Afghanistan

Troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan have dropped, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller announced today. There are now 2,500 U.S. service members in Iraq and 2,500 in Afghanistan. It is the lowest number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan since operations started there in 2001.

Iran’s foreign minister says it is willing to reposition an Iran-led Afghan militia in Syria to fight Islamic State forces in Afghanistan. The Fatemiyoun Brigade, a militia of Afghan refugees created by Iran to fight in Syria, held a public symposium in the Iranian city of Mashhad in August 2020. …

The war in Afghanistan — the world’s deadliest ongoing conflict — enters a crucial phase in 2021. The United States is set to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by May as part of a deal with the Taliban aimed at ending the 19-year war.

As the U.S. military scrambles to meet a mid-January deadline to draw down to 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, a milestone in the conflict has passed almost unremarked: The combined NATO force on the ground now outnumbers the U.S. contingent. About 13,000 U.S. troops were deployed to Afghanistan as of the …

Lawmaker Khan Mohammad Wardak survived the blast but is among 20 injured including women and children, Afghan Interior Minister Massoud Andarabi said. A car bombing in Kabul targeting an Afghan lawmaker killed at least nine people, officials said.

After more than a month of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government, progress toward a peace agreement remains slow.

From drug revenue to extortion to charitable donations, the Taliban has plenty of avenues to fill their coffers. The Taliban militants of Afghanistan have grown richer and more powerful since their fundamentalist Islamic regime was toppled by U.S. forces in 2001.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has died of natural causes in Afghanistan, according Afghanistan and Pakistan media on Friday.

Australia has been rocked by the release of a heavily redacted report about the killing of 39 unarmed Afghan civilians or prisoners by some 25 elite Australian Special Air Services (SAS) soldiers. Any prosecutions will take years and will violate the scientific principle of truth and systemic change rather than …

At least 10 US military bases in Afghanistan have been closed since the United States committed to decreasing military presence under the deal with the Taliban in February, the Washington Post newspaper reported on Friday, citing sources.