The daughter of an Afghan coalminer has come top in the country’s university entrance exam and is setting her sights on becoming a doctor.
Shamsia Alizada, 18, came first out of more than 170,000 students, the education ministry said, prompting congratulations from former president Hamid Karzai and foreign envoys including the US charge d’affaires.
Continue reading...Securing a ceasefire and safeguarding rights of women and minorities are key challenges
The Taliban and Afghan government negotiators launched historic peace talks on Saturday, aiming to end decades of war through a political settlement that would be unprecedented in the country’s recent history.
Negotiations will be long and complicated; there is a yawning gulf between the Taliban’s vision of an austerely Islamic state and the government’s commitment to the constitution that guarantees democracy and women’s rights, even if its implementation is mixed.
Continue reading...Negotiations to end the long civil war were agreed as part of a withdrawal deal signed by the US
The Afghan government and the Taliban will open peace talks on Saturday, trying to reach a power-sharing deal as American troops leave the country after nearly two decades.
The negotiations to try to end the long civil war were agreed as part of a withdrawal deal that the US signed with the Taliban in February, but have stalled for months over details of a promised prisoner exchange.
Continue reading...Women’s rights activist Fawzia Koofi, a member of the team negotiating a deal with the Taliban, was shot in the arm
A female member of Afghanistan’s peace negotiating team has been slightly wounded in an assassination attempt, officials say.
Fawzia Koofi, who is also a former parliamentarian, was attacked on Friday afternoon near the capital, Kabul, while returning from a visit to the northern province of Parwan.
Continue reading...With negotiations set to begin, women have been sharing their ‘red lines’ on the progress they refuse to see negotiated
Farahnaz Forotan was three when the Taliban had arrived in Kabul. It was 1996. “I have this memory of a snowy day, I was sitting on my mother’s lap, in a minibus, and she was crying. I didn’t understand why she was crying,” Forotan says. It was the day her family became refugees.
“It was the civil war, and we had to leave our home and country to live in Iran – alive, but living in pain and facing discrimination,” she says.
Continue reading...Teenager Qamar Gul and her younger brother fought a battle with an insurgent group who stormed their village
An Afghan girl shot dead three Taliban fighters after they killed her parents because they supported the government, local officials have said.
The incident happened last week when a group of 40 insurgents stormed the village of Geriveh, in central Ghor province, where 16-year-old Qamar Gul was living with her parents and brother.
Continue reading...Gen Mark Milley tells lawmakers Pentagon is investigating reports Russia paid for attacks on US soldiers in Afghanistan
America’s top general has said military intelligence agencies are working to corroborate reports of Russia paying Taliban fighters bounties for killing US soldiers and vowed a response if they were confirmed.
Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told the House armed services committee, that the Pentagon was committed to discovering whether Russian military intelligence had paid for attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...US president Donald Trump has played down allegations Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan, claiming it’s a hoax by ‘the newspapers and the Democrats’. Trump initially said he had not been told of the allegations, while the White House later claimed there was no consensus in the intelligence community over the reports’ veracity
Continue reading...Moscow accused of trying to give money to the Taliban as part of its campaign to destabilise America and its allies
The Russian intelligence unit behind the attempted murder in Salisbury of the former double agent Sergei Skripal secretly offered to pay Taliban-linked fighters to kill British and American soldiers in Afghanistan, according to US reports.
The revelation piles pressure on the UK to take robust action against the Kremlin amid continuing anger over the government’s delay in publishing a key report on Russian attempts to destabilise the UK.
Continue reading...Fierce response from top Democrats after US intelligence finding was reportedly briefed to Trump in March, but the White House has yet to act
Outrage has greeted media reports that say American intelligence officials believe a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, including targeting Americans.
The story first appeared in the New York Times, citing its sources as unnamed officials briefed on the matter, and followed up by the Washington Post. The reports said that the US had come to the conclusion about the operation several months ago and offered rewards for successful attacks last year.
Continue reading...When his sister Rahila was killed by a bomber, Hamid Rafi was inspired by her diaries to set up an education centre in her name
The night before she died, Rahila Rafi felt too tired for homework; uncharacteristic for the studious 17-year-old. When her brother Hamid asked what was wrong, she told him she had a strange feeling in her heart and couldn’t bring herself to look at her books.
