Source: The Guardian
The former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has broken his silence with his first interview since fleeing Kabul four months ago, in effect blaming the international community and in particular the Americans for the fall of the republic.
Source: Euronews
It was a year of turmoil for Afghanistan and its people. From the Western withdrawal and evacuation to the Taliban’s seizure of power – a look back at the tumultuous events of 2021.
Source: The New Yorker
On April 14th, President Joe Biden ended the longest war in United States history, announcing that the last remaining American troops in Afghanistan would leave by September 11th. In the following weeks, the Taliban conquered dozens of rural districts and closed in on major cities. By mid-June, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan—the brittle democratic state built by Afghan modernizers, NATO soldiers, and American taxpayers after the 9/11 attacks—appeared to be in a death spiral. Yet its President, Ashraf Ghani, insisted to his cabinet that the Republic would endure. In every meeting, “he assured us, and encouraged us,” Rangina Hamidi, the acting minister of education, said. Ghani reminded them, “America didn’t make a promise that they would be here forever.”
Source: Guardian
One of Afghanistan’s most prominent psychiatrists, who was abducted by armed men in September, has been found dead, his family has confirmed.
Dr Nader Alemi’s daughter, Manizheh Abreen, said that her father had been tortured before he died.
Source: Reuters
The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan on Wednesday delivered a bleak assessment of the situation following the Taliban takeover, saying that an affiliate of the Islamic State group has grown and now appears present in nearly all 34 provinces.
Source: The Defense Post
The Taliban have launched a crackdown on suspected Islamic State hideouts in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday, following an increase in bloody attacks by the group in recent weeks.
Source: France24
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Pakistan’s offshoot of the hardline Islamist group has ramped up attacks on its side of the border, leaving Islamabad scrambling to reach a peace deal.
Source: NPR
Militant attacks inside Pakistan have been rising, highlighting an uncomfortable truth: America’s exit from neighboring Afghanistan has emboldened would-be militant extremists.
Source: Voice of America
Taliban authorities have confirmed the arrest of two men for their suspected role in the killings of four women, including a rights activist, whose bodies were found in a house last week in northern Afghanistan.
An interior ministry spokesman in Kabul Saturday said the detainees had confessed in preliminary interrogation to inviting the victims to the house in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.