In what has become an all too familiar scene in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters celebrated their victory and looted a district center in broad daylight, without fear of reprisal. Read more →
The Taliban has released a new statement attributed to its emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada, who says there will only be "peace" when America leaves Afghanistan. Akhundzada blasts the current Afghan government as a "corrupt regime" and portrays the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the only legitimate authority. Read more →
The Islamic State's West African province has gone on a recent spate of assaults on military bases in northeastern Nigeria. Read more →
The Taliban occupied a police station in Ghazni City and looted the facility even as Resolute Support claimed the entire city was under Afghan government control. Read more →
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a school in the Afghan capital yesterday. The so-called caliphate's jihadists regularly target Shiite civilians in its "suicide and complex attacks." Read more →
The Taliban never slowed in launching numerous attacks across the country even as it committed significant resources to the fight in Ghazni. Read more →
According to a new report published by the United Nations, al Qaeda's "alliance with the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan remains firm," as al Qaeda and the Taliban are "closely allied." Some of the UN's Member States consider al Qaeda's global network to be a bigger long-term threat than the Islamic State. Read more →
A report by the United Nations includes new details concerning the dispute between Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and al Qaeda's senior leaders, including the role played by two veteran operatives living in Iran. The UN's member states say that HTS is still in "contact" with al Qaeda's leadership despite their heated disagreements, and that al Qaeda has even reinforced HTS with "military and explosives experts" sent from Afghanistan. Read more →
Forty-three soldiers were killed and 17 more were captured in the fighting that led up to the surrender. The Taliban is routinely outmatching Afghan forces in battles in remote districts. Read more →
On Aug. 8, the State Department announced that it had increased its reward for information concerning the whereabouts of two veteran al Qaeda leaders: Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah and Saif al-Adel. Although State didn't explain the move, there is evidence that the two al Qaeda managers were operating inside Iran as of 2017. Read more →
In addition to Ajristan and Khwaja Umar, the districts of Nawur, Jaghatu, and Deh Yak have fallen to the Taliban. Meanwhile, Resolute Support has intentionally misled the the public about the status of seven of Ghazni's districts. Resolute Support claimed these districts were under government control; in reality the Taliban physically controlled the terrain while the Afghan government operated the government remotely from Ghazni City. Read more →
Al Qaeda has long operated in Ghazni province, the site of a large-scale Taliban offensive in recent days. In 2010, Osama bin Laden ordered his men to relocate from northern Pakistan into Ghazni and other Afghan provinces. Bin Laden's lieutenant also wrote in mid-2010 that al Qaeda had "very strong military activity" in at least eight Afghan provinces, including Ghazni. More recently, American and Afghan forces have targeted al Qaeda operatives in the province. Read more →
