Afghanistan

In a hugely consequential advisory, the US Treasury Department quietly signalled on Wednesday that it was “tweaking” the sanctions against the Haqqani Network. The international banks can transfer money to Taliban, including Haqqani Network without fear of breaching sanctions. Washington simply issued clarifications dilating on the relaxation of sanctions announced …

Qatar was bestowed the status of major non-NATO US ally by President Joe Biden yesterday. Qatar’s government has reached a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan to resume evacuation flights from Kabul’s airport after a months-long halt, Qatar’s foreign minister said yesterday. The agreement allows for two flights per week …

The three-day conclave in Oslo on January 23-25 for interaction for a core group of Western diplomats with Taliban officials marks a new phase in the political situation in Afghanistan. The West was represented by the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy as well as the European Union. Norway is …

In the long and storied history of the United States Army, many young officers have served in many war zones. Few, I suspect, were as sublimely ignorant as I was in the summer of 1970 upon my arrival at Cam Ranh Bay in the Republic of Vietnam. Granted, during the …

On Jan. 13, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed alarm that millions of Afghans are on the “verge of death” thanks to a lethal brew of “freezing temperatures and frozen assets.” This was no idle warning. Notwithstanding the decline in fighting following the Taliban’s victory in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy is …

While Tehran is proceeding slowly when it comes to establishing official ties with the Taliban government, recent talks highlight Iran’s interest in expanding its role in Afghanistan. On his first official visit to Iran, the Taliban government’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi arrived in Tehran Jan. 9 for talks …

On 26 August last year a former engineering student named Abdul Rahman al-Logari, wearing a vest containing 25lb of explosives, was about to be searched by American soldiers guarding Kabul airport. At the last moment, this Isis suicide bomber detonated his device, killing 13 American soldiers and between 170 and …

On January 11, 2022, the United Nations (UN) Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths appealed to the international community to help raise $4.4 billion for Afghanistan in humanitarian aid, calling this effort, “the largest ever appeal for a single country for humanitarian assistance.” This amount is required “in the hope of …

Taliban’s repudiation of Pakistan’s position on the Durand Line challenges a pillar of Pakistan’s security policy. In at least two incidents in late December and early January, Afghan Taliban soldiers intervened to block an ongoing Pakistani project to erect fencing along the shared border between Afghanistan and Pakistan — the …

On Feb. 15, 1989, Col. Gen. Boris Gromov became the last Soviet commander to leave Afghanistan, crossing the Friendship Bridge into what was then the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Gromov’s departure ended the USSR’s decade-long military occupation of Afghanistan, characterized by some as the country’s version of the Vietnam War. …