Islamic State (ISIS-K/Daesh) has claimed responsibility for a series of bomb blasts in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, the group’s Amaaq News Agency said on its Telegram channel on Sunday.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s head of intelligence directorate in Nangarhar said on Monday that 40 people have been arrested in connection with explosions that rocked Jalalabad city on Saturday and Sunday.
The Taliban’s record in recent weeks on making good on promises to respect human and women’s rights as well as uphold freedom of the press is mixed at best. Afghanistan’s neighbours and near-neighbours are not holding their breath even if some are willing to give the Central Asian country’s new rulers the benefit of the doubt.
A litmus test of Taliban willingness to compromise may come sooner than later.
India’s foreign policy is at a crossroads in Afghanistan, where past policy decisions are producing strategic, moral, and political consequences. To a large extent, India made a mistake, as many Western powers did: it put its faith and confidence in the Ashraf Ghani government, while rivals such as China and Pakistan made overtures toward the Taliban, and are now certain to advance their interests and influence over the country.
Le déploiement d’un millier de mercenaires russes est évoqué. Paris s’emploie à faire échouer la signature.
Selon nos sources, depuis début septembre, un contrat est prêt à être signé entre l’État malien – représenté par le président de la transition, Assimi Goïta, et son ministre de la Défense, Sadio Camara – et une société militaire privée liée au groupe russe Wagner. Le document prévoit le déploiement de mercenaires dans le pays, en liaison avec l’armée malienne, et la protection de hautes personnalités.
For much of the Syrian civil war, the southern city of Deraa and the surrounding Houran Plains, an agricultural region near the Jordanian border, were divided between government forces and armed rebels. Fighting raged back and forth, killing thousands. It was not until Russia backed a government offensive in 2018 that the situation changed in earnest. That year, Moscow brokered a series of agreements with rebel factions that brought the area back under loose government control.
This guidance paper aims to advise VASPs on best-practice compliance when dealing with proliferation financing risk, and directs compliance officers towards relevant publications that may assist in their work.
This Emerging Insights paper analyses Moscow’s ambitions for its ‘pivot to the East’, assesses its progress and evaluates the impact of the Indo-Pacific concept on Russian strategy.
Russia’s ‘turn to the East’ (povorot na vostok) has been underway for around a decade. Before 2014, the ‘Pivot’ was principally concerned with exploiting the rapid economic growth in Asia. But events in 2014 gave it a more explicit geopolitical rationale. As relations with the Euro-Atlantic community deteriorated following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in southeastern Ukraine, Moscow’s need to diversify its foreign relations became urgent. The Pivot was suddenly as much away from the West as it was towards the Asia-Pacific. The Russian leadership emphasised the importance of using the Pivot to both improve Russia’s geopolitical position and stimulate the development of Russia’s Far East (RFE) and other resource-rich regions, such as Siberia and the Arctic.
Russia’s cautious accommodation of the Taliban shows it will likely combine diplomacy with deterrence in the coming months.
Since Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul on 15 August, Russia has cautiously accommodated the Taliban’s seizure of power. Diplomats, such as Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov and President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, have praised the Taliban’s contributions to security in Kabul and the struggle against Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). While Russia has no immediate plans to afford diplomatic recognition to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Putin recently stated that Moscow will engage with the Taliban as soon as it ‘enters the family of civilized people’.
With Russia increasing its efforts to divert the transit of natural gas via the new TurkStream corridor, the Black Sea’s littoral states must take coordinated action to reduce energy supply risks.
Ukraine’s Crimea Platform, an international platform launched last month to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the country’s independence, is designed to return international attention to Russia’s unlawful seizing of the peninsula in 2014 and the human rights abuses perpetrated by the occupying authorities.