Tag Archives: Taliban

Last month, the family of Mawlavi Ezzatullah, a member of Afghanistan’s Hizb-e Islami party, received a WhatsApp message from his phone: “We have slaughtered your Mawlavi Ezzat, come and collect his body.” Ezzatullah’s killing, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, was one of a steady stream of assassinations and bombings …

The Taliban-run Afghan public health ministry announced on Sunday the start of a four-day nationwide polio vaccination campaign aimed at inoculating children under age 5. For the past three years before taking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban had barred UN-organized vaccination teams from doing door-to-door campaigns in parts of the …

The Pakistani Taliban have demanded that the government of Pakistan release a number of prisoners as a condition for talks aimed at laying the ground for full ceasefire negotiations, multiple sources in the group said. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP and separate from the …

A roadside bomb struck a Taliban patrol in a stronghold of ISIS militants in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding three, witnesses said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of previous ISIS strikes against the Taliban. The two groups are …

A suicide bomber and gunmen were behind an attack on a Kabul hospital that killed at least 19 people, and 50+ wounded on Tuesday, a Taliban official said. “The attack was initiated by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle who blew himself up at the entrance of the hospital,” said …

One of the main crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan has reopened after being closed for almost a month, officials said on Tuesday, offering hope for an end to a standoff that has caused heavy losses to traders and left thousands stranded. The Chaman crossing is a major transit point for …

Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, made a rare public appearance in the southern city of Kandahar, Taliban sources said on Sunday, belying widespread rumors of his death. Akhundzada, known as the leader of the faithful or Amir ul Momineen, had not been seen in public even after the Taliban’s …

The Taliban government has sent an envoy to run the Afghan embassy in the Pakistani capital, senior Taliban sources said, as the new administration starts to take over Afghanistan’s network of foreign delegations. Mohammad Shokaib was appointed first secretary or charge d’affaires at the embassy, which has not had an …

Cooped up at home in Herat, Afghanistan, Zainab Muhammadi reminisces about hanging out with her friends in the cafeteria after coding class. Now she logs on every day to secret online lessons. Her school shut down after the Taliban took control of the country in August. But that did not …

Afghanistan’s Taliban government launched a program to tackle hunger on Sunday, offering thousands of people wheat in exchange for labor. The scheme will be rolled out around Afghanistan’s major towns and cities and employ 40,000 men in the capital alone, the Taliban’s chief spokesman said at a press conference in …

The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has condemned the US atrocities against the Afghan people over the past 20 years, and going on, urging Washington to compensate for its acts of brutality. “There is no point in all this. It is not the first time America has brutally killed the Afghan …

UN agencies are gearing up to vaccinate all of Afghanistan’s children under 5 against polio for the first time since 2018 after the Taliban agreed to the campaign, the World Health Organization says. For the past three years, the Taliban barred UN-organized vaccination teams from doing door-to-door campaigns in parts …

The Taliban is gifting a plot of land and cash rewards to the family members of “heroic” suicide bombers who died after targeting US and Afghan forces, a spokesman for the group’s interior ministry said on Twitter. Writing on social media, Taliban spokesman Qari Saeed Khosty quoted an announcement made …

The new Taliban government said on Tuesday it hoped to build on the “good progress” made in talks with the former US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmai Khalilzad and was optimistic about moving forward with his successor Tom West. Khalilzad’s departure as the top US envoy for Afghanistan was announced …

A Russia-led post-Soviet security bloc started its largest military drills near the Tajik-Afghan border in years on Monday amid cross-border tensions ahead of talks between Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders and major regional powers. Unlike Afghanistan’s other northern neighbors who have de facto acknowledged the Taliban leadership and started building working …

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said hundreds of fighters loyal to ISIS were massing in northern Afghanistan with plans to move between ex-Soviet Central Asian countries disguised as refugees. “According to our intelligence, the number of (ISIS) members alone in northern Afghanistan is about 2,000 people,” the Russian leader …

Russian President Vladimir Putin asserts that the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan led to tragedy as it took place in defiance of the Afghan people’s culture and history. “Freedom and democracy, they cannot be disconnected from the culture and traditions of a certain people,” the Russian head of state told …

A Taliban delegation led by Afghanistan’s foreign minister will hold talks in Turkey on Thursday with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said. NATO member Turkey maintained its embassy in Afghanistan after Western countries withdrew following the Taliban takeover, and has urged those countries to step …

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have warned Western diplomats that insisting on sanctions as a means to pressure their governance could undermine security and trigger a wave of economic refugees. The acting foreign minister of the Taliban government, Amir Khan Muttaqi, told the US and European envoys during recent talks in Qatar …

Qatar’s diplomatic point man on Afghanistan said Tuesday countries should engage the country’s new Taliban rulers, warning that isolation could lead to a wide-reaching security threat, as happened when al-Qaeda used the country as a base to plot the 9/11 attacks. Mutlaq bin Majed al-Qahtani, Qatar’s special envoy for counterterrorism …