Afghanistan

On February 11, President Joseph Biden issued an Executive Order enabling the administration to distribute frozen funds from Afghanistan’s central bank between representatives of victims of 9/11 in the U.S. and humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan. Following the Taliban’s assumption of control of the Afghan government, the United States government froze …

Conflict prevention, counter-terrorism and support to Afghanistan, top the list of issues on which the UN and the Collective Security Treaty Organization – a Eurasian regional grouping comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan – should bolster their cooperation, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on …

An important new Atlantic piece on the trauma of the withdrawal should be put in the wider context of American incompetence. The betrayal of Afghanistan was solidified years ago when U.S. leaders made promises they should have, or must have, known they could never keep. The inevitable consequences of creating …

The Taliban are demanding that the United States reverse a decision to freeze $7 billion in assets belonging to the previous government of Afghanistan, which the Biden administration plans to use to compensate victims of the 9/11 attacks and to provide post-war aid to Afghanistan. The Taliban, which have controlled …

Afghanistan has undergone a dramatic transformation in half a year of Taliban rule. The country feels safer, less violent than it has in decades, but the once aid-fueled economy is barreling toward collapse. Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled or have been evacuated, including large numbers of educated elites. …

In an action that combines brazen theft, imperialist brutality and unlimited hypocrisy, the Biden administration announced Friday that it will seize control of $7 billion in Afghanistan financial assets, held largely at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than return them to the Afghanistan central bank. Media attention …

In a hugely consequential advisory, the US Treasury Department quietly signalled on Wednesday that it was “tweaking” the sanctions against the Haqqani Network. The international banks can transfer money to Taliban, including Haqqani Network without fear of breaching sanctions. Washington simply issued clarifications dilating on the relaxation of sanctions announced …

Qatar was bestowed the status of major non-NATO US ally by President Joe Biden yesterday. Qatar’s government has reached a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan to resume evacuation flights from Kabul’s airport after a months-long halt, Qatar’s foreign minister said yesterday. The agreement allows for two flights per week …

The three-day conclave in Oslo on January 23-25 for interaction for a core group of Western diplomats with Taliban officials marks a new phase in the political situation in Afghanistan. The West was represented by the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy as well as the European Union. Norway is …

In the long and storied history of the United States Army, many young officers have served in many war zones. Few, I suspect, were as sublimely ignorant as I was in the summer of 1970 upon my arrival at Cam Ranh Bay in the Republic of Vietnam. Granted, during the …