Afghanistan

The Taliban has warned of more attacks targeting top Afghan government officials after an attack targeting the acting defense minister in Kabul and as insurgents continue their fight for control of cities across the country.

General Sami Sadat, who is leading the battle against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, called on people to leave its capital Lashkar Gah as soon as possible. At least 40 civilians have been killed in Lashkar Gah in the past day amid intense fighting, the UN says.

The State Department said thousands of Afghans and their immediate family members who worked for the U.S. government, a U.S.-funded project, the NATO-led military mission, or a U.S.-based media or nongovernmental organization are now eligible.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) strongly condemned an attack in its main compound in the western Afghan province of Herat on Friday that left an Afghan police guard dead and other officers injured. 

The Taliban will lose the international legitimacy they gained through their negotiations in Doha if the group does not fulfill its obligation to negotiate with the Afghan government for a political settlement to the conflict, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said Wednesday in Kabul. 

The United States will to continue to carry out airstrikes to support Afghan forces facing attack from the insurgent Taliban, a regional U.S. commander said on Sunday as U.S. and other international forces have drawn down troops in Afghanistan.

The United Nations has warned that civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan sharply increased in the first half of 2021, setting the war-ravaged country on course to witness the highest ever number of civilian casualties in a single year.

Turkey is going ahead with its plans to take over security at the Kabul international airport after the pullout of U.S. troops, despite opposition from the Taliban. Ankara is in negotiations with Washington to secure the airport, which analysts say is key to maintaining stability and an international presence in Afghanistan.

It does not take much vision to predict that the collapse of the present Afghan government is now all too likely, and that if the current Afghan central government collapses, a partisan U.S. political battle over who lost Afghanistan will follow. … There should, however, be a far more serious effort to examine the history of the war and the lessons the U.S. and its allies should learn. … It should address the fact that the losses in the war were driven as much by failures in nation building and the civil sectors as from the failures in combat.

The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan has unleashed a fresh wave of violence. Taliban forces have stepped up attacks across the country and overrun a growing number of districts. … Preventing catastrophe—a complete Taliban military victory and the reestablishment of terrorist safe havens—depends on what the United States does now.