Death of son of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was reported but not confirmed in July
Donald Trump confirmed on Saturday that the US has killed Hamza bin Laden, a son of the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Related: Hamza bin Laden: the end of a dynasty, but not al-Qaida
Continue reading...Trump’s anti-interventionist instincts likely to come to the fore in flashpoint countries
Donald Trump’s abrupt dismissal of John Bolton, his national security adviser, may reflect the near breakdown in personal relations between the two men, as well as Bolton’s rivalry with the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, but it will also have implications for US foreign policy in a range of flashpoints.
Related: John Bolton fired as Trump's national security adviser – live news
Continue reading...Joshua Boyle, charged with sexual assault, tells court estranged wife Caitlan Coleman was unfit to parent the their four children
The Canadian man who spent five years held hostage in Afghanistan with his American wife has accused her of “incompetence” as a mother as his trial for sexual assault nears its conclusion.
Related: Canadian man held hostage by Taliban denies assaulting wife after release
Continue reading...President’s snakes-and ladders approach to diplomacy raises eyebrows in Kabul and Washington
Donald Trump’s boundless faith in his own magnetism and negotiating skills has taken a knock after the cancellation of his bizarre plans for talks with Taliban chiefs. Most Afghans, including the president, Ashraf Ghani, can live with that. Since they believe Trump was selling them out, they will be glad the talks bombed.
The fact that Trump secretly planned a personal meeting with a murderous group proscribed by the US as terrorists days before the 18th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks that they assisted, is said to have raised eyebrows in Washington. That’s diplomat-speak for shock-horror.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s shock announcement that he had canceled secret peace talks with the Taliban this weekend has prompted criticism and confusion, including from his own Republican party.
The Democratic presidential 2020 hopeful and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar ridiculed the president on Sunday morning, saying he approaches foreign policy like “some kind of gameshow”.
Continue reading...President tweets that he called off planned Camp David meeting after Kabul attack killed US soldier
Donald Trump says he has cancelled secret peace talks on Afghanistan scheduled for Sunday that would have brought him face to face with Taliban leaders at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the hills of Maryland state – with the Islamist militant group warning on Sunday that the snub meant more American lives would be lost.
The US president made the remarkable claim in a series of tweets on Saturday evening declaring he had “called off” the negotiations after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a blast in Kabul that killed 12 people including a US soldier on Thursday.
Continue reading...Trial testimony wraps up in case of Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman, who married in 2011 and were kidnapped in Afghanistan
A Canadian man once held hostage with his American wife in Afghanistan denied assaulting her following their release, in trial testimony that wrapped up on Thursday.
Joshua Boyle, 35, was arrested and charged with assault, sexual assault and forcible confinement at the end of 2017 just two months after he and his wife Caitlan Coleman, 33, returned to Canada after their five-year hostage ordeal.
Continue reading...The majority of America’s ambassadors to Afghanistan since the removal of the Taliban government have condemned the US approach to negotiating a troop withdrawal, warning it risked a return to “total civil war”.
Writing the day after a draft agreement was announced, the nine men, including a former deputy secretary of state, said they supported peace talks in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy for peace in Afghanistan, says agreement would reduce violence and allow ‘intra-Afghan’ talks
US and Taliban negotiators are close to an agreement that would reduce fighting and allow full peace talks among Afghans, a top US official said on Sunday, a day after insurgent forces stormed the strategic northern city of Kunduz.
But only hours after Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born US diplomat overseeing negotiations for Washington, spoke the Taliban attacked a second Afghan city, Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, an official said.
Continue reading...Assault comes as US continues to seek agreement with insurgent group on ending what is America’s longest war
The Taliban have launched a new attack on one of Afghanistan’s largest cities, Kunduz, the government said on Saturday, even as the insurgent group continued negotiations with the US on ending America’s longest war.
The militants, who have demanded that all foreign forces leave the country, now control or hold sway over roughly half of the country and are at their strongest since their 2001 defeat by a US-led invasion.
Continue reading...Amnesty says activists have been attacked and killed with impunity, with their plight ‘largely ignored’ at home and abroad
Human rights defenders in Afghanistan are suffering relentless attacks, intimidation and harassment amid escalating violence, Amnesty International has warned.
