By RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan March 12, 2019 The Taliban is using peace talks with the United States for “propaganda purposes,” Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told RFE/RL, urging Washington to keep troops in the country until a formal settlement that includes Kabul has been signed with the militants. Abdullah also said Afghans were “concerned”
1TV: World soccer body FIFA has extended the provisional ban on the president of Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) Keramuddin Karim by a further 90 days. In December last year, Karim was banned by FIFA for 90 days due to probe into allegations of abuse in the country’s women team. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 12, 2019 Taliban fighters have launched attacks on several army posts in western Afghanistan, killing at least 13 Afghan soldiers, officials say. Jamshid Shahabi, a spokesman for Badghis Province’s governor, said on March 12 that 42 militants were also killed and 15 troops were wounded in the fighting in the
Ariana: President Ashraf Ghani has announced that he will issue a legislative decree on Wednesday on recognizing “Sadat” as an ethnic group in the country. It comes as Afghanistan currently has 14 ethnic groups defined by the Constitution including Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aymāq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Pamiri and Qezlbash. Click here to
Ayaz Gul VOA News March 11, 2019 ISLAMABAD — Officials in Afghanistan are rejecting a new American investigative report that claims the founder of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, spent his final years in Afghanistan, not in neighboring Pakistan. Washington and Afghan officials have long asserted that Omar took refuge in Pakistan after a U.S.-led military coalition dislodged
Tolo News: President Ashraf Ghani in a decree on Monday assigned a commission, led by Umer Daudzai, the head of the High Peace Council’s Secretariat, to convene the Consultative Loya Jirga on Peace on April 29. The Jirga, which is a traditional assembly of Afghan delegates from all layers of the society, was initially scheduled for
1TV: “Presence of international troops in Afghanistan could be discussed in peace talks, but the question is when would the issue of Taliban’s ties with Pakistan be discussed?” Ghani said in a ceremony in the presidential palace on International Women’s Day. Click here to read more (external link). Related Ghani: Taliban funding sources and the armed group’s
Tolo News: One of the five minarets, each 55 meters tall, in downtown Herat city, is on the verge of destruction while others have a ruined image due to “inattention” by relevant departments, local officials said. The minaret is protected by steel cables for the past two decades but the cables have lost their strength