The Taliban issued an official statement on Tuesday warning leaders in the terrorist group they will face internal punishment if they allow non-Afghan citizens into the group or otherwise “harbor” them.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told allies at the NATO defense ministerial on Thursday that the administration of President Joe Biden would not “undertake a hasty or disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan,” suggesting a reconsideration of the May 2021 withdrawal date set by predecessor Donald Trump.
Zamir Kabulov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, bizarrely claimed on Wednesday that the Taliban is “flawlessly” adhering to the terms of the peace agreement negotiated in Qatar, while the United States is violating it.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday that the last of her country’s military forces will leave Afghanistan in May, concluding a deployment that began 20 years ago.
The head of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, published an open letter to the United States Tuesday urging it to withdraw its military from Afghanistan, as the administration of President Donald Trump had committed to doing in a peace deal that also required the Taliban to stop associating with international terrorist groups.
At least 30 Taliban members died after an explosive device detonated during a bomb-making tutorial in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province over the weekend, the Defense Post reported on Tuesday.
The independent Pajhwok Afghan News agency published a survey on Saturday that found the Taliban now controls at least 52 percent of the territory in Afghanistan, and rules over 59 percent of the population.
As of Monday, the United States has gone a year without a combat-related casualty in Afghanistan, even as the Taliban warns of renewed attacks should the U.S. renege on its May withdrawal deadline.
Representatives of the Taliban meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran declared Tuesday that peace talks between the group and the United States would lead to the end of the current Afghan government and the imposition of a more “Islamic” regime, a condition Washington has rejected since the talks began.
Representatives of the Taliban are currently meeting with Afghan government officials in Qatar for peace negotiations but, by all accounts, the talks have reached an impasse.
The Biden Pentagon indicated recently it may depart from the Trump administration’s peace agreement with the Taliban.
A spokesman for the Pentagon said Thursday that the Taliban was jeopardizing the peace process with the United States by failing to live up to its promise to cut ties with terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and cease its attacks on Afghan forces.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s latest update on its efforts to combat terrorist financing included a warning that al-Qaeda is “gaining strength in Afghanistan while continuing to operate with the Taliban under the Taliban’s protection,” Afghan media reported Tuesday.
Afghan authorities have rearrested 600 Taliban members recently freed from prison as part of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between the terror group and the Afghan government, Afghanistan’s national security advisor revealed on Sunday.
Armed gunmen killed two female Supreme Court judges in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul on Sunday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani confirmed in a statement.
Miller announced on Friday that United States troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan have now reached 2,500 in each country.
The government of Afghanistan is reportedly considering an offer from Iran to send well-trained and battle-hardened Shiite militia fighters to help defeat the Islamic State (ISIS), which has a significant presence in Afghanistan and is violently competing with the Taliban for power.
Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, chief of the Afghan Taliban, has instructed his top officials to “avoid second, third, and fourth marriage if there is no need.” Constant requests from Taliban officials for extra money to pay for multiple wives reportedly prompted the order.
On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) reacted to declassified intelligence suggesting China placed bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan by stating that during his service in Afghanistan, “We regularly saw brand
Multiple mainstream American outlets claimed this week that the White House had evidence indicating that the Chinese Communist Party offered unspecified “non-state actors” money to attack American troops in Afghanistan, the Afghan outlet Khaama Press noted on Thursday.
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) arrested ten Chinese nationals who were allegedly operating a “terror cell in the capital city of Kabul,” according to a Christmas Day report from the Hindustan Times.
Miller said after a visit to Afghanistan this week that he feels confident that Trump’s drawdown to 2,500 troops there is the right call.
The U.S. is on track to meet Trump’s drawdown in Afghanistan to 2,500 Americans forces by January 15, a senior defense official said.
A spokesman for the Taliban told Afghanistan’s Khaama Press in an interview published Thursday that the terrorist group’s “war against the United States will resume … until they leave Afghanistan” if Joe Biden walks back President Donald Trump’s attempts to withdraw U.S. forces from the country.
Afghan media on Sunday reported a “breakthrough” in the government’s peace talks with the Taliban following U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s meeting with negotiators from both sides on November 21 in Doha, Qatar.
Nearly all lawmakers at a House hearing on Friday expressed opposition to President Trump’s troop drawdown in Afghanistan.
Trump won applause from populist conservatives and Democrats but criticism from hawks and adherents of establishment foreign policy.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg responded on Tuesday to reports of a U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan by resolving to continue the NATO mission into its third decade.
Trump can cement his legacy as the president who ended America’s longest war, said his nominee for Ambassador to Afghanistan, William Ruger.
Pakistan has stepped up its support for cross-border terrorist factions while the world continues to fight the Chinese coronavirus, Indian officials asserted in a Monday statement to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Afghan security forces on Sunday claimed to have killed Husam Abd al-Rauf, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, during a raid last week in eastern Afghanistan.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) revealed on Tuesday that it had tallied 30 percent fewer civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the first nine months of 2020 compared to the previous year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan poses “risks” for regional security, despite also creating conditions that are potentially conducive to guaranteeing long term peace in the war-torn country.
The office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a government watchdog agency, revealed in a report published Tuesday that American taxpayers lost about $19 billion to “waste, fraud, and abuse” in Afghanistan in the past decade.
The Taliban accused the U.S. military on Sunday of violating a peace deal the two sides agreed to in February, claiming that the U.S. had carried out “excessive airstrikes” in areas of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province occupied by the Taliban and elsewhere in the country.
A top spokesman for the Afghan Taliban recently repudiated a CBS News story claiming that the narco-jihadi group wants President Donald Trump to win the upcoming election.
A female Afghan warlord who fought against the Taliban in recent years formally joined the jihadi terror group on October 15, a regional Afghan official confirmed.
The head of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation — its agency for relations with the Taliban — warned on Tuesday that violence in the country has increased during peace talks with the jihadist organization.
The Taliban said on Thursday that it “welcomes” U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion on Wednesday to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan “by Christmas.” “We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in
A number of Taliban prisoners released to facilitate Afghan peace talks that began ten days ago have already “returned to the battlefield,” a lead negotiator for the Afghan government said on Tuesday.