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  • The Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based affiliate is emerging as a global menace

    News of the recent horrific attack in Moscow by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—Khorasan Province (also known as ISIS-K) is putting a spotlight on a group that was already notorious for its brutal methods in Afghanistan and the broader Middle East. The operation in Moscow arrived a few weeks after U.S. officials warned that credible intelligence suggested an attack was brewing in Russia. Still, it appears to be a dramatic escalation of the group’s ability to launch complex attacks well outside its home base in Afghanistan.

  • US intelligence confirms Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch behind Iran blasts

    Communications intercepts collected by the United States confirmed that Islamic State’s (ISIS) Afghanistan-based branch carried out twin bombings in Iran that killed nearly 100 people, two sources familiar with the intelligence told Reuters on Friday.

    "The intelligence is clear-cut and indisputable," one source said.

    That source and a second, both of whom requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said the intelligence comprised communications intercepts, without providing further details. The collection of the intercepts has not been previously reported.

  • Powerful Earthquakes Kill More Than 2,400 in Afghanistan: ‘This Is a Huge Disaster’

    Rescue workers are searching for survivors in western Afghanistan after powerful earthquakes killed at least 2,445 people and injured thousands more, in one of the deadliest seismic disasters to hit the country in recent decades. Two magnitude-6.3 earthquakes struck western Afghanistan on Saturday near the city of Herat, destroying more than 1,300 homes, said Janan Sayiq, a spokesman for the country’s disaster-management authority. Some 2,400 people were injured, he said, revising down an earlier figure of more than 9,000.

  • Interpreter for U.S. in Afghanistan killed while working as a rideshare driver in D.C.

    A father of four who worked as an interpreter for U.S. special forces in Afghanistan before fleeing the country for safety in America was fatally shot while working as a rideshare driver in Washington, D.C. this week, relatives and authorities said. The Metropolitan Police Department said it was looking for suspects in the fatal shooting Monday of a man identified as 31-year-old Nasrat Ahmad Yar, of Alexandria, Virginia.

  • Afghanistan-Iran border flare up spotlights water scarcity crisis

    Iran and Afghanistan are going head to head over control of the supply of a crucial resource that’s shrinking by the day: water. Violence along the border between the two tumultuous countries flared up in recent weeks, stoked by a dispute over the water flowing from Afghanistan’s Helmand river into Iran. Tehran says Afghanistan’s Taliban government is deliberately depriving Iran of sufficient water supplies in order to bolster its own; but the Taliban says there isn’t enough water anymore to begin with, thanks to plummeting rainfall and river levels.

  • The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan After the Taliban’s Afghanistan Takeover

    Founded in 2007 as an umbrella movement in Pakistan’s tribal territory uniting the area’s militant Islamist outfits, the TTP later suffered from a government crackdown and an internal fragmentation that critically threatened its survival. As a survival mechanism, the group relocated to Afghanistan, embedding itself into the Taliban’s insurgency, but with the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, the TTP has obtained new more sophisticated weapons and relocated fighters from Afghanistan to Pakistan and is now turning its focus back to its war against the Pakistani state.

  • A Reassessment of American Policy Toward Taliban Afghanistan

    The U.S. and other countries have consistently underestimated the role of theocratic thinking in hardening the Taliban’s domestic policies and shaping their international behavior. The Taliban’s leaders are largely constrained by their interpretation of Islamic doctrine from yielding on issues that they believe involve ordained principles. While many among the Taliban’s leadership ranks have had exposure to outside influences and have become sophisticated in messaging their policies, the movement’s inner circle is more parochial and deeply hostile to Western thought. It is notably defiant in its views regarding women’s rights, judicial practices, media freedoms, and political inclusiveness.

  • U.S. Acknowledges Afghanistan Evacuation Should Have Started Sooner

    The National Security Council on Thursday released a 12-page summary of the government’s findings about the withdrawal in August 2021, which swiftly turned violent. As U.S. officials rushed to evacuate people from the international airport in Kabul, the capital, an Islamic State suicide bomber carried out an attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 civilians.

  • Taliban forging religious emirate in Afghanistan with draconian Islamic law

    A year and a half later, the Taliban has gutted the country’s justice system in its campaign to forge a religious emirate, by scrapping the constitution and replacing the legal code with rules based on a draconian interpretation of Islamic law. The Taliban has filled prisons to overflowing, deprived men and women of basic civil rights, and eroded social safety nets meant to protect the most vulnerable Afghans. It is also seeking to transform the media, using it to promote its vision for the country and restricting content deemed un-Islamic, including music and the presence of women.

  • ISIS Threatens to Target China, India, Iran Embassies in Afghanistan, UN Says

    Islamic State militants have threatened to target Chinese, Indian, and Iranian embassies in Afghanistan in an effort to isolate the Taliban from a handful of countries it counts as diplomatic allies. The local affiliate of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq, is attempting to “undermine the relationship between the Taliban and member states in the region,” according to United Nations report on the group’s activities. The report is expected to be discussed later Thursday at United Nations Security Council in New York.