Hamid kissed his sister’s forehead and asked her what she wanted to do after she passed the Kankor exam – Afghanistan’s standard university admissions test.
Continue reading...Nineteen-year-old Soraya Ameri had just given birth when gunmen stormed the ward. She recounts her escape – and the desperate search for her daughter
Soraya Ameri’s premature baby daughter had been whisked off to an incubator and the new mother was lying down, exhausted and sore from her stitches, when the shooting started.
Gunmen – dressed in police uniforms – had stormed the maternity ward of a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, where Ameri had just given birth. She was bundled into a safe room with others, one woman next to her in labour, but her baby was outside.
Continue reading...Attack still unclaimed, but US defies Afghan government, blames Isis and says negotiations with Taliban must continue
Gunmen who attacked a maternity hospital in Kabul came “with the purpose of killing mothers in cold blood”, systematically shooting every woman in labour and new mothers they came across, the charity Médecins Sans Frontières has said.
The attack on Tuesday morning, aimed at the youngest of children and most vulnerable of women, shocked even a country that has endured decades of bloodshed and tens of thousands of civilian deaths.
Continue reading...Peace process between the government and Taliban was crumbling before talks began
In the wake of a devastating attack in Kabul on Tuesday on a maternity unit that saw gunmen shoot women in labour, new mothers and their newborn babies, hopes of a peace process for Afghanistan appear to be slipping away as both the government and Taliban ramp up military operations.
The Taliban on Thursday attacked a city in Afghanistan’s east, killing five civilians and at least one soldier, and injuring dozens more with a truck bomb. The bomber had been targeting an army base in Gardez, but the explosives detonated before he reached it, leaving a too-familiar tangle of rubble and bodies.
Continue reading...The FBI has offered a $1m reward for the arrest and prosecution for those responsible for the kidnapping of US citizen Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle, eight years ago in Afghanistan.
The offer of a reward for their captors is the latest twist in the protracted saga of Coleman and Boyle, who were the subject of intense media scrutiny following their dramatic rescue in 2017 – and a subsequent trial over allegations of abuse by Boyle.
Continue reading...Ashraf Ghani orders resumption of anti-Taliban offensive after attacks in Kabul and Nangarhar
Gunmen attacked a hospital that houses a maternity clinic in Kabul, killing at least 16 people including two newborn babies, and a suicide bomber killed at least 24 others at a funeral on a morning of double tragedy for Afghanistan.
In the capital, soldiers raced out of the hospital carrying infants wrapped in bloodstained blankets to waiting ambulances, after the attackers rampaged their way through the wards.
Continue reading...Previously secret agreement emerges as spokesmen for US military and Taliban clash on Twitter
The US military has warned the Taliban it must curb attacks inside Afghanistan and revealed that a US troop withdrawal agreement signed in February included an informal commitment for both sides to cut violence by 80%.
The previously secret arrangement was revealed in a Twitter spat between the US military spokesman Col Sonny Leggett and his Taliban counterpart Zabihullah Mujahid. It comes after a sharp escalation in militant attacks since the agreement was sealed.
Continue reading...The militant group’s refusal represents a setback for US-brokered peace talks
The Taliban refused to begin talks with the Afghan government’s new negotiating team on Saturday, in a setback to the US-brokered peace process for one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
Related: US to cut $1bn of Afghanistan aid over failure to agree unity government
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo suggests funding could be restored if President Ashraf Ghani and political rival Abdullah Abdullah reach deal
The US has said it will cut its aid to Afghanistan by $1bn, blaming the failure of President Ashraf Ghani and his main political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, to agree on a unity government for talks with the Taliban.
A further $1bn could be cut in 2021, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said after a surprise visit to Kabul on Monday failed to persuade the two men to make a deal. Pompeo suggested the aid could be restored if they changed their minds.
Continue reading...Assault highlights insecurity in Afghan capital in run-up to scheduled US withdrawal
Gunmen opened fire on Friday at a ceremony in Afghanistan’s capital attended by prominent political leaders, killing at least 32 people and wounding dozens more before the two attackers were killed by police, officials said.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its website.
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