Like many Americans, Thomas Speciale remembers exactly where he was on Sept. 11, 2001, when members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group hijacked and deliberately crashed four commercial airliners. In fact, he recalls sitting only about half a mile away from the Pentagon when the building was hit in the coordinated attack. In the days […]
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) has called for nine current and former U.S. diplomats to testify about their role in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal efforts from Afghanistan two years ago. In a series of letters coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the last U.S. soldiers boarding a transport plane out of Afghanistan, […]
Nearly two years ago, an ISIS suicide bomber detonated an explosive outside the Abbey Gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, wounding dozens and killing dozens more, including 13 U.S. service members. Now, a congressional investigator working for the Republican House majority believes key actions taken by President Joe Biden’s administration set […]
A former Afghan interpreter who immigrated with his family to America in 2021 was shot and killed early Monday in Washington, DC, while on an extra shift as a Lyft driver, and police now are searching for suspects, authorities and a charity said. Nasrat Ahmad Yar, 31, was found with a gunshot wound just after […]
The Taliban in Afghanistan has ordered beauty salons in the country to close within a month, according to a Taliban spokesperson, marking another blow to Afghan women’s rights since the regime seized power nearly two years ago. Mohammad Sadiq Akif, a spokesman for the Taliban-led Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, said […]
Former President Donald Trump would have kept at least a couple thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan despite his 2020 peace agreement with the Taliban, according to former Vice President Mike Pence. In February 2020, the Trump Administration reached a deal (pdf) with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan within 14 months, so […]
The United Nations (U.N.) announced on Tuesday that nearly 1,100 civilians have been killed in attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021, despite an overall decline in casualties compared to previous years of war and insurgency. In a report released on June 27, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said there were […]
The family of a retired bricklayer living in northwest Syria has claimed he was killed in a May 3 airstrike, calling into doubt a U.S. military report claiming they had killed a senior Al-Qaeda leader. On May 3, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) published a statement claiming its forces “conducted a unilateral strike in Northwest Syria […]
The Chinese communist regime has offered the Taliban $10 billion and a promise to build infrastructure in exchange for access to Afghanistan’s lithium reserves. The context surrounding the deal spans several decades. That includes the fact that the 3-billion-dollar deal by China to develop the Mes Aynak copper mine in Afghanistan never led to a […]
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Wednesday criticized the Biden administration for not stopping the bomber who killed 13 soldiers in Kabul during the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, at a House Oversight Committee hearing.
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) and Sen. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) questioned Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko on U.S. tax money still being spent in Afghanistan under the Taliban at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday.
The Trump and Biden administrations are to blame for the collapse of Afghanistan’s government due to the U.S. withdrawal from there in 2021, according to a U.S. government watchdog. This revelation comes as watchdogs from relevant departments testify in front of the House Oversight Committee on April 19: the Department of Defense’s Robert Storch, the […]
The Biden administration has “a lot to be proud of” in how it handled the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the White House said on April 6. The remarks by National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby came as the administration released a 12-page summary of classified reports that mostly blamed the chaotic U.S. pullout from Afghanistan on […]
KABUL—At least six civilians were killed by a suicide attack in Afghanistan’s capital on Monday, near a security checkpoint leading to the foreign ministry, according to police. “In Malik Asghar Square … a suicide attacker before reaching the target was identified at a check point and killed, but his explosives detonated,” said Kabul police spokesperson […]
PESHAWAR/KABUL—At least 13 people were killed and more than 90 injured in Pakistan and Afghanistan after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck late on Tuesday, government officials said. At least nine people were killed and 44 injured in northwest Pakistan, a Pakistani government official said, and hospitals in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province were put into a […]
Every year, journalists are killed in the line of duty, at home or venturing into war zones and areas of conflict. Sometimes they end up in jail, detained for years on end, or exiled from their countries, forced into hiding. Some go missing, disappear. In this episode of International Reporters Roundtable, we explore what it […]
A U.S. commander testified on March 16 that the ISIS group operating in Afghanistan is capable of conducting an external operation against U.S. interests abroad within six months. But he said, “It is much harder for them to be able to do that against the homeland.”
