Ayaz Gul VOA News August 26, 2020 ISLAMABAD – Pakistan said Tuesday it was “hopeful” about prospects of U.S.-backed peace talks between Afghanistan’s warring parties to end the country’s long conflict. The optimism stemmed from a meeting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi held Tuesday with a visiting Afghan Taliban delegation led by the insurgent
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan August 25, 2020 At least 12 people have been killed and scores wounded in attacks across Afghanistan, including in a Taliban truck bombing that targeted a military base used by Afghan commandos, officials said. The suicide truck bomber in the northern province of Balkh killed three people, including two Afghan commandos
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal August 24, 2020 A Taliban political team arrived in Pakistan on August 24 amid ongoing efforts to start negotiations between the Afghan government and the militants. The talks, envisaged under a landmark peace agreement signed in February between Washington and the Taliban, had been expected to start earlier this month but were stymied by
Tolo News: Government forces in border areas of the country said foreign fighters, particularly Pakistani citizens, are fighting against them with the Taliban, adding that they have found many dead fighters with Pakistani identity cards. Click here to read more (external link). More on the Taliban Key Taliban commander arrested in outlying area of Kabul
Tolo News: All schools were reopened in Afghanistan five months after they were shutdown following the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Based on the government’s reopening strategy, the private schools will be allowed to resume their regular schooling from the first grade to grade 12, while in state-run schools only students in the 10th,
Ayaz Gul VOA News August 21, 2020 ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has issued an order for full compliance with U.N. Security Council sanctions against Afghanistan’s Taliban and groups associated with the Islamist insurgency. The directives are contained in a “statutory notification” (SRO) that was published by the foreign ministry on its website earlier in the week
The Christian Science Monitor: Afghanistan’s government has a delicate balancing act. As it jockeys for position ahead of talks with the Taliban, it must maintain support from both progressive and conservative segments of the Afghan people. In the late 1990s, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, the hard-line Islamists imposed a range of restrictions on Afghan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 20, 2020 U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on August 20 to retaliate if countries were found to have offered bounties for attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. U.S. media reported at the end of June that U.S. intelligence officials concluded months ago that Russian military intelligence offered bounties to Taliban-linked
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan August 20, 2020 Afghan officials say Taliban militants have killed at least 18 people and wounded eight others in two fresh attacks in Takhar and Nangarhar provinces. The insurgents attacked pro-government militia forces in Takhar’s Khwaja Bahauddin district overnight, killing at least 13 members of the force, local police said on
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 20, 2020 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says that “all barriers and excuses have been removed” ahead of expected peace talks between the government in Kabul and the Taliban militants. In a televised message to Afghan security forces on August 20, Ghani said his government had “met all conditions for a