Gilles Bertrand, the European Union’s special envoy for Afghanistan, in an exclusive interview with Amu described Russia’s recognition of the Taliban as an “unhelpful” move, warning it could undermine international consensus and embolden unilateral actions. Bertrand said that engagement with the Taliban should be conditional on respect for Afghanistan’s international …

This is a man who up until only a few months ago still had a $10M FBI reward for his arrest and capture as ex-head of the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Some might ask, why the double standards in not highlighting Jolani’s welcome by Putin a month earlier? One must …

Damascus has registered clear gains on arresting and deporting Palestinian militants and cooperating against the Islamic State, though its progress on addressing foreign fighters is mixed, and it has stalled on the more politically complex tracks of normalizing with Israel and controlling IS detention facilities. On November 10, Syrian President …