KABUL—A blast hit a cultural centre during an event for journalists in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding eight, according to authorities and journalists, a few days after the province’s governor died in an explosion claimed by Islamic State. “Today, at 11:30 a.m. an explosion occurred at the Tabyan Cultural […]
ISLAMABAD—The ISIS terrorist group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed the governor of Afghanistan’s northern Balkh Province and two other people at his office. The regional affiliate of ISIS in Khorasan Province is a key rival of the Taliban. The terrorist group has increased its attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the […]
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan reportedly arrested five men, including two Chinese nationals, over their alleged roles in the illegal smuggling of lithium-bearing stones from Afghanistan into China. The two Chinese nationals were accused of trying to smuggle 1,000 metric tons of stones containing 30 percent of lithium into China through Pakistan with the help […]
KABUL—At least 78 people have died of cold in Afghanistan during the country’s worst winter in more than a decade, authorities said on Thursday. Deaths from the cold have been recorded in eight of the country’s 34 Provinces, officials said. The coldest winter in 15 years, which has seen temperatures dip as low as -34 […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—The ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility Thursday for a deadly bombing that killed at least five people near the Foreign Ministry in the Afghan capital the previous day. The bombing was the second major attack in Kabul in 2023 and drew condemnation from the international community. The extremist group said in a statement that […]
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has signed an oil extraction agreement with China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co (CAPEIC), the country’s first major foreign deal since the Taliban seized control in 2021. Under the contract, the CAPEIC will invest $150 million in one year and $540 million in the next three years for […]
ISLAMABAD—Afghanistan’s Taliban killed eight ISIS terrorists and arrested nine others in a series of raids targeting key figures in a spate of attacks in Kabul, a senior Taliban spokesman said Thursday. Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban, said the raids in the capital city and western Nimroz province on Wednesday targeted ISIS terrorists who organized […]
A car blast in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province killed three people on Monday, including a provincial police chief, the Taliban-Run Afghan interior ministry said. Two others were injured in the blast near Badakhshan’s police headquarters, interior ministry spokesperson, Abdul Nafi Takor, said, adding that four people had been arrested in connection with the incident.
WASHINGTON—Military bases that housed tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in the United States incurred almost $260 million in damages that in some cases rendered buildings unusable for troops until significant repairs to walls and plumbing are made, the Pentagon’s inspector general found. Over the last two weeks of August 2021, the U.S. Air Force […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban terrorist group on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities effective immediately in the latest edict cracking down on women’s rights and freedoms. Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women’s and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. They have […]
WASHINGTON—Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban on Tuesday released two American nationals in what appeared to be a goodwill gesture, said State Department spokesperson Ned Price, who indicated that the terrorists were holding other U.S. citizens. Price declined to identify the freed Americans, and he said they were not released as “part of any swap of prisoners or […]
KABUL—Armed men opened fire on Monday inside a hotel in central Kabul popular with Chinese nationals in an attack that ended when at least three gunmen were killed by security forces. Two foreigners were injured while trying to escape by jumping from the hotel balcony, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter. Kabul’s Emergency Hospital, […]
QUETTA, Pakistan—Cross-border shelling and gunfire between Afghanistan and Pakistan killed eight Pakistani civilians and one Afghan soldier on Sunday, officials on both sides of the frontier said, with each side accusing the other of starting the fighting. The Pakistan army said Afghan border forces had opened “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire of heavy weapons including artillery/mortar […]
KABUL—At least seven people were killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday when a blast hit a vehicle carrying oil workers in the northern Province of Balkh, while another blast in the eastern city of Jalalabad injured six people. “Today at around 7 a.m. a blast took place in … Balkh on a bus which belonged to […]
KABUL—Taliban security forces killed six ISIS terrorists in an overnight operation in the Afghan capital, Kabul, a spokesman for Taliban said on Saturday. The ISIS members killed in the raid on their hideout were involved in two major attacks in recent weeks, one on a city mosque and the other on a tutoring institute in […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—A suicide bomber struck an education center in a Shiite area of the Afghan capital on Friday, killing 19 people and wounding 27, including teenagers who were taking university practice entry exams, a Taliban spokesman said. The morning explosion at the center took place in Kabul’s Dashti Barchi neighborhood, an area populated mostly by […]
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has signed a trade deal with Russia. Under the agreement, Russia would supply around a million tons of gasoline, a million tons of diesel, half a million tons of liquefied petroleum gas, and 2 million tons of wheat annually.
