Afghan government officials are set to meet with a Taliban delegation in the coming days to discuss an initial release of militant prisoners, Afghanistan’s National Security Council says.

A lingering dispute over Afghanistan’s presidential election and an outbreak of coronavirus in the country appear to have complicated further an already troubled effort the United States is making to help find a negotiated end to nearly 19 years of war.

Afghanistan has averted a full-blown political crisis after the two main contenders in a bitterly disputed presidential election — each claiming victory — agreed to back down from their escalating feud.

The road to Zabol province is specked with craters. Army outposts line a raw landscape of mountains and open steppe. Winds snap hard; signs warn of minefields. The Taliban has blown up most of the bridges.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday a seven-day partial truce with the Afghan Taliban has “been holding up” and it could eventually lead to his signing of a peace deal with the insurgent group scheduled for this week.

In a new report, the Pentagon said it would be slashing the number of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters it planned to supply to the Afghan Air Force (AAF) by nearly two-thirds. Instead, it plans to supply CH-47 Chinook heavy-lifting choppers in a bid to replace the AAF’s Russian-made helicopters.

Escalating U.S.-Iran tensions mean Afghanistan, which shares a border with Iran, could be the next proxy battleground between Washington and Tehran, a clash that threatens to undermine the Trump administration’s pursuit of a peace deal with the Taliban and eventual drawdown of American troops.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey would give all the necessary support for the eradication of the Islamic State (IS) from Afghanistan.

Introduction This report examines Qatar’s relationships with jihadi organizations. Right through the 1980s, Afghan mujahideen – backed by the U.S., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Arab donors – fought against the Soviet troops from their hideouts in the mountainous terrains of Afghanistan. Since the 9/11 attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and other American targets, the […]

The U.S. chief peace negotiator for Afghanistan met leaders in Kabul Sunday after arriving in the country on an unannounced visit, his first since President Donald Trump halted talks with Taliban insurgents on ending the Afghan war.

A U.S. service member was killed in action in Afghanistan on Monday, NATO said, without providing further details. Last week, President Donald Trump abruptly called off talks with the Taliban to end American’s longest war, citing the killing of a U.S. service member in a Taliban attack days earlier.

Minutes after the younger brother of Afghanistan’s Taliban chief rose to lead Friday prayers at a Pakistan mosque last month, a bomb ripped through the building.

President Trump’s decision to break off peace talks with the Taliban, at least for now, left Afghanistan bracing for a bloody prelude to national elections this month, while the administration declined on Sunday to rule out a withdrawal of American troops without a peace accord.

America’s longest war – soon approaching its 18th year in Afghanistan – is not over although it may be entering a new phase.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for an explosion in Kabul late Monday, just hours after a U.S. negotiator shared with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani “key details” of a deal that would see thousands of American troops leaving Afghanistan.

-The US declared victory over the Islamic State (ISIS) in March of 2019, but multiple reports show that the group is still active in those countries, and gaining traction elsewhere. -A blistering Pentagon report blamed Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria and cut diplomatic staff in Iraq for the resurgence of ISIS in […]

The United States and the Taliban have concluded the eighth round of talks aimed at reaching an agreement between the two adversaries to end the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan and jumpstart intra-Afghan peace negotiations.

Since July 2018, the UN Security Council has published at least four reports highlighting the ongoing and close relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The United States and Pakistan are jointly seeking a way to end the war in Afghanistan, U.S. President Donald Trump said alongside Pakistani Prime Imran Khan in the Oval Office on Monday.

The Pentagon is warning that a “robust” counter-terrorism capability must remain in Afghanistan against groups including al-Qaida, even if a peace deal with the Taliban is secured.

The Afghan government is unable to administer 64 districts from the district centers, according to a recent survey. The 64 districts, which are located in 19 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, are either being administered remotely, or the district centers have been moved due to heavy fighting with the Taliban. The data track with an ongoing […]

When the Taliban overran the district center of Maruf in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar this year, the government resorted to a familiar tactic: Simply relocate the district office 25 miles to the south to say it had not fallen.

A few days after the Finnish elections, Hussein Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook… For four of these years, Al-Taee served as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to the Crisis […]

Taliban and American military officials have taken to social media to accuse each other of acting against peace building efforts in conflict-torn Afghanistan.

Afghan officials are downplaying the significance of the United States diverting funds from its military mission in Afghanistan, as a senior American diplomat has arrived in Kabul for high-level discussions.

A Taliban attack on two aid organizations last week, the deadliest episode in a recent surge of violence against humanitarian workers in Afghanistan, is a signal to many that as peace talks falter, the insurgents are lashing out against so-called soft targets.

Thousands of Afghans taking part in a rare grand assembly to discuss a possible peace deal with Taliban militants are demanding a ceasefire on both sides as a first step, officials said on Thursday.

The U.S. military and NATO have stopped producing an assessment that was considered key for measuring progress against the jihadist insurgency in Afghanistan, according to a report released on April 30 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The metric, which tracked district stability, was one of the “most widely cited Afghan security […]

At least 12 Taliban and six Islamic State fighters have been killed in bloody clashes that erupted in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, according to the Afghan military.

Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah says he will boycott a planned meeting of nearly 2,500 Afghan politicians and tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders aimed at discussing negotiations with the Taliban.

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Counterterrorism forces have captured 16 operatives of the Islamic State (IS) terror group, including online recruiters, authorities in Afghanistan said Thursday. The operation comes as Taliban insurgents have staged a major assault on a troubled northwestern district, killing at least a dozen Afghan security forces. The Afghan spy agency, National Directorate of […]

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said Friday that peace in Afghanistan is “around the corner,” citing ongoing negotiations between the United States and Taliban insurgents.

The longest round of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban has ended with “real strides” being made but without an agreement on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on March 12.

American and Afghan Taliban officials have temporally paused ongoing peace talks in Qatar to consult with their respective leaderships before returning to the table on Saturday.

The highest-level negotiations yet between American diplomats and the Taliban began in Qatar’s capital on Monday, with the presence of the Afghan insurgents’ deputy leader raising hope of progress toward ending the long conflict that is taking lives in record numbers.