Top US and Afghan officials have apparently been conned by a man claiming to be a leading Taliban negotiator in secret talks with Afghan officials.
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.
Pakistan on Friday agreed to let India transport 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat and life-saving drugs as humanitarian assistance for the people of Afghanistan on Afghan trucks through the Wagah border crossing, after a row erupted between the two countries over the modalities of transportation.
Let's face it. When it comes to the Pentagon, the Pakistani military can do no wrong. Even if it's going after only the Pakistani Taliban and not the Afghan Taliban, which it apparently continues to promote for strategic depth against India and as a hedge in case the US decides to cut and run.
The pressure on Delhi mellowed Lucknow's ruling dispensation's initial enthusiasm to try and draw electoral mileage from the developments in Afghanistan.
The US intelligence community assesses that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar is now dead, although the circumstances of his death is not yet clear, the White House has said.
It seems that the West is sending a signal to India that it can return to old hostilities unless India toes their line on Russia. It is no surprise that India is being compared with Putin's Russia in terms of targeting 'dissidents' as the West calls these Khalistani terrorists, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
"They (the Taliban) do not represent the popular will in Afghanistan and every poll, every survey I would particularly bring your attention to the BBC/ABC/ARD poll of earlier this year shows that their support is in the single digits," Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, told media persons at a news briefing.
Beyond assurances of support, the 100-plus delegations that congregated in Bonn failed to articulate anything particularly meaningful, says Amir Mir
The United States is going to retain a laser focus on its counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said on Friday, and warned the Taliban of a forceful response to any attack on American forces or disruption of its operations at the Kabul airport.
Pakistan's army chief General Raheel Sharif will visit Afghanistan tomorrow to meet the new leaders there and discuss security issues, including the thorny one of Pakistani Taliban militants hiding there.
In days of smart, networked technology and no shame over collateral damage, what will blow up next -- cars, mobile phones, TV sets, refrigerators? And where?, asks Shyam G Menon.
'They must be hiding somewhere in a country where the Taliban would not even spare a 4-year-old girl.'
Afghans went to the polls for the first time on October 9 in a direct election to choose a presidential candidate.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the bombing, which was felt across the city.
When the Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, they banned education for females and barred women from leaving the house without a male relative.
Karzai has steadfastly opposed direct talks between the US and the Taliban, wanting Afghan ownership of the "reconciliation process", as the reintegration of the Taliban into the mainstream is referred to.
The statement comes Days after Trump sought Imran Khan's help in the Afghan peace process.
'The negotiation was a result of -- based on the judgment that we weren't winning the war and therefore time was not on our side and better to make a deal sooner than later'
Only punitive pressure against Pakistan can help in neutralising the Haqqani Network, says senior analyst B Raman
No tears are shed for the thousands of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan by Pakistan's proxies such as the Afghan Taliban, says South Asia expert Professor C Christine Fair. Aziz Haniffa reports.
The much anticipated peace talks between the Taliban and the United States might not happen as well, a US official said, as the Special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan left Qatar without any talks with the Afghan insurgent group.
'The Mansoor Taliban is really an extension of the Haqqani Network which in turn is an instrument of the ISI. With Ashraf Ghani ready to dance to Pakistani tunes and with the Haqqani Network becoming part of the Afghan government, Pakistan is all set to see the fruition of its strategic policy,' says Sushant Sareen.
Slamming Pakistan for refusing to cut ties with the Haqqani network of militants, a leading US daily has said the military of the 'crippled and chaotic' state continues to play a "double game" of accepting aid from America while enabling the Afghan Taliban.
US troops after 10 years in Afghanistan are in the same position as the Soviet troops after eight years were in 1987 --victory increasingly elusive, says B Raman.
Following the recent killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in an American military raid, the Obama administration has adopted a new strategy towards the chief of the Afghan Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar, which is aimed at persuading the fugitive extremist leader to agree to a negotiated settlement of the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan, writes eminent Pakistani journalist Amir Mir.
The billions India invested in dams, schools, etc in Afghanistan will be gone. The Hindu and Sikh population of Afghanistan has already shrunk from some 200,000 to about 500, points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
With the death of the terrorist mastermind, the emergence of a nuclear-equipped splinter group from within the Pakistani establishment looks disturbingly plausible, says Colonel Anil Athale (retd)
Pakistan on Thursday dismissed reports that Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar was being treated in a Karachi hospital, with the help of officials of the Inter Services Intelligence, after he suffered a heart attack."This is hackneyed speculation with no substance whatsoever," said Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit.He said such reports were aimed at maligning Pakistan and creating misgivings.
The Afghan women's national football team will travel to Pakistan this month for their first international match abroad.
A shocked Pakistan on Wednesday began observing 3 days of national mourning for the 141 people, mostly children, massacred by the Taliban suicide attackers in horrendous terror attack in northwestern city of Peshawar.
Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, killed in a United States airstrike in Balochistan, was a frequent flyer and used a Pakistani passport for over nine years
Officials said the militants targeted residential areas and held hostages.
India has been maintaining that its ties with China cannot be normal unless there is peace in the border areas.
Khan was known to directly participate in attacks against US and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorised Afghans, especially in Nangarhar.
The recent catastrophic attack on US troopers underlines the undamaged capability of the Afghan Taliban to take the NATO forces by surprise and inflict heavy casualties on them and its determination to make the US withdrawal from Afghanistan a humiliating retreat and not a successful withdrawal, says senior analyst B Raman.
Fearing at the possibility of attacks against the US emanating from Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her second visit to the country has called on Islamabad to take further and specific actions against militant networks, British Broadcasting Corporation reported.
General Sharif will meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other civil as well as military leaders during the day-long trip.
New Delhi should resist any temptation to act as spoiler and instead should cooperate with its SCO partners in reaching a regional consensus behind the formation of an interim government in Kabul, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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