Afghanistan

The fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan gave Taliban fighters access to more than $7 billion worth of American military equipment, according to data in a report submitted this week to U.S. lawmakers and confirmed by the Pentagon.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also recommended the State Department designate Syria as a “country of particular concern” and place Egypt, Iraq and Turkey on a special watchlist for religious freedom offenders. Religious freedom conditions in Afghanistan have sharply deteriorated in the eight months since US troops withdrew …

Adam Michnik, a senior Polish dissident and editor of Warsaw’s Gazeta Wyborcza, says he is “certain” that the war in Ukraine will become for Vladimir Putin precisely what the war in Afghanistan was for Leonid Brezhnev,” a trap from which there is no easy or obvious way out. Putin has …

U.S. military forces have not conducted any counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan since withdrawing all troops from the country last summer, but military officials insisted on Tuesday that they have the capability to monitor and neutralize threats there despite logistical challenges. Pressed by lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. …

Former US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad called on Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa at General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi on Friday (April 1, 2022), Pakistani media outlets reported. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in a press release said that the two discussed issues related …

The United Nations Security Council voted Thursday to extend its mission to Afghanistan for one more year. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) will now continue until spring 2023 and will focus on providing humanitarian assistance, facilitating dialogue within Afghanistan and between other countries, and promoting the rule …

The current developments related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine can only be considered the tip of an iceberg, showing itself in the form of the collapse of the US-centered security system. This order has already proven to seek to make small powers pay the toll to maintain and achieve …

It is difficult to speak of European ambitions for international crisis management against the backdrop of the images from Kabul over the past few weeks, which seem to tell a story of the failure of Western interventionist policies. But that discussion is urgently needed. Yes, it will be necessary to …

The images of humanitarian chaos and the deteriorating situation for women after the swift Taliban takeover of Kabul have left the international community grasping for options. In the face of Afghan women’s desperate pleas for support, women’s rights NGOs in the United States recently called for a United Nations peacekeeping …

With corruption playing a significant role in the outcome of recent security force assistance missions, a different approach to tackling the problem is needed. An issue that haunts more or less all security force assistance missions to various degrees is widespread and large-scale corruption in host institutions. Such corruption can …