Afghanistan will remain a frontline state for Washington for a foreseeable future in terms of the potential threats to US national security from terrorist groups, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who played a stellar role in beginning India's dealings in Afghanistan in 1994.
In a tweet on Sunday, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader said, 'Recent developments in our volatile neighbourhood & the way Sikhs & Hindus are going through a harrowing time are precisely why it was necessary to enact the Citizenship Amendment Act.'
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.
Glimpses of Taliban soldiers at the checkpoint in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Samajwadi Party member of Parliament Shafiqur Rehman Barq has been booked for sedition following his recent remarks allegedly defending the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and equating it with India's own freedom struggle, police said on Wednesday.
Beyond assurances of support, the 100-plus delegations that congregated in Bonn failed to articulate anything particularly meaningful, says Amir Mir
"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.
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.
"You can't do anything about it," Rashid Khan conceded as he tried to make sense of Australia's refusal to play bilateral cricket with Afghanistan men's team, which he believes, achieves nothing beyond denying happiness to his people.
Afghans went to the polls for the first time on October 9 in a direct election to choose a presidential candidate.
The timing of these transfers, while being projected as routine, is significant in both strategic and political terms, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
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 'red bag' belonged to one of the hijackers, it contained explosives, and possibly, real passports, too.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the bombing, which was felt across the city.
'Pakistan's only concern has been while they were on the FATF watch list was to distance their State institutions and organs from any direct connection with the actual execution of militancy inside Kashmir.'
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.
Only punitive pressure against Pakistan can help in neutralising the Haqqani Network, says senior analyst B Raman
'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.
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.
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.
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.
The India delegation flagged concerns over the possible implication of the Taliban's capture of power for the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir as there are apprehensions about spill-over of terrorist activities from Afghanistan to the union territory, the sources said.
Amid India's concerns that Afghanistan's territory might be used for anti-India activities under the Taliban regime, the terror group has said that it has the right to raise its voice for Muslims anywhere, including in Kashmir. However, it added that the group does not have a policy of raising arms against any country.
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 statement comes Days after Trump sought Imran Khan's help in the Afghan peace process.
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)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Khan was known to directly participate in attacks against US and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorised Afghans, especially in Nangarhar.
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.
The pressure on Delhi mellowed Lucknow's ruling dispensation's initial enthusiasm to try and draw electoral mileage from the developments in Afghanistan.
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 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.
Officials said the militants targeted residential areas and held hostages.
