With Hamid Karzai stonewalling every US effort to conclude a bilateral security agreement, the Obama Administration is pinning its hopes on India to persuade the Afghan President to sign the deal and end the current political imbroglio on the issue.
Top security czars of India, Russia, Iran and five central Asian countries on Wednesday pledged to work for ensuring that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for global terrorism and called for the formation of an open and truly inclusive government in Kabul.
If New Delhi finds itself out in the cold in Afghanistan, both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have only themselves to blame. Each has been in power for a full decade from 2001, without reaching out to the Taliban, points out Ajai Shukla.
Ali Haider Gilani, son of ex-premier Gilani, has been recovered from Afghanistan's Ghazni province, Pakistan's Foreign Office said in a statement.
Australia are still planning to host Afghanistan in the countries' first ever Test, Cricket Australia (CA) said, despite uncertainty raised after the Taliban seized power in the South Asian country.
'It's waging an offensive with no seeming precedent.' 'The fact that it's now entering cities, as opposed to remaining massed around their perimeters, is a game changer.'
Pakistan-India bilateral relations remained frozen for the fourth year over the vexed Kashmir issue but analysts hope the strained ties could be repaired if Nawaz Sharif becomes the prime minister for a record fourth time in the general elections in February in the absence of his main challenger Imran Khan who is in jail in multiple cases.
The Afghan deputy foreign minister explains how his nation's President became disillusioned with Pakistan. Ajai Shukla listens in.
'India has to ensure its borders are properly sealed and there is no infiltration from PoK.
New Delhi and Beijing are the only two regional capitals that have commented on US President Donald Trump's speech on August 21 outlining the way forward in Afghanistan. The Indian foreign ministry statement was effusive in praise, while the Chinese statement has been one of cautious and guarded hope. Delhi has identified itself with Trump's Afghan strategy, whereas the Chinese stance is calibrated -- observant and objective, keeping a distance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan's national flag-carrier on Monday ran its first commercial flight to Kabul since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August.
On January 20, Taliban men armed with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked the landmark Intercontinental Hotel and killed around 25 people, going from room to room searching for foreigners during the more than 12-hour ordeal.
India and the US also made a strong push for the intra-Afghan peace process to end violence in Afghanistan and ensure that it does not become home to terrorism, and vowed to deepen cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and on COVID-19 response and economic recovery.
The US has hailed a power-sharing deal between rival Afghan presidential candidates as a "moment of extraordinary statesmanship" that ended a prolonged dispute threatening to plunge the war-torn nation into further political turmoil and complicate the NATO troops withdrawal.
'Afghanistan is a beautiful country but has no luck as far as lasting peace is concerned'
Foreign policy is always a work in progress and ups and downs are built into foreign policy process. What is permanent is national interest. Hopefully, this year, which will also witness general elections in the country, will also clear clouds in the foreign policy horizon, observes Rup Narayan Das.
Notably, Pakistan had previously denied the permission of President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Modi to use Pakistan's airspace thrice to travel to foreign countries in 2019 after India abrogated Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.
Amid deepening concerns in China over the regrouping of the ETIM, blamed by Beijing for all the violent attacks in its volatile Xinjiang province and elsewhere in the country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mullah Baradar at Tianjin and sought to prevail on him to build a 'positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits Afghanistan's national realities'.
Representatives from the United States and Qatar, the UN, China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the EU, Germany, India, Norway, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan joined a regional conclave on Thursday to discuss ways to contain the escalating security situation in Afghanistan.
The Taliban's rise will see an increase in infiltration on India's western border and terrorist groups in Pakistan will get funding from the Taliban, warns Brigadier Rajamani Kannan (retd).
Twenty to thirty rockets landed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the centre of Kabul, Tolo news reported. There are no reports of causalities yet.
Haider's release was the second successful instance of a dramatic rescue in a high-profile kidnapping case after slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer's son Shahbaz, who was abducted in 2011, was found in March after spending nearly five years in captivity.
As the western forces prepare to leave Afghanistan in the coming year, India stands at a crossroads where it remains keen to preserve its interests in Afghanistan but has refused to step up its role as a regional security provider. New Delhi needs to recognise that there is no short-cut to major power status, says Harsh V Pant
The Border Security Force has been put on high alert along the India-Bangladesh border in Assam and Tripura following intelligence inputs of Islamic terrorists planning to infiltrate the country.
Three of them are believed to have died in "friendly fire" by Afghan security forces. Another staffer was burnt in a fire that was caused by exploding grenades, the Board of Inquiry revealed.
An ISIS-Khorasan planner was killed in a "counterterrorism" operation conducted by US military forces in the Nangahar province, a day after a terror attack in Kabul killed scores of people including 13 US troops.
Britain on Thursday warned that there was a 'very credible' report of an 'imminent' terrorist attack by the Islamic State terrorists targeting those gathering at Kabul airport in an attempt to flee war-torn Afghanistan.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was one of the key architects of US President Barack Obama's Af-Pak policy during his first term, has called for an offensive strategy against terrorist networks and this includes hitting out at terrorist groups inside Pakistan.
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said US President Joe Biden was briefed about the rocket attack by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chief of Staff Ron Klain.
The key Biden administration included the CIA's deputy director David Cohen and the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan, Tom West.
A blunt warning sent by US President Barack Obama in November 2009, prompted Pakistan to go after the Afghan Taliban leadership, and is being cited as the turning point in the strategic relationship between the two countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday directed officials to ensure safe evacuation of all Indian citizens from Afghanistan and to provide refuge to Sikhs and Hindus wanting to come to India from there, as he chaired a crucial high-level meeting in the backdrop of the Taliban takeover of the war-torn country, sources said.
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
The Biden administration has approved a $450 million F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme to Pakistan to help it meet current and future counterterrorism threats, in Washington's first major security assistance to Islamabad in four years.
Former Indian diplomats on Monday termed the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan as a "setback" for India strategically, and asserted that the priority for New Delhi right now should be to evacuate its citizens from the war-torn nation.
Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States Eklil Ahmad Hakimi has not ruled out the possibility of India training Afghanistan's security forces and national army sometime in the future if the necessity arises.
In the second-biggest city of Kandahar, a long line of green armoured vehicles was driven in single file on Wednesday, with the group's flags attached to it, Dawn reported cities agencies.
The trilateral alliance between India, Afghanistan and Iran on the strategic Chabahar port is a security threat to Pakistan, defence experts in Islamabad have said and asked the government to use diplomatic manoeuvres to avert falling into an "abyss of isolation".
If Afghanistan is going to make any gains through democratic reforms, the newly elected president must start with addressing corruption at all levels of government and developing a comprehensive government financing plan independent of American support.
'Overall as a team, they cannot be seen as walkover. They're very competitive as a one-day and T20 side. They keep proving it over and over again'
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