Afghanistan

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Sunday rejected Western allegations they were carrying out targeted killings of security officials linked to the ousted U.S.-backed government in Kabul, saying the Islamist group was fully committed to enforcing a general amnesty across the country.

Several European countries are considering opening a joint diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, French President Emmanuel Macron has said. A number of issues had to be resolved - particularly security - for ambassadors to return, Mr Macron said, but he hoped a mission would open soon. This would not amount to a political recognition of the Taliban, he said.

More than 100 former Afghan security forces have been killed by the Taliban or have disappeared since the militants seized control, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

The United States will resume talks with the Taliban next week in Qatar, addressing among other issues the fight against terrorism and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Humanitarian workers are racing against time to deliver aid as winter looms in Afghanistan, UN officials told DW. The situation on the ground is already desperate and "looks like it's going to get worse."

[…] Deborah Lyons said an estimated 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 38 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger in a food emergency that will likely worsen over the winter.

In a 17 November 2021 hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director Laurel Miller outlined five lessons learned from twenty years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and suggested some steps Washington can take in reformulating its Afghanistan policy.

Despite a crisis of trust both within the country and abroad, three months after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, it is taking halting steps to pursue international legitimacy, a senior UN official in Kabul told the Security Council on Wednesday.

The Taliban have launched a crackdown on suspected Islamic State hideouts in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday, following an increase in bloody attacks by the group in recent weeks.

A Pakistani official says the ‘troika plus’ meeting aims to find ways to avert a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.