By RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
January 28, 2024
Police in the Pakistani city of Lahore have detained several members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) who were protesting the continuing detention of group leader Manzoor Pashteen, who has campaigned for the country’s Pashtun minority. The movement has pressed since 2018 for the rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom live near the Afghan border. It has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army’s heavy-handed tactics in its fight against the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups.
Ariana: Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said Sunday in a post on X that 17 people had died and 10 others were injured in 10 separate traffic accidents on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway in a single day. Zadran said the accidents happened in various areas in the Sorubi district in Kabul province. 
8am: Credible sources within aid organizations working closely with residents of Jawzjan, Faryab, and Samangan provinces report that during this period, 68 infants and children under the age of five, approximately 70% of whom are girls, have been sold by families due to poverty, unemployment, and domestic violence, each fetching between 50,000 to 70,000 Afghanis. Sources add that the lack of oversight, limited access by human rights organizations, and restrictions imposed by the Taliban have prevented accurate reporting of child sales by the media and child advocacy organizations. 
8am: Over the last decade, Tajikistan’s foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) have brought their homeland under negative limelight on numerous occasions. The most notorious of them all is Gulmurod Khalimov, who became the IS Minister of War after joining the group in 2015. Before becoming a high-ranking terrorist, he served as the head of the special forces unit under Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry in the rank of colonel. After defecting to Syria, Khalimov recorded a video message in which he criticized the Tajik authorities for their ‘anti-Islamic’ religious policy and poor economy that pushed his compatriots out of the country in search of jobs. The IS used Khalimov as its poster boy for the recruitment of Tajik nationals and other Central Asians until he died in 2017. Between 1,100 and 1,900 Tajik citizens joined the IS. 
VOA Afghan Service
SCMP: The Taliban has completed its first road link between Afghanistan and China, but analysts expect Beijing to be cautious about giving its war-torn neighbour full access to its land border because of security concerns over terrorists and separatist militants. At this stage, China has no customs facilities in the area – where Afghanistan meets the autonomous Chinese region of Xinjiang – and has said nothing to suggest it intends to add a formal crossing point.