WASHINGTON—An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, the White House said Monday. Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is all set to investigate whistleblower allegations that hundreds of Afghan refugees were allowed into the United States despite appearing on the department’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist (BEWL). “As part of our ongoing body of work on Afghan evacuees, we are initiating an evaluation, to commence […]
ISLAMABAD—At least three Afghan crew members were killed Saturday when a U.S.–manufactured Black Hawk helicopter they were flying crashed, the Taliban’s defense ministry said. The statement said that five others were wounded in the accident during a training session overseen by Afghanistan’s defense ministry at the capital of Kabul. It is not known how many […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to fully vet some of the nearly 80,000 Afghan citizens who were brought to the United States as part of the evacuation of Afghanistan that began in August 2021, potentially allowing individuals who pose a national security risk into the country, according to a government report. The DHS’s Office of Inspector […]
The ISIS terrorist group has claimed credit for Monday’s deadly suicide bomb attack near the entrance of the Russian embassy in the Afghanistan capital, Kabul. In a statement on the extremist group’s Telegram channel, ISIS said one of its fighters “blew up his suicide vest in a gathering attended by Russian employees” near the embassy. […]
An earthquake of magnitude 4.8 struck near the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan on Tuesday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said. The quake was at a depth of 86 km (53.4 miles) and occurred about 164 km east of Kunduz, EMSC said.
ISLAMABAD—An unexploded ordnance detonated in southern Afghanistan, killing four children and injuring three others after the children brought it inside their school, police and a doctor said. The incident in Helmand province on Sept. 3 happened when the children discovered an unexploded shell and brought it inside their religious school and started playing with it, […]
HERAT, Afghanistan—An explosion tore through a crowded mosque in western Afghanistan, killing at least 18 people. including a prominent cleric close to the Taliban, Taliban representatives and a local medic said. At least 23 people were hurt. The explosion in the city of Herat on Sept. 2 left the courtyard of the Guzargah Mosque littered […]
KABUL—An earthquake in northeastern Afghanistan killed at least eight people early on Monday, and the toll could rise, the state news agency quoted a regional official as saying. The quake of magnitude 5.3 struck near the eastern city of Jalalabad in the early hours, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. “Sunday night’s earthquake has […]
KABUL—Two Russian embassy staff in Kabul were among six people killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near the entrance of the embassy, in a blast that injured at least 10 others, the Russian Foreign Ministry and Afghan officials said on Monday. Police said the attacker was shot dead by armed guards as he approached […]
The U.S. Department of Defense on Aug. 25 unveiled a plan to mitigate and respond to civilian injuries and deaths that result from U.S. military operations, coming almost a year after a botched U.S. drone airstrike killed 10 civilians. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in January ordered top civilian and military officials in the Pentagon […]
KABUL—At least 20 people have been killed in flash floods in central Afghanistan over the last 48 hours, a disaster management official said on Monday, with heavy rain destroying thousands of homes and damaging agricultural land. The country has been reeling from natural disasters this year, including a drought and a massive earthquake that killed […]
KABUL—A blast that tore through a Kabul mosque during evening prayers on Wednesday killed 21 people, Kabul police said on Thursday, as the United Nations expressed concern over a growing number of civilian casualties from explosions. Police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said that another 33 people had been injured in the blast, which witnesses told Reuters […]
The anniversary of the deadly and chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is approaching. Azra Jafari offers first-hand experience of the oppression many people continue to face under the Taliban. Jafari is a human rights advocate and the first female mayor in Afghanistan. She likens the treatment of women under Taliban rule to being […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—The Taliban terrorist group on Monday marked a year since they seized the Afghan capital in a rapid takeover that triggered a hasty escape of the nation’s Western-backed leaders, sent the economy into a tailspin and fundamentally transformed the country. Taliban fighters, some hoisting rifles or the white banners of their movement, staged victory […]
KABUL—A bomb blast in a busy shopping street in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Saturday killed at least eight people and injured 22, hospital officials and witnesses said. The bomb exploded in a western district of the city where members of the minority Shi’ite Muslim community regularly meet. ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack, […]
