Daesh And Al-Qaeda Threaten Security Of Region, Says Iran's Foreign Minister

Afghan Ambassador Zalmai Rassoul was invited to the British Foreign Office on Friday and asked to close the door of the Afghan embassy.

Earlier, after months of trying to force the Afghan embassy in London to interact and cooperate with the group's Foreign Ministry, the Taliban announced that the consular services of the embassy were invalid.

The Taliban's move appears to have influenced the British government's decision to close the embassy.
The ministry has given the Afghan embassy staff 90 days to leave or stay in the UK.

The British Foreign Office has said that the affairs of the embassy will not be handed over to Taliban representatives and that the embassy will be closed for the time being.

The UK is one of the European countries with a large population of Afghan immigrants. The embassy closure makes it difficult for these migrants to access consular services, such as obtaining a power of attorney to divide property.

The Taliban has asked Afghans living in the UK to visit embassies cooperating with the group in Europe to access consular services.

Zalmai Rassoul, the former ambassador to Britain, told the Sunday Times, "It's hard for me to go to official invitations, what should you say when you don't have a government or a country?"
Rassoul had resisted the Taliban's threats and enticements for the past three years and did not respond to the group's Foreign Ministry's requests.

Hanif Atmar, the foreign minister of the former Afghan government, has warned that the closure of the country's diplomatic missions is a historic mistake and will have dire political consequences. Atmar said that closing these agencies will create many legal problems for millions of Afghans.

According to sources, Kohistani was detained by the Taliban on Thursday in the northern Sarai area of Kabul.

So far, the Taliban has not commented on the matter, and it is not clear why Kohistani has been arrested.

Before the Taliban's arrival in Kabul, Jawed Kohistani used to analyse political and military issues in television debates, and he is one of the few political activists who did not leave Afghanistan after August 2021.

According to the report, 53 families returned from Pakistan via Torkham and Spin Boldak, and 285 families returned from Iran via the Silk Bridge and Islam Qala.

On Thursday, the Taliban had announced that 358 Afghan families entered Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan in a single day.

Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan have increased pressure and deportation of Afghan refugees.

According to Taliban statistics, hundreds of people return to Afghanistan daily from Iran and Pakistan.

In most cases, these migrants are forcibly deported.

According to the organisation's statistics, the Taliban forces have clashed with Pakistan 19 times, 16 times with Iran, and 10 times with Central Asian countries.

The organisation published a report on Tuesday announcing that the Taliban's border clashes with neighbouring countries left at least 100 dead and 67 wounded by the warring parties.
Most of the tensions occurred on the eastern and western borders of Afghanistan.

The report’s findings show that one of the causes of the Taliban's border tensions with Iran and Central Asian countries was due to the group's unfamiliarity with border issues.

However, the cause of the border tension with Pakistan has been due to the provocative actions of both sides.

The movements of terrorist groups from inside Afghanistan against Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are other factors that have increased border clashes in the last three years.

The study found that about 90 percent of border tensions led to exchanges of fire, which in some cases resulted in heavy casualties.

The organisation said that the bombing of Pakistani planes in Khost and Kunar provinces in 2022 left at least 50 dead and wounded.

The Afghanistan Security Watch is led by the national security officials of the previous government.

According to the Trump administration's national security advisor, more money in the hands of the Taliban will cause more people to suffer in Afghanistan.

The United States has provided more than $2.5 billion in aid to Afghanistan over the past three years. Although the aid is sent to Afghanistan under the guise of humanitarian aid, critics claim that the Taliban benefits from it in the form of taxes from aid organisations and the creation of aid institutions belonging to the group.

Speaking at a meeting of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) held at George Washington University on Thursday evening, McMaster said that what has happened in Afghanistan over the past three years was completely predictable. Among other things, he pointed to the core nature of the Taliban, the group's repressive spirit and its links to terrorist organisations.

The former senior US military official also called the US policy towards the war in Afghanistan flawed and said that the US strategy was incomprehensible in light of the realities in Afghanistan.

"Specifically, I want to point out the distinction that the Obama administration said that the Taliban is not the main problem, but al-Qaeda is the main problem," McMaster said.

He also said that drawing a clear line between al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations was an illusion, and that this illusion is still held by a number of US officials in the country's intelligence agencies.

The former US National Security Advisor also questioned the process of Doha peace talks between the United States and the Taliban, saying that these talks discredited Ashraf Ghani's government.

McMaster also accused the Trump administration of "colluding with the Taliban," which gave the group concessions, including halting airstrikes on the Taliban.

The Doha Agreement was signed during Trump's presidency and brokered by Zalmay Khalilzad, his special envoy for Afghanistan, in February 2020. According to US officials, this agreement paved the way for the fall of the previous Afghan government.

The former US national security adviser said, "In my opinion, the situation in Afghanistan and the collapse of the security forces were self-inflicted. It was based on an illusion, based on a self-inflicted story to justify the withdrawal from this country."

McMaster called the Taliban's resistance indigenous, rather than perceived as part of a jihadist-Salafi group, and the "useful and effective role of Pakistan" as part of these illusions.

He described the Doha peace agreement as a document of American surrender that was implemented by Biden head to heart. According to him, Biden did not have so much faith in any of the Trump administration's agreements except the Doha agreement.