The U.S. military wonders if a “splinter” Taliban groups is responsible for attacks that are occurring in nearly every Afghan province. Meanwhile, the Taliban is claiming the attacks in its own name.
The Taliban has launched attacks in 27 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces against Afghan security forces since it signed an agreement with the U.S. that ensures American troops withdraw from the country.
In a religious ruling, the Taliban said it “shall continue waging armed jihad” until it establishes the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with its emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, in charge.
The agreement signed by the U.S. and the Taliban made no such stipulations that the Taliban must halt attacks on Afghan forces. Yet the U.S. military is surprised that the Taliban is striking Afghan forces.
U.S. Africa Command said it killed the Shabaab commander was “in charge of planning and directing terrorist operations” along the Kenyan border, including the raid on the Manda Bay Airfield. Three Americans were killed in that attack.
Taliban fighters are training in the open in a mountainous area that should be easily identified by the U.S. and Afghan militaries.
The kidnapping took place less than three months after the Taliban and the U.S. conducted a prisoner exchange that freed three senior Haqqani Network leaders and two America professors. The Haqqani Network is thought to be behind the latest kidnapping.
The Mahmud Ghaznawi Military Camp. was previously identified by the Taliban as a training center for its “commandos.”
Deh Yak district, where the E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft is said to have crashed, is one of the 11 districts in Ghazni that are under Taliban control.
The Taliban could not be more clear about its unwillingness to share power with the Afghan government. “They shall continue to remain an insignificant party when it comes to major issues,” the group said in an official statement.
The U.S. military has suppressed a press release announcing the death of Al Qaeda In the Indian Subcontinient’s emir for three months as his presence with the difficult. Asim Umar, his courrier to Ayman al Zawahiri, his staff, and even his wife were embedded with the Taliban in Helmand province when he was killed.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for an IED attack in the southern province of Kandahar earlier today that killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded two more.
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the attack was “launched from Iran” and that it “targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military & coalition personnel at Al-Assad & Irbil.” No casualties have been reported.
Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani became “complacent” while traveling to and from Iraq, and did not believe the U.S. would target him, U.S. military officials told FDD’s Long War Journal. The military was able to reliably track his movements at times.
The Taliban has denied press reports, which it described as “false and baseless,” that it was on the cusp of declaring a ceasefire in Afghanistan.
The Taliban suicide assault takes place as the US and the Taliban have reopened negotiations that would allow the former to extricate itself from Afghanistan.
The decades of mistakes and deceit has led us to the brink of a major foreign policy failure. A peace deal will absolve the Taliban for its decades of steadfast alliance with al Qaeda.
Abdul Reza Shahlai is one of Qods Forces’ most dangerous commanders.
In exchange for two kidnapped U.S. and Australian professors, the Afghan government freed dangerous Taliban and Haqqani Network leaders Haji Malik Khan, Anas Haqqani, and Qari Abdul Rasheed Omari.
Security in the southeastern Afghan province of Zabul continues to deteriorate as the Taliban presses it offensive there.
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security claims it has confirmed that Asim Umar, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, was killed during a Sept. 23 raid in Helmand province. Other key AQIS leaders were also killed in the fighting.
In 2001, Omar was unwavering in his position that the Taliban was religiously obligated to protect Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda cadre. The Taliban has remained true to Omar’s words, and fought an 18 year long war to defend the terror group.
The Taliban continues to use rural areas it controls to threaten major population centers, including provincial capitals.
Not only does the Taliban reject democracy in Afghanistan, it is opposed to it worldwide. Given the Taliban’s clear and consistent views on the “evils” of democracy and all Muslim’s religious obligation to resit it, it is absolute folly for the State Department to attempt to appeal to the Taliban to permit elections to take place.
The US military launched its second airstrike against the Islamic state near the town of Murzuq in the past week.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has repeatedly made it absolutely clear that the aim of this Jihad is the end of occupation and establishment of an Islamic government,” the Taliban says in a recent statement.
The U.S. military killed eight Islamic State fighters yesterday in the first recorded airstrike against the group in more than one year.
The Taliban has warned civilians to stay away from places near government facilitates, including election sites, as it says these targets are fair game. However, given the scarcity of medical facilities, it is impossible for Afghan civilians to avoid hospitals such as the one in Qalat.
One of the attacks, in Parwan province, targeted an election rally while President Ghani was speaking. The Taliban has warned civilians to stay away from election sites.
A raid against a Taliban explosives warehouse in Ghazni highlights the enduring relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda.