The Taliban stand on the brink of realizing their most fervent desire: U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan. They have given up little of their extremist ideology to do it.

The Taliban are playing the Khalilzad entourage like a fiddle – and in his zeal to make a swift exit from Afghanistan, he seems happy to let them do it.

Justice Brereton's letter was addressed to RSL national president Major General Greg Melick and SAS Association President Lieutenant Colonel Peter Fitzpatrick, after concerns were raised about the impact of his inquiry on current and former soldiers. Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

From the outset, the broad contours of the now-signed US-Taliban agreement had troubled New Delhi, an important partner of Afghanistan that played no active role in the peace efforts and considered the agreement one-sided. The United States now appears to be making an effort to remedy India’s concerns. During his recent visit to New Delhi, the US chief ...

For almost two years now, Ambassador Khalilzad and his team have been diligently working to execute this mission and to bring Afghans to the table together to negotiate the end of the war and the future of their country. The road to peace is never a straight line, and Ambassador Khalilzad has made some tremendous successes and also faced some serious ...

Ashraf Ghani’s order to launch an offensive against the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) and the suspension of the release of Taliban prisoners will halt the process of launching intra-Afghan negotiations, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan and Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov told TASS on ...

The modern history of Afghanistan is replete with the sad story of millions of war refugees, especially with the happening of the infamous and maybe fabricated 9/11 event, when the United States launched what came to become the longest US foreign war ever under the pretext of fighting terrorism, which not only brutally ended the lives of countless ...

The halting process of implementation of the US-Taliban Peace Agreement, that was signed at Doha on February 29 this year, brings out three distinct realities of the Afghan situation as seen from an Indian perspective. First, the long drawn exercise of Zilmay Khalizad, US interlocutor, who managed finally to engage a frontline leader of the illusive ...

New Delhi has made it clear to US peace talks official Zalmay Khalilzad that India wants Taliban to first recognise the democratic Afghanistan government.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan has also said in an interview with Al-Arabiya government spending would need to be "cut deeply," according to Bloomberg. "The kingdom hasn't witnessed a crisis of this severity over the past decades," the finance minister said The current status quo means that the government might have to reconsider the generous ...

Random testing of 500 people reveals a third are infected with Covid-19, prompting fears about country's ability to cope with outbreak

A video which purportedly shows the birth of a two-headed calf in Afghanistan has gone viral on social media but the majority of people say they are not astounded with the miracle as the country is already being ran by parallel governments which came into being after the end of a two-headed government or the National Unity Government.

Still, the withdrawal of Americans from front-line positions and pulling them back to Kabul, whether they are military or intelligence advisers, will have other effects, said former officials. Without American eyes and ears around Afghanistan, it will be harder to ensure that the fragile alliances between the country’s diaspora of tribes and local ...

The Taliban broke off talks with the Afghan government earlier this month after accusing it of dragging its feet on prisoner releases. The US promised the Taliban that up to 5,000 of its men would be freed in return for 1,000 Afghan government prisoners as an overture to intra-Afghan peace talks. But Kabul has insisted on a phased release of Taliban ...

Low case count raises questions over efficiency and intent of Afghan government

The Afghan peace process is once again under threat, though this time it's not because of the Taliban, the Kabul government, or the U.S., but COVID-19. The consequences of this virus spreading into the impoverished and war-torn country from Iran run the risk of reversing all of the recent progress that's been achieved since the beginning of the year....

In an extraordinary statement titled "On the Political Impasse in Afghanistan," Washington has admitted to the failure of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's mission to Kabul on March 23, which was taken up to heal the political rift among Afghan politicians and to urge them to form an inclusive government so as to implement the peace agreement signed ...

Using water more efficiently in everything from daily life to agriculture and industry would help reduce planet-warming emissions and curb climate change — a potential benefit that has yet to be widely recognized, the United Nations said on Sunday.

Trump said this on the day US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Qatar.

The US wants to draw down on Afghanistan so that it can focus on other theatres after almost 20 years of war.