by Touqir Hussain in Dawn, March 15th, 2023The writer, a former ambassador, is adjunct professor Georgetown University and Visiting Senior Research Fellow National University of Singapore.REGARDLESS of whoever ruled Afghanistan, the country has always been a problem for Pakistan. The latter’s strategic planners may have hoped that with the Afghan Taliban’s return to power the problem would be resolved. Instead, it has worsened. The Taliban’s rise has reflected the larger failure of Afghanistan that has…
Posts tagged as “Taliban”
EDIT IN THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, MAR 11, 2023The UN’s top official for Afghanistan is warning that the Taliban’s continuing failure to keep their promises regarding the rights of women and girls are likely to lead to reductions in aid delivered to the country. Roza Otunbayeva, special representative of the UN secretary general for Afghanistan and head of the UN’s assistance mission in the country, has noted that the Taliban continue to impose increasingly harsh conditions…
AFP report in Business Recorder, Mar 10,. 2023KABUL: A dusty logjam of trucks inches across a rut in the mountains splitting Pakistan and Afghanistan, teeming with a cargo of fruit and coal — and paying the Taliban authorities for the privilege of passage. In downtown Kabul, a patrol of accountants inspects a bazaar, billing shopkeepers for trading honey, hair conditioner and gas hobs under the snapping white flag of the country’s new rulers. Afghanistan is…
REPORT in The Nation, Mar 10, 2023ISLAMABAD – Jamaat ul Ahrar, a militant outfit, on Thursday accepted responsibility for the suicide bomb blast that killed Governor of Balkh province in Afghanistan Mulla Mohammad Dawood Muzammil , said a spokesman of Pakistan Tehreek Taliban. Seven persons, including the governor, were killed and nine others injured in the bomb blast. Mulla Dawood was the leading figure of Taliban. The Jamaat ul Ahrar had differences with him over…
By Fidel Rahmati in Khaama Press online, Mar 9, 2023Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on Thursday that killed the Taliban governor of Afghanistan’s Balkh province, the group’s Amaq agency reported. A blast tore through the Taliban governor’s office in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province on Thursday, killing him and two others, officials said. Despite the Islamic Emirate rulers’ repeated claims that the Afghan conflict is concluded, the de facto government still faces significant security…
AFP report March 07, 2023KABUL: Afghanistan´s Taliban authorities have freed a detained academic, his aide told AFP on Monday, months after he used a television appearance to protest the ban on women´s university education. In December, veteran journalism lecturer Ismail Mashal tore up his degree certificates on live TV and denounced the Taliban´s treatment of women in a clip that went viral in Afghanistan. He was detained in February after domestic channels showed him carting…
by Kamran Yousaf in The Express Tribune, Mar 5, 2023ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban are discussing a resettlement plan for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in a renewed push to address the issue of cross-border terrorist attacks that have threatened to unravel their bilateral relationship. Sources familiar with the development told The Express Tribune that the idea of resettlement came from the Afghan Taliban during the recent visit of a high-powered Pakistani delegation led…
By Fidel Rahmati in Khaama Press online, March 2, 2023Ned Price, the spokesman for the US State Department, in a press conference, said that the Taliban had not fulfilled the commitments that they made in Doha Agreements, including engaging in political dialogue, fighting terrorist groups and respecting human rights. “We have seen Mullah Baradar’s statement, and we, of course, disagree with the key points in his statement. Namely, the Taliban have not fulfilled their commitments…
Edit in The Express Tribune, Mar 1, 2023.A major success in counterterrorism has come the Kabul’s way. In what seems to be a well-choreographed operation, the Afghan Taliban took out IS-K’s top leader, who was also its military and intelligence chief. This will surely act as a deterrent and will go a long way in further consolidating the Afghan interim government’s grip over power, enabling them to tackle the terror fissures in a more comprehensive…
AFP report in Dawn, March 1st, 2023KABUL: Taliban forces claimed to have killed a top commander of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) militant group, who allegedly planned attacks against diplomatic missions in Afghanistan’s capital, a government official said. Violence in Afghanistan dramatically dipped after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. But in the past year, security has worsened, with a spate of mass casualty attacks claimed by Islamic State’s regional chapter, IS-K. Taliban forces killed…
By Fidel Rahmati in Khaama Press, Feb 27, 2023The Afghanistan embassy in Tehran was “formally” handed over to the Taliban on Sunday afternoon, according to an Afghan diplomat in Iran. The outgoing ambassador of Afghanistan gave over all documents and equipment of the Afghanistan embassy in Tehran to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to a source, the Taliban-led government has appointed Fazl Mohammad Haqqani, the first secretary of the former ambassador of Afghanistan…