ISLAMABAD—A bomb hidden in a cart went off on Friday near a mosque in a minority Shiite neighborhood of the Afghan capital, killing two civilians and wounding another three, a Taliban official said. According to Khalid Zadran, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Kabul police chief, the attack happened in western Kabul, in the Sar-e Karez […]
Two GOP senators have urged the Department of Defense (DoD) to immediately investigate whistleblower allegations that hundreds of Afghan evacuees who appeared on official watchlists were not properly vetted before they were released into the United States. According to the DoD whistleblower, the Biden administration failed to properly vet 324 Afghan evacuees who appeared on the DoD’s Biometrically […]
ISLAMABAD—A gunbattle in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul left at least five people dead Wednesday, including two Taliban police and three ISIS terrorist group gunmen, a Taliban official said. Khalid Zadran, the Taliban spokesman for the Kabul police chief, said police had launched an operation against the gunmen’s hideout, killing at least three in the Karti […]
ISLAMABAD—An earthquake shook a remote area of eastern Afghanistan on Monday, injuring at least 10 people, a Taliban official said. It struck in the same region where an earthquake last month killed hundreds of people and caused widespread devastation. The U.S. Geological Survey said Monday’s earthquake had a magnitude of 5.1. Abdul Wahid Rayan, director […]
China’s ambassador touted trade and investment plans for Afghanistan earlier this week. He also announced $8 million in aid for relief from an earthquake in June, which killed more than 1,000 people. He added that China has “long-term economic reconstruction plans” with Afghanistan.
GAYAN, Afghanistan— The death toll of children in last week’s devastating earthquake in southeastern Afghanistan has risen to at least 155, the United Nations said as the scope of the deadliest quake to hit the impoverished country in two decades comes into focus. The U.N.’s humanitarian coordination organization, OCHA, said on Sunday that another 250 […]
GAYAN, Afghanistan—An aftershock took more lives Friday and threatened to pile even more misery on an area of eastern Afghanistan reeling from a powerful earthquake that state media said killed 1,150 people this week. Among the dead from Wednesday’s magnitude 6, quake are 121 children, but that figure is expected to climb, said Mohamed Ayoya, […]
GAYAN, Afghanistan—Villagers rushed to bury the dead Thursday and dug by hand through the rubble of their homes in search of survivors of a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that state media reported killed 1,000 people. Residents appeared to be largely on their own to deal with the aftermath as their new Taliban-led government and […]
ISLAMABAD—The Taliban terrorist group has released several British citizens who were detained in Afghanistan after an agreement was reached between the two countries, Taliban and UK officials said Monday. The detainees were released Sunday following a series of meetings between Afghan and British officials, said Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban government, in a statement. […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more, according to a state-run news agency. Officials warned that the already grim toll would likely rise. Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6.1 temblor that damaged buildings in Khost and Paktika Provinces. Rescue efforts […]
KABUL—The ISIS terrorist group claimed an attack on a Sikh temple in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday. Officials said at least two people were killed and seven were injured in the attack. On an affiliated Telegram channel, the local branch of ISIS said the attack was in response to insults leveled at Mohammed, the […]
KABUL—An attack on a Sikh temple in the Afghan capital of Kabul killed at least two people and injured seven on Saturday, following a blast in a car loaded with explosives, officials said, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Grey smoke billowed over the area in images aired by domestic broadcaster Tolo. A […]
KABUL—A blast tore through a mosque in Afghanistan’s capital on Wednesday evening, killing at least five people, authorities and hospitals said, the same day deadly explosions hit passenger vehicles in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. A spokesman for the capital’s commander said at least two people were injured in the blast on a mosque in […]
ISLAMABAD—Afghanistan’s Taliban terrorist group on Sunday began enforcing an order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. The move is part of a hard-line shift drawing condemnation from rights activists. After the order was announced Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most […]
WASHINGTON—The United States has taken control of Afghanistan’s embassy in Washington and the country’s consulates in New York and Beverly Hills, California, the State Department said Tuesday. The State Department said that it had assumed “sole responsibility” for the security and maintenance of the diplomatic missions effective on Monday and would bar anyone from entering […]
