Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence that Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.
Read moreEight Republican lawmakers attended a White House briefing Monday about explosive allegations that Russia secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan — intelligence the White House insisted the president himself had not been fully read in on.
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The White House said Monday that President Donald Trump wasn’t briefed on U.S. intelligence assessments earlier this year that Russia secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan because the information had not been “verified.”
Read moreJoe Biden attacked President Donald Trump on Saturday over a report that he said, if true, contains a “truly shocking revelation” about the commander in chief and his failure to protect U.S. troops in Afghanistan and stand up to Russia.
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The decision to sanction employees at The Hague-based court is just the United States’ latest provocative measure targeting the global
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Escalating his feud with the International Criminal Court, President Donald Trump levied economic sanctions and travel restrictions Thursday against ICC workers investigating American war crimes in Afghanistan.
Read moreThe U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan is considerably ahead of schedule, an official told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
Read moreThe Taliban said they carried out a deadly attack Thursday on an Afghan army base after the government ordered forces to resume strikes against them.
Read moreThe Taliban have dismissed a government call for a Ramadan ceasefire in Afghanistan, saying a truce is “not rational” as they ramp up attacks on government forces.
Read moreThe Taliban have killed at least 23 Afghan troops and nine civilians, officials said Monday, as a fresh wave of violence grips Afghanistan despite an alleged deal with the United States and a worsening coronavirus crisis.
Read moreSomaya Farooqi and four other teenage girls pile into her dad’s car and head to a mechanic’s workshop. They use back roads to skirt police checkpoints set up to enforce a lockdown in the city of Herat, one of Afghanistan’s hot spots of the coronavirus pandemic.
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The Afghan government said it would release another 100 Taliban inmates on Thursday, even though the insurgents have walked out of talks over a comprehensive prisoner swap and dismissed Kabul’s piecemeal freeing of captives as “unacceptable.”
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The Afghan government will release 100 Taliban prisoners on Wednesday, an official said, a day after the Taliban said they were walking out of talks with Kabul.
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Mahdi Noori, a young Afghan refugee in Iran, was left jobless when the factory where he’d worked cutting stone was shut down because of the coronavirus. He had no money, was afraid of contracting the virus and had no options. So he headed home.
Read moreA three-member Taliban technical team arrived Tuesday in the Afghan capital to monitor the release of their prisoners as part of a peace deal signed by the Taliban and the U.S., a spokesman for the insurgent group said.
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The State Department has advised against all international travel because of the coronavirus, but that didn’t stop Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from flying to Afghanistan this week.
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The Trump administration is slashing $1 billion in assistance to Afghanistan and threatening more reductions in all forms of cooperation after the country’s rival leaders failed to agree on forming a new government.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in the Afghan capital Monday amid a lengthy political crisis, a raging Taliban insurgency and rising coronavirus cases — all of which threaten an already-floundering peace process.
Read moreAt least two dozen Afghan security forces were killed Friday in an insider attack at their base in southern Afghanistan, officials said, as fighting raged in the war-weary country and efforts to start talks with the Taliban stalled.
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American forces have started pulling out of two bases in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said Tuesday, the day peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban were due to start despite widespread violence and a political crisis.
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