On August 15, Taliban militants entered the outskirts of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. It was the worst thing that could have happened to former Afghan employees of foreign institutions, women and civil rights defenders, religious and ethnic minorities, local journalists and even ordinary...
The collapse of the Western-backed government in Afghanistan has come as a shock. It has shaken confidence in democratic countries and changed the balance of power somewhat between the United States and China. It shows that efforts from the outside to topple regimes and replace them with...
Ten provincial capitals in Afghanistan have fallen to the Taliban in just a week, while fighting continues in four more. US military officials now believe that Kabul, the Afghan capital, could fall in one to three months. It is horrific to watch the death, destruction and mass...
Afghanistan is at a critical stage in its decades-long conflict. A combination of factors has led to a deterioration of the country’s security. These include political corruption, dysfunctional institutions, patron-clientelism and social instability. Violence has intensified in recent years,...
Having harbored al-Qaeda militants, the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 was toppled by the US following the 9/11 attacks in the US. In 2003, the Taliban reorganized and began their insurgency against the Afghan government and NATO forces. Since then, despite national and...
The intra-Afghan conference held in Qatar on July 7-8 is the latest development in the ongoing peace talks convened since January, which have been led by the US special envoy for reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad. Yet it remains unclear what the Taliban's post-peace settlement vision, policies,...
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Shukria Dellawar, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. Afghanistan has experienced difficult days in its modern history. From 1996 to 2001, it was ruled by the totalitarian Taliban regime. The Taliban are a...
As the US seeks an urgent withdrawal, there will not be durable peace in Afghanistan, nor a dignified exit for America. John Bolton, the current US national security adviser, once wrote: “ Obama is pursuing ideological, not geopolitical, objectives.” If it was true about President...
