Afghanistan on Tuesday said it has received reports of reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar being killed, but they have not been confirmed.
Interrelations of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan on Thursday took centre stage at the Jaipur LitFest where panelists discussed the upswing in talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan besides India's ties with its neighbour.
The US military has confirmed that they will not return to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan either to destroy or to retrieve the equipment.
Accusing Pakistan of harbouring Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, a top Afghan official on Monday said the global community is committing a blunder by embracing it as a strategic partner despite the fact that terrorism emanating from the region is affecting India, United Kingdom and others. "Unfortunately, the military-intelligence establishment of one of our neighbours still regards Afghanistan as its sphere of influence," Rangin Dadfar Spanta said.
Afghan women's cricket team formed in 2010 was quietly dissolved this year amid Taliban threats, insecurity and conservative beliefs.
Cut off from the world and having to contend with an orthodox and repressive Taliban government, Afghans are facing the brunt of Pakistan's decades old policy of nurturing militant groups, note Harsh V Pant and Kriti M Shah four months after the Taliban took Kabul.
Paramilitary Frontier Corps personnel repelled the attack in which Taliban fighters used suicide bombers, rockets and assault rifles to overwhelm the security forces check post in Jansi area of Khyber tribal region.
The Pakistan military believes that American and British military will withdraw from Afghanistan -- and when they do, they will need old Taliban friends such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin to minimise the influence of India in its Afghan backyard.Although Pakistan's military chiefs have been talking about an 'imminent' assault since last June, all the evidence has pointed to deep reluctance to launch a massive ground offensive.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Tuesday refused to confirm the death of Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour but said a DNA test will be done to establish the identity of a man killed in a American drone strike last week.
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.
Initial reports state that one person died and three others have been injured.
The United Sates will continue its fight against the Taliban while seeking a political solution to the Afghan imbroglio, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday even as he rejected Pakistan's concerns on American drone strikes.
The Afghan government was holding secret talks with the Taliban's No 2 when he was captured in Pakistan, and the arrest infuriated president Hamid Karzai, according to one of Karzai's advisers.
Taliban's supreme commander Mullah Mohammad Omar, now in hiding, has put pressure on his groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan to form a new grouping which has pledged to stop targetting Pakistani security forces and instead focus attention on US-led troops in Afghanistan.
'The camp would provide military training for 1,800 ordinary Taliban fighters and 200 low-level commanders,' an unnamed Afghan government official was quoted by The Independent as saying.
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