By Ayaz Gul VOA News May 1, 2020 ISLAMABAD – The U.S. military said Friday its withdrawal from Afghanistan is continuing and that it expects troop levels to drop to 8,600 by mid-July under terms of a peace-building deal with the Taliban. The “conditions-based” military withdrawal began within days after the signing of the landmark
By Jeff Seldin VOA News May 1, 2020 WASHINGTON – Assessing the security situation in Afghanistan is getting increasingly difficult now that Western military officials have started withholding some data on militant attacks across the country, according to a key U.S. government watchdog. The warning from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, also known as
AA: The National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, announced the arrest of Farooqi on April 6 in Kabul. Kabir Haqmal, an adviser to the National Security Council, claimed while speaking to Anadolu Agency that the arrested Daesh/ISIS leader hailed from Orakzai Agency in Pakistan and was working under the direct command of Pakistan’s
Asia Times: It makes for a gripping intellectual exercise to study a country in the throes of a pivotal change that throws it off its familiar path. The study of such turnabout moments in Afghanistan, however, is not as promising, because of their sheer frequency. The country in at least five of the past decades
The Daily Beast: U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted last week, “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.” The tweet followed the dangerous maneuvers on April 15 by Iranian naval vessels near U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. The
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan April 29, 2020 Afghan officials say hundreds of foreign combatants are fighting alongside Taliban militants in a strategic northern province, a move that if proven true would violate the terms of the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement. Zakaria Sawda, the governor of the northeastern province of Badakhshan, said around 400 foreign militants, mostly
VOA News April 29, 2020 A suicide bombing in Kabul Province close to the Afghan capital killed three people and wounded 15 on April 29, the Interior Ministry said. “A suicide bomber detonated his explosives among civilians in the Reshkhor area of Char Asiab district of Kabul on Wednesday morning,” ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said
Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska via The Diplomat: “Over the last five years, the United States has claimed that it has killed several different leaders of the Islamic State, Khorasan Province branch, through airstrikes and special operations. None of these previous deaths or removals of a leader of this group were enough to eliminate its ability to strike
1TV: President Donald Trump has told his military and national security advisers in recent days to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan amid concerns about coronavirus outbreak, NBC News reported on Monday. Trump complains almost daily that US troops are still in Afghanistan and are now vulnerable to the pandemic, the report said citing
Ayesha Tanzeem VOA News April 27, 2020 ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Afghanistan’s civilians continue to die in high numbers, more than 500 in the first quarter of 2020, despite the signing of a deal between the United States and Taliban to end hostilities, said a United Nations report released Monday. More than 150 children were killed