In a damning report castigating both the government and armed groups including the Taliban and Islamic State, Amnesty said activists and members of civil society organisations have been shot at and killed in attacks that remain uninvestigated by the authorities.
Continue reading...US-Taliban agreement will not be successful without involvement of government and citizens, say Afghan women’s rights groups
Afghanistan could “return to chaos” with the wrong peace deal, say women’s rights groups in the country. A poorly negotiated agreement without proper representation of Afghan citizens and a clear counterterrorism strategy would place the democratic gains of the past 18 years at risk, says Suraya Pakzad, founder of the Voice of Women Organisation.
Talks between the US and the Taliban are running alongside campaigning for twice-postponed presidential elections, now due to take place on 28 September.
Continue reading...As the US and Taliban negotiate peace, Isis sees a chance to sow fresh chaos in Afghanistan
Even by the bloody standards of Afghanistan, it was a brutal attack: a suicide bomber at a wedding celebration, detonating his device as children danced and the happy couple completed their marriage rituals. In an instant more than 60 of the 1,000 guests were dead, hundreds injured.
Few events are so joyous and optimistic as a wedding. So why would a terrorist group – even one as brutal as Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility – want to attack one?
Continue reading...Explosion in packed Kabul venue comes as Donald Trump talks up prospects of peace deal with Taliban
An explosion ripped through a wedding hall on a busy Saturday night in Afghanistan’s capital, leaving more than 60 people dead and more than 180 injured, a the interior ministry has said. More than 1,000 people were believed to be inside.
Women and children were among the casualties, the interior ministry spokesman, Nasrat Rahimi, said on Sunday.
Continue reading...In a war that has been raging for decades, a third of the casualties are children. Last year, the UN recorded 927 child deaths and 2,135 injuries. In the first half of this year, 327 children were killed and 880 wounded.
Children across the country continue to live on the frontlines – and sometimes get caught in the middle of it all. Here, they share their experiences
Car explodes by police station as violence continues despite looming US-Taliban pact
A car bomb exploded on Wednesday outside a police station in the Afghan capital, Kabul, wounding at least 95 people, government officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for what it said was a suicide attack.
There has been no let-up in violence in Afghanistan, despite the Taliban and the US appearing to be close to reaching a historic pact for American troops to withdraw, in exchange for a Taliban pledge the country would not be used as a base from which to plot terrorist attacks.
Continue reading...Stolen artefacts likely removed by Taliban will go on display before being sent to Kabul
Fourth-century Buddhist terracotta heads probably hacked off by the Taliban and found stuffed in poorly made wooden crates at Heathrow are to be returned to Afghanistan where they will be star museum exhibits.
The British Museum gave details on Monday of one of the most significant repatriation cases it has dealt with relating to the illegal looting of artefacts from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Continue reading...Construction of a fence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, one of the world’s most dangerous crossings, is splintering families while failing to halt the flow of smugglers and terrorists
Keramat used to visit her sons all the time, crossing the border between her home in Afghanistan’s Kunar province into Pakistan, where they live and work.
But a fence built to mark a border between the two countries, which has not been recognised by the Afghan government, has made the 55-year-old’s journey much longer, and more bureaucratic.
Continue reading...The trial of Joshua Boyle, the former hostage of a Taliban-linked group in Afghanistan who was accused of violence against his wife, has resumed after the court ruled it would hear testimony about the couple’s sexual history.
Boyle was arrested at the couple’s former Ottawa apartment on New Year’s Eve 2017, just two months after he and Caitlan Coleman were released from five years of Taliban captivity.
Continue reading...Sick and elderly Afghans queue outdoors for several nights for their chance to get into Pakistan for medical care
Surrounded by barbed wire and without shelter from rain or dust, outside Pakistan’s embassy, hundreds of sick Afghans pass days and nights waiting for their visa appointment.
Abdul Ajan is first in the queue for when the embassy opens the next morning, squeezed into a space that smells of urine and is littered with rubbish and stale bread.
Continue reading...