WASHINGTON: Pakis­tan’s former US ambassador Husain Haqqani has claimed that his ‘connections’ with the Obama administration enabled the United States to target and kill Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In an article published in The Washington Post on Friday, Mr Haqqani defended the Trump team’s contacts with Russia during and after the 2016 US presidential elections and said he ...

KABUL: Reacting to the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the former President Hamid Karzai has said that the government of Pakistan has no legal authority to dictate terms on the Durand Line, a de facto border between the two states. “The government of Pakistan has no legal authority to dictate terms on the Durand Line. ...

A win-win situation: ‘UN Security Council lifts sanctions on HIA leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; Afghan officials laud the removal’ KABUL: The United Nations Security Council on Friday dropped sanctions against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the leader of Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), aimed at supporting peace drive in Afghanistan. As part of peace deal, the Afghan government requested the UN Security Council to remove HIA ...

KABUL: Former president Hamid Karzai has urged US President Donald Trump to honour his campaign promise of dismantling terrorist camps in Pakistan. Karzai confirmed receiving letters from Barack Obama in 2012, when the outgoing US leader promised degrading terror safe havens in Pakistan, particularly for the Haqqani group and Lashkar-i-Taiba. In an interview with an Indian daily, Karzai said: “Obama ...

Hamid Karzai the biggest boosters of Russian moves in Afghanistan. Russia is making fresh inroads into Afghanistan that could complicate U.S. efforts to strengthen the fragile Kabul government, stamp out the resilient Taliban insurgency and end America’s longest war. Moscow last month disclosed details of contacts with the Taliban, saying that it is sharing information and cooperating with the radical ...

KABUL: Exploring all avenues to restore peace in Afghanistan, President Ashraf Ghani talked to the godfather of Taliban, Maulana Samiul Haq, by phone and discussed ways that could help the Afghan-lead reconciliation process. Afghan Ambassador to Islamabad, Hazrat Umar Zakhilwal, called on Samiul Haq, who is the chief of his own political party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-S), in Nowshera. The Pakistani ...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen on stage during a town hall at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California September 27, 2015.— Reuters/File Facebook is stepping up efforts to head off tougher regulation by Germany, a fierce critic of the social media network operator, saying on Monday it would do more to combat fake news as its chief operating officer ...

KABUL: Scores of protesters gathered outside the Pakistan embassy in Kabul on Friday to demonstrate against Pakistan’s alleged support for insurgents. The demonstrators also raised slogans against Pakistan Army’s intelligence arm, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Afghan media reported. A number of Afghanistan Green Trend (AGT) members held a demonstration outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul in protest over Islamabad’s perceived role ...

KABUL: A report, released by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS), underlined inflexibility in stance of the warring parties difficult conditions for dialogue and lack of will as main obstacles in the Afghan peace process. The report titled “Peace negotiation assessment in Afghanistan in the past four decades” is a grounded methodology report drafted after interviewing different politicians and ...

KABUL: The former intelligence Chief Rahmatullah Nabil has said the Taliban insurgents are supported by Iran as the country aims to counter the growing Daesh emergence reach in the country. “Taliban insurgents are receiving financial and equipment support from Iran, particularly in the western parts of the country,” Nabil said in an exclusive interview with the Voice of America Television ...