah said.

American peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said efforts are being made to establish an international support group for the Afghan peace process and that hopefully, this group will be able to encourage Iran to support the peace process.

The United States and the Taliban have agreed to a “re-set” following a sharp rise in violence in the past week in Afghanistan – specifically in Helmand province.

A U.S. military contractor who was part of a crime ring that stole more than $300,000-worth of vehicles, generators and other goods from Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan, has pleaded guilty to federal fraud and theft charges, the Justice Department said in a statement.

A deadly Taliban offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand province has drawn a crescendo of accusations that the militant group is openly flouting a deal under which all American troops could leave the country by next spring, and jeopardizing month-old peace talks with the government.