KABUL: The Gulbadin Hekmatyar-led Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) has claimed the Afghan government had assured them that the peace deal would be finalised this time. A statement issued by the HIA’s political wing said peace talks with the Afghan government had been finalised, the draft agreement was also final and ready for signature but it had to be delayed for some ...

Twenty-year-old Kimia Yousufi fled to Iran as a child. At the glittering Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, did you see the flag-bearer of the Afghanistan team, the only female member of their contingent, 20-year-old Kimia Yousufi? Yousufi, who will be competing in the track-and-field events, fled her home country Afghanistan and went to Iran ...

KABUL: President Ashraf Ghani’s Special Envoy and Ambassador to Pakistan Dr. Omar Zakhelwal on Saturday said the repatriation of Afghan refugees had political, economic and security advantages for Afghanistan. During an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, he said tension between Kabul and Islamabad could not be reduced until the later brought changes to its policy toward the war-devastated country.. He claimed ...

ISLAMABAD: The military’s spokesperson on Saturday rebuffed the claims that Army Chief General Raheel Sharif’s son-in-law is among the seven crew members taken hostage by Taliban militants after a Punjab government’s Mi-17 crash-landed in Afghanistan’s Logar province. A section of local and regional press has been carrying news items, reportedly saying that a son-in-law of Gen Raheel is among the ...

WASHINGTON: A day after deducting $300 million from military aid to Pakistan over action against the Afghan Haqqani network, the United States urged Islamabad on Friday to target all militant groups. At a news briefing at the State Department, deputy spokesperson Mark Toner also encouraged closer cooperation between Pakistan and India in the fight against terrorists. “We’ve been very clear ...

The opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games took place in Brazil’s iconic Macarana stadium on August 5th as thousands of athletes from across the globe including the Afghan athletes making their entrance in the colourful and pulsating ceremony. IOC President Thomas Bach in his opening address said ““This is the moment of the cidade maravilhosa.” He said “The first-ever ...

KABUL: At least five policemen lost their lives in an explosion in the outskirts of Kabul province late on Friday, local officials in Logar province said Saturday. Provincial governor’s spokesman Salim Saleh said a commander of the Public Order Police Forces lost his life along with 4 policemen in Khak Jabar district. He said Gen. Abdul Satar Hashemi was killed ...

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh, a day after a terse war of words with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar at the South Asian Association for Regional Coop­eration (Saarc) Interior Minis­ters’ meeting in Islamabad on Thursday, apprised the Indian parliament of his visit. “All of our prime ministers have done their best to improve relations with our neighbours, but this neighbour never ...

KABUL: The Pakistani authorities have confirmed a helicopter belonging to the Punjab government has crash-landed in Afghanistan. A spokesman for the Inter Services Public Relations, media wing of the Pakistani military, Gen. Asim Bajwa said the country’s Chief of Army Staff has asked the commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission to help in recovery of the crew. He said ...

ISLAMABAD: The interior ministers of both Pakistan and India made critical remarks apparently aimed at each other’s governments on the second day of a Saarc conference here on Thursday, as tensions between the two neighbouring countries run high in the aftermath of weeks-long violence in India-held Kashmir. In his address to the Saarc interior ministers’ conference, India’s home minister made ...