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A subsidiary of a Chinese state-run energy firm signed a deal Thursday to extract oil in the Taliban-run Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas, a subsidiary of the state-run Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, will invest up to $150 million annually, which will increase to $540 million in three years, to pump oil in the Amu River Oil Basin, according to a statement released by the Taliban government. The contract, which represents the Taliban administration’s first international energy deal, was signed in the presence of the Taliban’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar...

Islamabad apparently bought peace with the TLP. As in its frequent mobilisations over the last few years, the TLP has once again forced the Pakistani state onto the backfoot and enhanced its own political clout. A relatively new phenomenon, the TLP, was founded in 2015 by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a firebrand cleric who died in November 2020. It now has a strong following among Pakistan’s Barelvi sect. At the heart of TLP’s ideology is the protection of the Prophet’s honour and a vigorous defence of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. In Pakistan, anyone deemed to have insulted Islam or the Prophet...

Three guests were shot dead at a wedding reception in eastern Afghanistan on Friday night, apparently because music was being played, according to the Taliban. The attack was carried out by three assailants who claimed to be members of the Taliban before opening fire, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters at a press conference Sunday. Mujahid said the gunmen attacked a reception taking place in the Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar Province. A local journalist also told CNN at least two people had been killed and 10 others injured. The Taliban spokesman added that it was not permissible to kill...

In the end, the Saigon moment happened faster than any Western intel “expert” expected. This is one for the annals: four frantic days that wrapped up the most astonishing guerrilla blitzkrieg of recent times. Afghan-style: lots of persuasion, lots of tribal deals, zero columns of tanks, minimal loss of blood. August 12 set the scene, with the nearly simultaneous capture of Ghazni, Kandahar and Herat. On August 13, the Taliban were only 50 kilometers from Kabul. August 14 started with the siege of Maidan Shahr, the gateway to Kabul. Ismail Khan, the legendary elder Lion of Herat, struck a self-preservation...

KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban officials said U.S. negotiators on Saturday agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, potentially ending the United States’ longest war. The details of the draft were given to Reuters by Taliban sources …{snip} U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday wrote on Twitter that he had received “encouraging news” from Khalilzad about the talks. “The U.S. is serious about pursuing peace, preventing #Afghanistan from continuing to be a space for international terrorism & bringing forces home,” Pompeo tweeted. He did not give a...

As the Obama administration tries to salvage its Taliban talks initiative, the group continues to boast of—and exaggerate—the battlefield exploits of the “Islamic emirate’s” holy warriors as they face “the invading terrorist forces” of the U.S.-led coalition and their Afghan “puppets.” Talks between U.S. and Taliban officials, initially scheduled to have begun in Doha on Thursday, were delayed after Afghan President Hamid Karzai reacted angrily to the way the Taliban presented itself at the opening of its office in the Qatari capital earlier this week. Karzai was unhappy that the Taliban declared the office to represent the “Islamic Emirate Of...

SNIPPET: "Praise Allah and cross-reference with AQ-USA, Revolution Muslim, Samir Khan, etc."