KABUL—Afghanistan’s Taliban terrorist group ordered women on Saturday to cover their faces in public, a return to a signature policy of their past hardline rule. A decree from the group’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, said that if a woman did not cover her face outside home, her father or closest male relative would be visited […]
KABUL—A powerful explosion killed more than 50 worshippers after Friday prayers at a Kabul mosque, its leader said, the latest in a series of attacks on civilian targets in Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The blast hit the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in the west of the capital in the early afternoon, said […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—The ISIS terrorist group’s affiliate in Afghanistan claimed responsibility on Friday for two bombings in the country’s north that targeted the country’s minority Hazara ethnic group a day earlier. The car bombings Thursday in Mazar-e-Sharif killed at least nine people and wounded 13 others, according to local Taliban representatives. The Hazaras are mostly Shiite […]
It’s been eight months since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover last August. How have things changed in the country? The host of NTD’s The Nation Speaks, Cindy Drukier, interviewed a former high-level Afghan government official to find out more.
KABUL, Afghanistan—Two explosions, within minutes of each other, killed at least nine people and wounded 13 in northern Afghanistan on Thursday, a spokesman for a Taliban-appointed police chief said. The blasts targeted two separate vehicles in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, according to Mohammad Asif Waziri, the spokesman. The source of the blasts was […]
ISLAMABAD—Terrorists in Afghanistan fired heavy weapons across the border into a Pakistani military outpost overnight, killing three personnel, the army said Saturday, in the latest violence to rattle the volatile region. A firefight ensued with the terrorists firing toward the army post in Pakistan’s rugged North Waziristan region, and several were killed, the statement said. […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—A series of explosions across Afghanistan on Thursday killed at least 10 people and wounded scores more, according to police and hospital officials. No one immediately took responsibility for the deadly explosions. The worst of the three attacks occurred in northern Mazar-e-Sharif where at least 10 worshippers were killed as they knelt in prayer, […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—Explosions targeting educational institutions killed at least six people, including students, and injured 17 Tuesday in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of Afghanistan’s capital city, police said. The blasts, which occurred in rapid succession, were being investigated and more casualties were feared, according to Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran and the city’s Emergency Hospital. Several […]
BEIJING—Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, where China was set to host two days of meetings on Afghanistan, state broadcaster CGTN reported. Moscow and Beijing are “more determined” to develop bilateral ties and boost cooperation, Yi said on Wednesday following his […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers decided against opening schools to girls above the sixth grade, reneging on a previous promise and opting to appease their hardline base at the expense of further alienating the international community. The unexpected decision, confirmed by a Taliban official Wednesday, came at the start of the new school year in Afghanistan. […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—The Taliban acting interior minister—designated a terrorist by the United States—said in a rare public appearance Saturday. For the first time, photos showing Sirajuddin Haqqani’s face were published by official Taliban channels. That contrasted with an October appearance, when photos of the influential and reserved figure were blurred. Haqqani was photographed attending the Saturday […]
A new Pentagon audit of last year’s U.S. military-led civilian evacuation of Afghanistan found that dozens of Afghans considered potentially dangerous were brought to the United States. According to the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General report (pdf) published Tuesday, DoD’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) has identified “50 Afghan personnel in the United States […]
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday releasing $7 billion in frozen Afghan reserves held in the United States, dividing the funds between humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Afghanistan had over $9 billion in reserves held outside of the country, including $7 billion in […]
President Joe Biden on Friday divided up frozen Afghanistan funds—half of the money will to families who were victims of the 9/11 attack. The other half to the Afghan people. This as the president is now rejecting claims by top military officials that his administration acted too slowly to evacuate troops and civilians during the […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—An explosion on the doorsteps of a mosque in northern Afghanistan killed one worshipper and wounded seven others on Friday, the Taliban terrorist group claimed. Taliban spokesperson Baz Mohammad Sarwari of Badghis Province said the cause of the explosion is unknown but investigations are ongoing. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion. The […]
