Tag Archives: Taliban

A statue of a prominent anti-Taliban fighter killed by the group before they took power for the first time in the 1990s has been decapitated in Bamiyan city, residents said Tuesday. “We are not sure who has blown up the statue (of Abdul Ali Mazari), but there are different groups …

As they completed their takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban insisted that they would not revert to the brutal medieval rule that turned the hardline Islamist group into an international pariah in the late 1990s. Dubbed the Taliban 2.0 for their skilled use of social media, the militant’s image revamp is …

Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 after Moscow’s failed decade-long campaign there, said on Tuesday that NATO’s own deployment to the country had been doomed from the start. Gorbachev, 90, regarded the Soviet presence in Afghanistan as a political mistake that …

About 1,000 Russian troops have started a month-long exercise in Tajikistan, a week after concluding the previous drills, Interfax quoted officials from Russia’s central military district as saying on Tuesday. Russia has stepped up military activity and reinforced its base in Tajikistan as U.S.-led forces have pulled out of neighbouring …

A first German military plane to land in Kabul since the Taliban takeover evacuated only seven people, the government said on Tuesday, due to chaos at the Afghan capital’s airport. Germany, which had the second-largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the United States, wants to airlift thousands of German-Afghan dual …

Joe Biden’s Saigon moment.

Russia is in contact with Taliban officials via its embassy in Kabul, President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan said on Monday, a day after the Afghan government collapsed and the capital fell to the Islamist insurgent group. “They are talking in Kabul. All contacts are being made there at …

At least five people were killed in Kabul airport as hundreds of people tried to forcibly enter planes leaving the Afghan capital, witnesses told Reuters. One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle. Another witness said it was not clear whether the …

Peace prevailed across Afghanistan on Monday, Taliban officials said, as the militants declared the war over a day after seizing the capital, while Western nations scrambled to evacuate their citizens from an increasingly chaotic Kabul airport. President Ashraf Ghani fled from the country on Sunday as the Islamists entered Kabul …

Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan says Moscow is ready to work with the future interim government in Afghanistan The time to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate authority has not come yet, Russia’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan said on Sunday. At the moment, Moscow is ready to work with a …

Germany on Sunday shuttered its embassy in Kabul and prepared to send A400M military transport planes to Afghanistan to evacuate as many Germans and local Afghan helpers as possible after Taliban insurgents entered the Afghan capital. “We are doing everything to enable our citizens and our former local staff to …

As the Taliban continues to gain territory in Afghanistan, nations are quickly mobilizing to evacuate diplomatic staff in Kabul, fearing an eventual attack on the capital. President Biden announced on Saturday that approximately 5,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to Kabul to oversee the evacuation of U.S. diplomats as the …

The Taliban have reportedly entered the Afghan capital but the group said its militants have been ordered to wait at the city’s gates and that they are not planning to capture Kabul “by force” shortly after they seized control of a strategic eastern city without any resistance.  Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry …

Taliban insurgents entered the Afghanistan capital Kabul on Sunday, an interior ministry official said, as the United States evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.

The Czech Republic was evacuating its two diplomats from its embassy in Kabul on Saturday as the security situation in Afghanistan worsened, Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek said. Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani held urgent talks with local leaders and international partners on Saturday as Taliban rebels pushed closer to Kabul, capturing …

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Taliban to “immediately halt” their military campaign against government troops and return to the negotiating table in good faith “in the interest of Afghanistan, and its people.” The Taliban group significantly increased their attacks to seize more territories from government forces after the withdrawal of …

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani said he was in urgent talks with local leaders and international partners as the Taliban pushed closer to Kabul, capturing a key town south of the capital that is one of the gateways to the city. “As your President, my focus is on preventing further instability, …

Disturbances break out after 56-year-old Afghan dies of a heart attack while waiting in the dusty heat to enter Afghanistan. Pakistani forces have clashed with hundreds of Afghans stranded on Pakistan’s side of a commercially vital border crossing with Afghanistan after its closure by the Taliban, Pakistani security officials say. …

Taliban insurgents tightened their grip on Afghanistan on Friday, wresting control of its second and third biggest cities while Western embassies prepared to send in troops to help evacuate staff from the capital, Kabul. The capture of the second-biggest city of Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west …

Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Herat, was on the verge of falling to the Taliban on Thursday amid heavy fighting, as the militant group also established a bridgehead within 150 km (95 miles) of Kabul. The group claimed control over Herat and, in what would be its most significant two victories since …