South East Asia

U.S. forces helping evacuate Afghans desperate to flee Taliban rule were on alert for more attacks on Friday after an Islamic State suicide bombing outside Kabul airport killed at least 92 people, including 13 U.S. service members.

The White House said the next few days of an ongoing U.S. evacuation operation that the Pentagon said has taken about 111,000 people out of Afghanistan in the past two weeks are likely to be the most dangerous.

After taking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have pledged to be a responsible member of the international community that doesn’t pose a threat to any country’s security.

Two days before he was shot dead by the Taliban, Abu Omar Khorasani, a onetime leader of Islamic State in Afghanistan, sat slumped in a dingy Afghan prison interview room, waiting for his soon-to-be executioners.

The number of U.S. service members killed in a series of attacks outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday is now 13, with another 18 wounded, according to a spokesman for U.S. Central Command.

The casualty toll increased after the head of CENTCOM held a Pentagon briefing Thursday afternoon, said Navy Capt. Bill Urban. During that event, CENTCOM commander Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie reported that there were 12 troops killed and 15 troops wounded. Urban did not specify the service branch of the latest fatality in his statement.

Yesterday morning, a report emerged from The Washington Post that CIA Director William Burns met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul. This meeting reportedly happened on Monday, August 23. The Post article lists the source for this information as “U.S officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.”

Yes, I would think this definitely qualifies as “sensitive” in nature. Everything about this situation in Afghanistan is sensitive. And a bit insane.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan last week, 20 years after it was removed from power in a US-led military invasion.

Winning that war might just turn out to be the easy part, as maintaining peace and governing the conflict-wracked and impoverished country will be a tough nut to crack, analysts and Afghan officials say.

On Sunday, the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan after a few weeks of stunning military victories.

The armed group had been toppled in a US-led invasion in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on US soil, but it gradually regained strength, carrying out numerous attacks on foreign as well as Afghan forces in the past 20 years.

The Taliban, which means “students” in the Pashto language, is trying to project a more moderate image this time around, but observers in Afghanistan and internationally remain sceptical. On Tuesday, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised to protect women’s rights and press freedom in the first news conference since the takeover.
The beginning

Hashmat Ghani, whose brother – former President Ashraf Ghani – fled the country last week, tells Al Jazeera that it is necessary to accept the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan to avoid instability.

Hashmat Ghani, brother of Afghanistan’s deposed President Ashraf Ghani, says he has accepted the Taliban’s takeover of the country but has called for the formation of an inclusive government.

A NUMBER OF OBSCURE figures, largely unknown to Western observers, have been appointed to senior security and intelligence positions by the Taliban, just days after their return to power in Afghanistan. Some of the names of senior officials have been made public by news agencies in the Middle East. Others were publicized on Tuesday by Pajhwok Afghan News, an independent news agency that publishes reports in Dari, Pashto and English.

For years the Taliban’s top spokesman shunned the public eye, even as he amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online where he live-tweeted the insurgency.

But days after the Taliban captured Kabul following the collapse of the US-backed government, Zabihullah Mujahid presented himself to the public for the first time in a surprise press conference in the Afghan capital.