The bombing at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan last year that left 13 U.S. troops dead could not have been prevented, Department of Defense officials said on Feb. 5. “Based on our investigation at the tactical level, this was not preventable and the leaders on the ground followed the proper measures, and any time there […]
Former President Donald Trump says the United States should have never abandoned Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan last year, given its strategic location in relation to China. “I would have kept Bagram; it has always been my plan to keep Bagram,” Trump told former top White House aide Kash Patel on his EpochTV’s “Kash’s Corner” program. […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday called on Afghanistan’s Taliban terrorist group to release a U.S. civil engineer who was abducted two years ago and is believed to be the last American hostage held by the Taliban. Mark Frerichs, a 59-year-old U.S. Navy veteran from Lombard, Illinois, who worked in Afghanistan for a decade on […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—Two earthquakes rattled Afghanistan’s western Badghis province along the border with Turkmenistan on Monday afternoon, killing at least 22 people, a local official said. There were fears the death toll could rise further as the first rescuers reached some of the remote villages struck by the temblors in what is one of Afghanistan’s most […]
The United States is donating approximately $308 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and will also contribute additional COVID-19 vaccine doses, a White House spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday. National Security Council (NSC) spokeswoman Emily Horne said in a government statement that the United States remains “the single largest donor of humanitarian aid in Afghanistan” and […]
KABUL, Afghanistan—An explosion in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan on Monday killed nine children and wounded four, according to the office of a Taliban-appointed governor. A statement from the governor’s office said the blast took place when a cart selling food items struck an old, unexploded mortar shell in the district of Lalopar, […]
A vast network of charities and government organizations is helping to resettle Afghan refugees in the United States. Among them is the Tuberculosis and Refugee Clinic at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. And most of its staff are immigrants themselves.
U.S. military personnel involved in the August drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed 10 civilians will not be disciplined, defense officials said on Monday. John Kirby, chief Pentagon spokesman, said on Monday that based on the findings of an independent probe released last month, no recommendations were made for discipline. The review was endorsed […]
The chief U.S. envoy to the Taliban on Wednesday expressed concern over emerging reports that the Taliban terrorist group has summarily killed or forcibly “disappeared” more than 100 former police and intelligence officers since seizing control of Kabul in August. Thomas West, who formerly served as the deputy special representative, said on Twitter that the […]
KABUL—Taliban fighters have summarily killed or forcibly “disappeared” more than 100 former police and intelligence officers since taking power in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said in a report Tuesday. The group pointed to continuing retaliation against the armed forces of the ousted government despite an announced amnesty. Taliban forces have hunted down former officers using […]
The head of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) said on Nov. 19 that the ISIS-K terrorist threat in Afghanistan “still exists” and he doesn’t believe the United States can rely upon the Taliban’s newly formed government as a partner against this threat.
The Pentagon on Wednesday said that “dozens” of family members of U.S. troops still remain in Afghanistan, nearly three months after the Taliban takeover of Kabul and after President Joe Biden withdrew all soldiers from the country. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby made the remarks during a press briefing when pressed by a reporter about the […]
An explosion that was immediately followed by a deadly assault at a large military hospital in the capital of Afghanistan killed more than a dozen people on Tuesday, according to reports. Hibatullah Jamal, a Taliban member who serves as the group’s minister of defense, said that “there are casualties among both our personnel and civilians,” […]
Three guests were shot dead at a wedding reception in eastern Afghanistan on Friday night, apparently because music was being played, according to the Taliban. The attack was carried out by three assailants who claimed to be members of the Taliban before opening fire, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters at a press conference Sunday. […]
President Joe Biden’s administration is withholding information about Afghanistan, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said during a speech on Friday. As an example, Sopko said, the Department of Defense (DoD) withheld information on the performance of Afghan security forces, including unit strength, training deficiencies, and casualty data, or, “in essence, nearly all […]
