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The Taliban has cut off wireless internet access in five provinces, reliable sources told Afghanistan International on Tuesday.

Mullah Yaqoob Mujahid, the Taliban’s defence minister, travelled to Doha to convey condolences to the Qatari government, replacing Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who remains under a UN travel ban.

The United States has again listed Afghanistan among the world’s major drug-producing and transit countries, saying Taliban members continue to profit from the narcotics trade despite the group’s declared ban.

Hundreds of residents of Mazar-i-Sharif city staged protests on Tuesday against the Taliban’s plan to demolish long-standing shops in the city’s auction market.

Mohammad Naseem Haqqani, head of the Taliban-appointed Sheikh Zayed University in Khost, has declared that waging jihad against Pakistan is an individual obligation.

The Taliban has banned fibre-optic internet in Balkh province on orders from its supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

The Taliban has cut Wi-Fi services in Mazar-i-Sharif and suspended fibre-optic connections nationwide, in what sources say may be part of a broader effort to restrict high-speed internet access across Afghanistan.

The Taliban have banned the broadcasting of images and video interviews with local officials in Balkh province, forcing state television to suspend programming and switch to radio, the Afghanistan Journalists Centre said.

Pakistan has unveiled a new plan to step up monitoring along its border with Afghanistan in a bid to block what it calls the supply routes of militant groups operating from Afghan territory.

A senior adviser to the Taliban’s Ministry of Energy and Water has been arrested after publicly urging the deployment of female nurses to earthquake-hit Kunar, sources told Afghanistan International on Monday.

A senior Iranian delegation arrived in Kabul on Monday for talks with Taliban officials on expanding trade, easing transit and boosting joint investment, the Taliban’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce said.

Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has ordered the collection of mentally ill patients across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, the group announced.

A Russian researcher who spent 52 days in Taliban custody said he was accused of spying for Moscow and engaging in anti-government propaganda.

The National Resistance Front (NRF) said its forces killed three Taliban fighters in an operation in Herat province on Saturday night.

A US envoy has delivered a message from President Donald Trump to Taliban leaders in Kabul, stressing that he is serious about securing the release of American prisoners held in Afghanistan, Taliban sources told Afghanistan International.

Former jihadi leader Ismail Khan has called on Iranian authorities to identify and prosecute those responsible for the killing of Maroof Ghulami, head of the Council of Jihadi Commanders in western Afghanistan and a close associate of Khan.

Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan will travel to Kabul next week to deliver a warning over the Taliban’s alleged support for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), according to Pakistani media reports.

A Taliban delegation has travelled to China to attend a meeting on migration management and cross-border cooperation, the group said Sunday.

The Taliban and Uzbekistan on Sunday launched a survey and extraction project at the Totimaidan gas field in northern Jowzjan province, officials said.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned Saturday that Pakistan would sever ties with the Afghan Taliban if the group continued to support the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), following the killing of several Pakistani soldiers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

A senior Taliban official said Saturday that there are no obstacles in relations between the Taliban and the United States that cannot be resolved, framing recent visits by American delegations to Kabul as the start of a new phase in talks.