Tolo News: A 15-member Taliban team that the National Directorate of Security claims was formed to carry out assassinations has revealed during an investigation that they received training in Pakistan, the NDS said. Members of the group, who were captured by Afghan intelligence agency two days ago, confessed in the initial rounds of interrogation that
Ayaz Gul VOA News October 8, 2020 ISLAMABAD – The Taliban says U.S. President Donald Trump’s intention to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan before the end of the year will bode well for the peace deal between the two adversaries. Trump suggested on Twitter late Wednesday a withdrawal timeline as early as Christmas, a
Tolo News: In an interview with TOLOnews’ Lotfullah Najafizada, US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad said that he expects the Afghan peace process to be concluded in months, not years. Click here to read more (external link). Related Khalilzad says patience is needed to resolve a 40-year war Abdullah meets with India’s NSA,
The Print: Pakistan is key to get the stalled Afghan-Taliban talks back on keel. PM Modi knows India must bide its time. Abdullah knows, as do Ghani and the rest of Afghanistan, that if the Taliban is back to the negotiating table after so many years, it is the Pakistanis who have nudged them. That
Ariana: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Tuesday evening that peace cannot just be on a national level but that it needed to be on a regional basis in order to be successful. Speaking at an event at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha, Qatar, Ghani said: “Regional connectivity is critical to
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan October 5, 2020 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has arrived in Qatar for a bilateral meeting with the leaders of the Gulf state but will not hold talks with Taliban representatives even as peace talks are under way in the country’s capital city, Doha, according to officials. Negotiations between the Afghan government
Ariana: The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has expressed deep concern over increasingly frequent targeted civilian killings across the country. In a statement released Sunday, the AIHRC said their findings showed that in the first six months of this year, 533 people had been killed and 412 wounded in systematic and targeted assassinations. Click
Michael Hughes: Pakistani officials recently had a golden opportunity to provide Afghan counterparts a glimmer of hope that a ceasefire with the Taliban was a possibility. A gesture of any sort would have been uplifting, considering the militant group has shown no signs that they will let up on their offensives inside Afghanistan, despite the
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 3, 2020 More than a dozen people have been killed and at least 30 injured in a car-bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan. Officials in the Ghani Khel district of Nangarhar Province said the October 3 blast targeted an administrative building that also housed some military facilities. Several armed gunmen reportedly
By Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 2, 2020 The Afghan government and the Taliban will need to find compromises on a plethora of contentious issues to reach a peace settlement — from civil liberties and women’s rights to the country’s name and flag. The most crucial issue facing the warring sides is the makeup