Mustafa Sarwar is a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Prague.
The Taliban Defense Ministry says it has created at least five military units in Afghanistan's north and west, bordering Central Asia. Taliban officials insist the move is aimed at strengthening security in those areas and will contribute to regional stability, but not everyone is so sure.
The European Union is considering reopening its diplomatic mission to Afghanistan, but it has no plans of officially recognizing the Taliban administration, an EU spokeswoman told RFE/RL.
The Taliban has attempted to craft an image of transparency since returning to power in Afghanistan, but photographs of acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani at work have muddied the effort.
When U.S. air strikes targeted terrorist training camps in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, it signaled the beginning of a nearly 20-year war that quickly toppled the Taliban, only to see the extremist group ultimately return to power in Kabul.
After 20 years of a U.S.-led war against insurgent groups and international assistance to Afghanistan, the Taliban is back in power and some are wondering if the societal gains are in jeopardy of being lost.
In a wide-ranging interview with Radio Azadi, former British diplomat Sir Nicholas Kay says the Taliban will need to demonstrate its counterterrorism commitments as Western nations will continue to see the Islamic State militants as a threat.
The Taliban has imposed a media crackdown on territory under its control, forcing dozens of media outlets to shut down and its journalists to flee or go underground.
Residents of northern Afghanistan, the focus of the Taliban’s blistering offensive, say the militant group has reimposed many of the repressive laws and retrograde policies that defined its 1996-2001 rule.
Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province was a stronghold for the opposition fighting against Taliban forces in the 1990s. But the foreign troop departure has led to a dramatic change on the ground in the Taliban's favor.
Thousands of Afghans who worked for foreign troops face an uncertain fate as international forces prepare to leave Afghanistan by September.
With rising infections and mounting death toll, a third wave of COVID infections could overwhelm Afghanistan already reeling from the precipitous withdrawal of foreign forces.
Just like during Afghanistan's civil war in the '90s, powerful former warlords are remobilizing their old militias. The move comes as international forces prepare to leave the country.
Millions of farmers across Afghanistan are scrambling to deal with the devastating impact of an ongoing drought, which comes amid uncertainty over their country's political future.
The Afghan government has failed to set up a functioning judiciary across the country's many districts, and the Taliban has stepped in by establishing shadow courts that provide locals their only means of settling disputes or seeking justice.
Stefano Pontecorvo, NATO’s new Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan, indicated that long awaited peace negotiations between the Taliban and the representatives of the Islamic Republic, the current political system, will soon begin after negotiators recover from coronavirus infections.
Following months of intense political squabbling Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his top political rival former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah are now set to conclude another power-sharing agreement.
As the United States and its allies begin what looks like a final drawdown of their forces from Afghanistan, China appears to be expanding its role and influence in the country.
Asadullah Khalid, a former spy chief and current Afghan defense minister, says his country’s forces are committed to preserving the gains of the past two decades.
Nicholas Kay, NATO’s senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, says that both the Afghan security forces and civilians need to see a significant reduction in violence as part of an imminent peace deal between the Taliban and the United States.
Some 7,000 Afghan migrants in Sweden face an uncertain future after authorities handed them formal deportation orders requiring them to return to Afghanistan.
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