Afghanistan’s former vice president denies claims Taliban have taken Panjshir Valley

Celebratory gunfire erupted in Kabul on Friday night as rumours circulated that the Taliban had captured the Panjshir Valley, a last holdout against the Taliban sweep.

Heavy clashes have been reported in recent days between the Taliban and the Panjshir Valley-based National Resistance Forces (NRF), headed by former vice president Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, the British-educated son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was killed in a suicide bombing two days before the 9/11 attacks in the US.

Osama bin Laden’s top aide returns to Afghanistan

A close senior aide to Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden has returned to Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan two weeks after the Taliban seized control of the country.

A video verified by the The National shows Amin ul-Haq being driven through a checkpoint in the passenger seat of a white four-wheel-drive to a rapturous welcome by supporters.

Former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar says Americans ‘do not care’ about Afghans

The calamitous scenes at Kabul’s airport, where thousands of people are scrambling to escape the Taliban before an August 31 deadline, prove the US is not concerned with the fate of ordinary Afghans, Islamist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar told The National.

With days before the US ends its 20-year presence in Afghanistan and with tens of thousands of Afghans soon to be left stranded, Mr Hekmatyer said the facts speak for themselves.

Imperiul secret al UE

”Într-o vreme a schismelor care separă Vestul UE de noii membri din Est, ambele tabere au propriile rațiuni de a păstra marele secret economic al UE, și anume faptul că Vechea UE stăpânește noile țări membre ca pe niște feude”, scrie Matthew Olex-Szczytowski, bancher, istoric și consilier al mai multor premieri polonezi, într-un articol publicat de UnHerd.

Afghanistan’s Growing Humanitarian Crisis

Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the humanitarian emergency there has become even more dire. This briefing note outlines the most pressing issues and steps to help relieve the suffering.

Dramatic scenes at the Kabul airport of Afghans desperate to leave the country, and horrific bombings there, captured the world’s attention in the weeks after the Taliban took power. The focus is now shifting to a much larger, multi-faceted humanitarian crisis throughout the country. Violence, displacement, drought and the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Afghan population with accelerating force in recent years, and the humanitarian disaster gathered pace in May as the final withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces began. Afghans teemed across borders seeking refuge after the government collapsed on 15 August.

With the Taliban Back in Kabul, Regional Powers Watch and Wait

On 15 August, the Taliban capped their drive for power in Afghanistan by taking Kabul, the country’s capital, for the first time since they ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. With the previous government’s collapse, the group is now the de facto power throughout the country and is in the process of forming a new government and revamped state system. Questions are swirling about how they will govern, such as whether they will attempt to exercise a monopoly on power or give some roles to other political forces and whether they will try to reimpose the harsh social restrictions, including on women, that they enforced in the late 1990s. As yet, there are no firm answers.

Covid-19 as Bioweapon?

The modern era is increasingly defined by a pandemic of conspiracy and misinformation. It is unsurprising that this misinformation coincides with a literal pandemic, when so little is still known about an evolving killer virus with mutating variants, and when humanity doesn’t know the full story of Covid-19’s origin. In this highly volatile environment, various narratives have emerged surrounding the pandemic, with terms like “lab leak,” “gain-of-function,” and even “bioweapon” entering the lexicon as related to Covid-19.

The Balkan Project Washington Wants to Derail

As work nears completion in the first phase of an ambitious project in Montenegro to develop a highway that will connect the Adriatic port of Bar with Serbia, Western officials and mainstream media are ramping up attacks on the endeavor. Western commentators are united in condemnation, ranging from fear-mongering over China’s role to disparaging the plan’s viability. Consistently, they dismiss it as “the highway to nowhere,” implying foolishness on the part of Montenegro and presenting it as a cautionary tale on the dangers of doing business with China. The theme fits neatly within the framework of Washington’s campaign to economically isolate and cripple China, its main competitor in the global economy.

Afghan Crisis Must End America’s Empire of War, Corruption and Poverty

Americans have been shocked by videos of thousands of Afghans risking their lives to flee the Taliban’s return to power in their country – and then by an Islamic State suicide bombing and ensuing massacre by U.S. forces that together killed at least 170 people, including 13 U.S. troops.

Even as UN agencies warn of an impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the U.S. Treasury has frozen nearly all of the Afghan Central Bank’s $9.4 billion in foreign currency reserves, depriving the new government of funds that it will desperately need in the coming months to feed its people and provide basic services.

Afghanistan: Medics respond to the overwhelming health needs

In the wake of intense fighting and the rapid transfer of power to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (also known as the Taliban), people are facing widespread instability, mass displacement, and the disruption of basic services, including health care. Despite the challenges, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams continue to provide essential medical care across all five of our projects in Afghanistan—in Herat, Helmand, Kandahar, Khost, and Kunduz provinces. Here, two medical staff members working in Lashkar Gah (Helmand province) and Khost city describe the recent changes they have witnessed, and how they have affected patients and health care providers alike.