Islamic State is chopping down fruit trees and smuggling the timber into Pakistan, claim Afghan officials and local residents of the Deh Bala district of eastern Nangarhar province where the terrorist group operates.
Sangorian, a secret Afghan government militia, claims credit for defeating Taliban attempts to overrun Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah.
The number of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan declined last year but the number of deaths from air strikes was on the rise, the United Nations says.
A Taliban attack on a luxury hotel in the capital, Kabul, killed several foreign crew members of the country’s largest airline, which forced Kam Air to drastically reduce domestic flights, which has prevented millions of Afghans from flying.
The Afghan capital is hosting military chiefs from several neighboring countries, including Pakistan, for a conference to discuss ways to fight against terrorism.
Their growing Taliban influence in Badakhshan is now prompting concerns that the province will become a bastion for regional terrorism because it borders Pakistan, China, and Tajikistan.
Afghan police are needed to protect people and government institutions in remote districts across Afghanistan’s largest province, Helmand. Instead, they are being deployed to protect senior officials and lawmakers in the regional capital, Lashkar Gah.
In 2015, an extremist group calling itself Islamic State-Khorasan Province began recruiting new members -- including children -- in eastern Afghanistan. Two young brothers told VOA they spent two years training with the militants and preparing for suicide missions.
The United States has started shifting combat and intelligence-gathering air assets to Afghanistan as the battle against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group is winding down in Iraq and Syria, a top commander in Afghanistan says.
The United States has designated three Pakistani-based militants as "global terrorists," as Washington heaps pressure on Islamabad to crack down on militants.
The U.S. State Department's No. 2 official says President Donald Trump’s administration has so far seen no evidence that Pakistan has met its demands for a crackdown on militants operating in the country.
Tribal leaders in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province say hundreds of Pashtun tribespeople torched the office of a pro-government Taliban commander in the southern city of Dera Ismail Khan on February 6.
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