Eleven Taliban commanders have been released from a high-security prison in Afghanistan, according to Taliban officials, in an apparent deal that included a prominent regional leader caught five years ago personally escorting a shipment of nearly a ton of opium.

Taliban officials have met in Pakistan with the top American diplomat who recently led peace negotiations with them, current and former members of the insurgent group said on Saturday.

The Taliban has launched an attack on Taluqan, the provincial capital of Takhar, and has been battling Afghan forces there and in several outlying districts over the past several days.

Russia’s Okhotnik (Hunter) heavy strike drone made its first joint test flight with a fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jet, which lasted more than 30 minutes, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday.

India will become the fifth nation in the world after the US, Russia, France and Israel to develop and deliver its first domestic beyond visual range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) to the country’s air force, a defence research official said.

Security forces killed six militants in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday, police said, as the region simmers under a lockdown imposed by New Delhi after it revoked its constitutional autonomy in August.

At least three people were killed, including an opposition politician, and seven others injured in a bomb blast on September 28 in Pakistan’s southwestern town of Chaman in the province of Balochistan.

The Taliban cut off Safiullah Safi’s right forefinger for voting in 2014. That did not stop the businessman from doing it again.

Late yesterday, U.S. and Afghan forces targeted al Qaeda members in Musa Qala, a Taliban-controlled district in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. The U.S. military said that “massed al Qaeda figures” at the location “presented an imminent threat.”

Note: On Sept. 19, Thomas Joscelyn testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs at a hearing titled, “The Trump Administration’s Afghanistan Policy.” You can read his testimony, which mainly focuses on the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, here. An excerpt, without footnotes, is presented below.