AP: As Pakistan navigates its troubled relationship with the United States and scrambles to avoid being blacklisted for doing too little, too late to stop terror funding, regional alliances are shifting and analysts ponder whether a cozier relationship with countries like Russia will complicate efforts to move toward peace in neighboring Afghanistan. Click here to read
Ayaz Gul VOA News February 24, 2018 ISLAMABAD – The United States military has rejected Moscow’s claim the number of Islamic State militants in Afghanistan runs into the thousands, while at the same time urging Russia and Iran to support the Kabul government, not the Taliban, to help defeat IS in the country. Commander of U.S.
Tolo News: February 15 marks the anniversary of the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after a bloody nine-year war. The war lasted nine years and in that time an estimated one million civilians, including children, were killed, along with 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, more than 20,000 Afghan troops and over 14,000 Soviet soldiers. Click here
Press TV February 9, 2018 The Russian presidential envoy to Afghanistan says there are indications that the US military is allowing members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, who have suffered serious defeats in Syria and neighboring Iraq, to infiltrate Afghanistan. “It’s noteworthy that the extremists themselves and weapons for them, according to numerous witness accounts,
Ayaz Gul VOA News February 8, 2018 ISLAMABAD — Russia has warned Islamic State is turning northern Afghanistan into a “resting base” of international terrorism and a “bridgehead” for establishing its “destructive” caliphate in the region. The “international wing of Daesh” is spearheading the effort of terrorists spilling over the borders of Syria and Iraq and
The Diplomat: On December 11, 2017, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized NATO’s efforts to combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan. In a press conference in New Delhi, Lavrov claimed that Afghanistan’s rampant narcotics trade fuels terrorism in Central and South Asia. Lavrov also urged the West to end the “double standards” that undercut NATO’s drug enforcement
Ayaz Gul VOA News December 23, 2017 ISLAMABAD — Russia has estimated there are about 10,000 Islamic State militants in Afghanistan and their number is growing because fighters fleeing Syria and Iraq also are heading to the war-ravaged country. Russian media on Saturday quoted Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, as saying Moscow is
Press TV December 16, 2017 The United States has been pressuring Afghanistan to ditch the thousands of free Kalashnikov assault rifles that it has received from Russia and buy American equivalents instead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says. “The Americans insist that 50,000 Kalashnikov rifles with munitions that were handed over to the Afghan security forces
VOA News October 6, 2017 Daniel Schearf Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif says other countries in the region may be able to sway the Taliban into peace talks better than Islamabad, including Russia. “At least for our influence on Taliban today, there is a mistrust … perhaps they have more influence from other countries
VOA News May 15, 2017 On May 15, 1988, the Soviet Union began withdrawing from Afghanistan after eight years of military intervention that cost an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Soviet soldiers their lives and killed or displaced millions of Afghans. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev described the Afghan intervention, which began in late 1979, as a