US Troop Draw Down in Afghanistan by 2021

GOP senators unveil bill designating Taliban as terrorist organization

A group of GOP senators unveiled a bill Wednesday that would direct the State Department to officially list the Taliban as a terrorist organization, ramping up their pressure on the Biden administration to take action against the militant group following its takeover of Afghanistan last month...

The legislation would call on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “designate the illegitimate Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as a state sponsor of terrorism and the Taliban as a terrorist organization,” according to a press release from Rubio’s office.

The bill also calls for sanctions on foreign actors who “knowingly provide assistance to the Taliban” and would mandate a report “that determines whether the Taliban should be designated as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker under the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act”...

Qatar flight with Afghans, Americans, Europeans leaves Kabul, official says

A fourth chartered flight carrying civilians from Afghanistan to Qatar since U.S. forces withdrew last month left Kabul on Sunday with more than 230 passengers, including Afghans, Americans and Europeans, a Qatari official said.

The Qatar Airways operated flight was also carrying citizens from Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Canada, France, Italy, Britain, Finland and the Netherlands, Qatari assistant foreign minister Lolwah Rashid Al Khater wrote on Twitter...

Islamic State claims attacks against Taliban in Jalalabad

Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) on Sunday claimed weekend attacks against the Taliban in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, in two statements carried by IS's propaganda arm Amaq.

The group claimed "three separate bomb attacks" targeting three "Taliban vehicles" in Jalalabad on Saturday, and another "bomb attack" Sunday on "a Taliban vehicle"...

WHAT LOSING LOOKS LIKE: AFGHANISTAN’S ‘HARDEST PLACE’

Afghanistan’s hoary reputation as “the graveyard of empires” is ill-deserved. Foreign invaders have generally withdrawn from the country — under varying levels of duress — because they simply decided an Afghan ulcer was no longer tolerable. Even the British Empire, its first military expedition annihilated almost to a man, returned in force in 1878 and 1919. Defeat, even disaster, in Afghanistan has not consistently augured an end to empires.

To the hundreds of thousands of U.S. servicemembers who fought in rural Afghanistan, the place could feel timeless and almost untouched by these waves of outsiders. The mud brick or stone villages felt like a trip back to the 13th century, with only motorbikes, automatic rifles, and cell phones intruding. Fortresses and other military detritus seemed to be the only lingering evidence of armed tourists from Alexander to the Americans. Hesco and plywood patrol bases, many initially handed over to Afghan security forces and now all in Taliban hands, are just the latest Ozymandian testimony to imperial hubris.

A decade ago, journalist Wesley Morgan began the first of several embeds with U.S. Army units in northeastern Afghanistan’s Pech Valley, which winds through the provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Like the soldiers he covered, Morgan was drawn to the hyper-violent valley with a “strange, edge of the map feeling to it.” Those Hesco outposts, in particular, fascinated him. Who had originally built them and why were they there? The soldiers didn’t know. To them, rural Afghanistan had a different sort of timelessness: getting through one nasty Groundhog Day after another, until it was time to go home. After watching what he quickly realized was a bloody stalemate, Morgan set out to find out how the U.S. Army had become mired in this intractable fight in the back of beyond...

Islamic State Attacks in Eastern Afghanistan Challenge Taliban Rule

KABUL—A spate of attacks killed at least five people in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on Wednesday, the latest outbreak of violence in an area where Islamic State’s regional affiliate is mounting a challenge to the Taliban’s control of the country.

Militants carried out at least two bombings and a gun attack Wednesday in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital. In the shooting attack, at least two Taliban fighters and a civilian were killed, according to local residents. Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISKP, claimed responsibility for the attacks...

How deep are divisions among the Taliban?

There have been reports of divisions among the Taliban leadership, raising questions about the unity within the group which took over the country last month...

A writer and reporter who has spent several years covering the Taliban said the divisions are the result of a political-military divide. The hardliners, he said, “feel that they are owed things for 20 years of fighting”...

Currently, the Taliban, said the sources, is made up of fighters still awaiting the spoils of war versus politicians who want to assuage the fears of the Afghan people and the international community...

Another point of contention for the two factions is the role of regional neighbours – Pakistan and Iran – which have long been accused of supporting the Taliban during its 20-year armed rebellion...