The United Nations’ top official in Afghanistan met the Taiban’s chief negotiator in Qatar on Thursday, the movement’s chief spokesman said, as moves continue to try to start full peace negotiations to end more than 17 years of war.

“When I shot the woman,” Yahya Haj Hamed told investigators, “I saw there were three or four children in the car, but I didn’t fire in their direction. We got back into our car and drove off.” Yahya, a member of a Hamas terror cell, had already “fired in the …

Iran’s foreign minister offered publicly on Wednesday to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the United States, saying he had been authorized to conduct such talks.