Tehran Times: Iran’s embassy in Kabul has issued a statement reiterating support for peace talks in Afghanistan led by the Afghan leaders. The statement came as a response to a claim made by Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States’ chief negotiator with the Afghan Taliban, about Iran’s lack of support for a U.S.-led attempt to get
Ayaz Gul VOA News July 25, 2020 ISLAMABAD – The U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan said Friday that violence in the war-torn country had lately been “too high,” but that fatalities among Afghan government security forces battling the Taliban insurgency had dropped 35 percent to 40 percent compared with the same period in 2019. Zalmay
Tolo News: A US official in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday that the five bases closed in Afghanistan–in compliance with the US-Taliban peace agreement–were in Helmand, Uruzgan, Paktika and Laghman provinces. The US peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, in a tweet on Tuesday morning said: “As we look to the
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty June 19, 2020 The United States has reduced its troop presence in Afghanistan to levels agreed to as part of a February deal with the Taliban, the general who oversees the region says. “We agreed to go to the mid-8,000 range within 135 days,” General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S.
By Jeff Seldin, Ayaz Gul VOA News | June 18, 2020 WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD – U.S. officials say they are seriously investigating Taliban claims that Islamic State in Afghanistan was plotting to assassinate Zalmay Khalilzad, the American peace envoy for the country. The Taliban have recently shared with journalists a video of two blindfolded men in their custody, saying
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty June 10, 2020 A top Russian diplomat says Russia, the United States, and Afghanistan will hold video consultations to try and jump-start intra-Afghan peace talks. Zamir Kabulov, who is Russia’s presidential envoy on issues related to Afghanistan and the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s second department of Asia, told Russian
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty June 8, 2020 The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, has held a new round of talks in Qatar with the Taliban’s political chief. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a spokesman for the militants, said on Twitter late on June 7 that Khalilzad and Baradar discussed the release of prisoners and the start
Ayaz Gul VOA News June 6, 2020 ISLAMABAD – Officials in Afghanistan said Saturday a roadside bomb explosion in the northeastern border province of Badakhshan has killed at least eleven police personnel. The bombing comes as America’s peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has begun another visit to the region to push political reconciliation between Afghanistan’s warring
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty May 21, 2020 U.S. special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has urged a reduction in violence “by all sides” in Afghanistan, saying innocent Afghans are bearing too much of the brunt of the war. Khalilzad, the architect of a February agreement with the Taliban clearing the way for a U.S. troop withdrawal,
Michael Hughes: The Taliban and ISIS differ only in terms of geographic aspirations. They embrace similar extremist ideologies and envision a society regulated by a harsh religious code. They even share the same tactics – like suicide bombings – and recruit from each other’s flocks. Despite what U.S. officials want the world to believe, the