Afghanistan

A U.S. official says U.S. forces have begun leaving Afghanistan under the first phase of an initial troop withdrawal required under the newly signed U.S.-Taliban peace agreement.

An investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and others in the Afghan conflict can go ahead, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled. The ICC overturned on appeal a previous decision to block the investigation.

Afghanistan's government and the Taliban are deadlocked on a prisoner swap ahead of peace talks, but the US will start pulling out troops anyway.

On Saturday the United Nations called for further reductions in violence in Afghanistan, and for the conditions for intra-Afghan peace talks to be met, following the announcement of an agreement between the United States and the Taliban.

The United States voiced optimism Tuesday (25 February) about reaching an accord to end the war in Afghanistan as a partial truce held with the Taliban, warning rival leaders in the Kabul government not to scuttle the “enormous opportunity.” The United States plans to sign an agreement with the Taliban on Saturday in Qatar if the week-long truce holds.

The United Nations reported Saturday the conflict in Afghanistan killed more than 3,400 civilians and injured nearly 7,000 others in 2019. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) blamed the Taliban, Islamic State and other militant groups for causing 49% of the deaths, saying pro-government forces, including the U.S.-led coalition, were responsible for 43% deaths.

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.