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.

The Taliban reiterated that its prime objectives in negotiations with the US is to get Coalition forces to withdrawal from Afghanistan and the “establishment of an Islamic government,” a thinly veiled reference to the return of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Afghan officials have publicly identified several of the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) members who were killed during an operation in Helmand province earlier this week. The raid quickly proved to be controversy, as some reports indicate that dozens of civilians perished during the clash in Musa Qala, a known Taliban stronghold.

A total of nine militants including a Taliban shadow district chief have been killed in the eastern region of the war-battered country over the past 24 hours, officials said Tuesday.

US and Afghan Special Forces carried out a raid in Helmand specifically targeting a senior al-Qaeda leader who was hiding in a bomb factory which was producing explosive devices possibly to be used against voters in the impending presidential election, security officials have claimed.