Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, said on Friday that border crossings with Afghanistan will remain closed to trade and transit until the Taliban provide credible guarantees that militants will not be allowed to enter Pakistan from Afghan territory.
The brother of Jahan Shah Safi, a former Afghan security officer arrested in the United States on charges of assisting ISIS, has strongly rejected the allegations, calling them baseless.
A former senior commander of Afghanistan’s security forces has appealed to US President Donald Trump to help create conditions that would allow Afghans to return home and resume the fight against the Taliban.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Afghanistan under Taliban rule faces “certain problems,” describing the decades-long conflict in the country as “a horrible situation.”
The Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said during a ceremony in Paktia that modern warfare is driven by technology and that the group must strengthen its capabilities accordingly.
A former senior commander of the Afghan National Army has rejected allegations against Jahan Shah Safi, an Afghan refugee arrested in the United States on suspicion of links to ISIS-K, saying he is “not a terrorist.”
The Taliban’s Supreme Court says 15 people in Kabul have been flogged on charges of selling and trafficking narcotics, while three others in Paktia were flogged for using counterfeit currency.
The Taliban say Afghanistan–Pakistan trade routes will reopen only if Islamabad provides firm guarantees that the crossings will no longer be used for political or economic pressure.
According to SIGAR, from 2002 to mid-2021 the United States allocated approximately $144.7 billion for Afghanistan’s reconstruction, of which an estimated $26–29 billion was lost to waste, fraud and abuse.
Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has accused Pakistan of attempting to advance what he described as “mysterious projects” in Afghanistan, alleging that Islamabad seeks to topple the Taliban by exerting economic pressure.
Three Afghan sources and two Pakistani officials, including one based in Istanbul, told Reuters that a meeting between Taliban and Pakistani representatives was held in Saudi Arabia.
Two organisations in Brussels have convened a high-level conference on the growing challenges posed by Taliban rule and what participants described as the urgent need for political change in Afghanistan, South Asia Journal reports.
Local sources in Parwan province told Afghanistan International that five former Afghan security personnel were arrested by the Taliban after being deported from Iran.