Afghanistan

Though (Ashraf) Ghani was finally declared the winner of the September 28 vote, main challenger Abdullah Abdullah, the country's chief executive officer, has rejected the result, declared himself the winner, and vowed to form his own government … Ghani's vice president, the powerful former warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, called on his supporters on February 19 to take to the streets to celebrate what he described as a victory for Abdullah.

The agreement for a seven-day "reduction in violence" announced this week after long negotiations between Washington and the jihadists has raised hopes that a comprehensive peace deal could follow. But it is still not clear when the period will begin and Ghani said that the Taliban's sincerity in entering the agreement was unproven.

A report titled "The human cost of reconstruction" by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) — a US government watchdog created to monitor how funds are used in the country — showed that 5,135 people were killed or injured in a period lasting from 2002 to 2018.

With the Syrian war ebbing, several thousand Fatemiyoun fighters (comprised mainly of Afghans from the country's Shi'ite Hazara minority) have returned to their homeland, prompting fears that Iran could mobilize the proxy group to target U.S. interests in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban’s turbulent negotiations with the United States on a peace deal have ground to a halt over differences on how to reduce insurgent violence. The latest standoff in the peace process, being hosted by Qatar, comes amid a sharp increase in Taliban attacks on U.S.-backed Afghan government forces over the past week despite a very harsh winter.

The number of attacks, detailed in a quarterly inspector general report, highlights once more the disparity between talking points and the reality on the ground.

US forces in Afghanistan dropped a record number of bombs last year, more than at any other time in at least 10 years, according to the US Air Force.

Nearly one million people were on the move in Afghanistan last year, displaced by conflict and disasters or pushed home from neighbouring countries, according to new UN figures.

A spokesman for the Taliban has told a Pakistani newspaper that the militant group is hoping to reach an Afghan peace deal with U.S negotiators by the end of January. The comments by Suhail Shaheen … come after negotiators from the Taliban and the United States met for two days of talks in Qatar.

The Taliban have given the U.S. envoy their offer for a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan that would last between seven and 10 days, Taliban officials familiar with the negotiations said Thursday.