By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty November 4, 2021 During its 20-year insurgency, the Taliban employed suicide bombers as a lethal tool to kill foreign and Afghan government troops and terrorize the civilian population. Even now, as the Taliban attempts to transform from an insurgency into a government, its contingent of trained suicide bombers
By Daud Khattak Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty November 3, 2021 Pakistan is holding secret talks with the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group over a cease-fire, sources have told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal. That is despite the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, publicly denying a claim by Islamabad last month that the sides were in
Michael Scollon Mustafa Sarwar Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 26, 2021 The Taliban has been criticized for including some notoriously shady characters in Afghanistan’s acting government, perhaps none more than Sirajuddin Haqqani, a designated terrorist last photographed hiding behind a plant. In his first public appearance since he was named the Taliban’s interior minister in
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi October 19, 2021 The Taliban’s acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, a wanted global terrorist and one of the country’s most senior officials, has praised suicide attackers and promised their relatives money and land. Haqqani, the leader of the notorious Haqqani network and listed as a terrorist by the United States with a
By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 7, 2021 On October 7, 2001, the United States began bombing Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in a retaliatory military campaign against Al-Qaeda for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Twenty years later and nearly two months after Washington ended its war in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda is down but
Radio Mashaal October 1, 2021 The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has rejected claims by Pakistan’s prime minister that the government is holding talks with the militant group to reach a cease-fire. Prime Minister Imran Khan told Turkish television channel TRT World in an interview on October 1 that “we are in talks with some Taliban
Abubakar Siddique Abdul Hai Kakar Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 30, 2021 Afghanistan’s Taliban militants have promised the world for years that they wouldn’t allow their country to be used as a terrorist base. In an agreement with the United States last year, the Taliban pledged specifically to not allow Al-Qaeda to “threaten the security
WSJ: The U.S. Treasury Department quietly said Thursday that Badruddin Haqqani, an operational leader of the Haqqani Network, was removed from a State Department blacklist. Click here to read more (external link).
By Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 25, 2021 The austere form of Sunni Islam that Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers follow is rooted in an Islamic seminary in Deoband, a town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is an interpretation of Islam that is used by the Taliban to justify their clerical government
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 22, 2021 Seven female tae kwon do athletes are resettling in Australia after fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan last month. Australian Taekwondo said on September 22 that the seven women are completing quarantine this week following what it described as a high-risk evacuation via Pakistan after the Taliban seized power in mid-August.