Archive

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have discussed recent military clashes between Pakistan and the Taliban.

The Taliban Defence Ministry said it carried out airstrikes on several military targets in Pakistan, including sites in the capital, Islamabad.

Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan’s armed forces are capable of defeating any aggressive plan against the country.

Documents obtained by Afghanistan International show that the Taliban have appointed a Pakistani national as head of information technology at Afghanistan’s consulate in Bonn.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan said it is monitoring what it described as threatening statements by the Taliban.

Representatives of Russia and Qatar, speaking at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, made no reference to widespread human rights violations or the situation of women in Afghanistan, unlike several other countries.

Amit Halevi, a member of Israel’s Knesset, said the Taliban should not be granted international legitimacy and called for support for the group’s opponents.

Officials from Uzbekistan and the Taliban administration say they plan to increase bilateral trade to $5 billion within five years.

Dozens of Afghan and international civil society groups have urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn Taliban policies and avoid normalising relations with the group. They warned that its new penal code deepens Afghanistan’s human rights crisis.

Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, said in a new report that women’s and girls’ access to healthcare has been severely restricted since the Taliban returned to power.

A magnitude 5.4 earthquake shook parts of northern Afghanistan on Wednesday afternoon, residents said.

Nurullah Nouri, the Taliban’s minister of tribal and borders affairs, told frontier forces they must defend every inch of Afghanistan, even at the cost of their lives.

Atta Mohammad Noor has accused the Taliban of being behind the shooting of a former Afghan lawmaker in Iran and urged the group to end what he described as violence and bloodshed.

Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan said he discussed counterterrorism efforts and regional issues in a telephone call with a senior Iranian official.

Faisal Karim Kundi, governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, warned on Tuesday that Pakistan would carry out further strikes inside Afghanistan if militant attacks from Afghan territory continue.

The Taliban have rejected a Russian Foreign Ministry report estimating that between 20,000 and 23,000 members of international militant organisations are operating in Afghanistan.

Local sources said Taliban forces and Pakistani troops have clashed in border districts of Nangarhar Province.

Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, discussed Pakistan’s recent airstrikes in Afghanistan during a phone call with Rosemary DiCarlo, the United Nations under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs.

Mohsin Dawar, leader of Pakistan’s National Democratic Movement, said the Afghan Taliban are pretending to fight Pakistan’s military and described the approach as populist.

Afghan refugees living in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in north-western Kenya say their situation is deteriorating and that they feel increasingly forgotten by the international community.

As tensions rising between Pakistan and the Taliban, Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan said he had discussed regional security concerns with Uzbekistan’s envoy.