Taliban

According to a media report, the Pakistani embassy based in Kabul has denied the reports about meeting of the ISI chief with Afghan Jihadi leaders- Atta Muhammad Noor, Abdul Rashid Dustom, and Muhammad Muhaqiq- in Turkey. Dubbing the news as "fake", the embassy has said that "no Pakistani official has met with Afghan Jihadi leaders in Turkey".

The CTC open briefing started with remarks from Ambassador T S Tirumurti, the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations who is also the chief of the Counter-Terrorism Committee. It was attended by officials from the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), INTERPOL, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and representatives from the Member States of South and South-East Asia.

Karzai said that the international community should return the money to the Afghan people."We are cooperative with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan when it comes to the release of Afghanistan's assets but the money should be reserved in Afghan Central Bank when it is unfrozen. This reserve belongs solely to the Afghan people not to any government," said Karzai.

"The recent decision of US President Joe Biden on the handling of the foreign exchange reserve of Afghanistan is a hasty, unfair revenge, which demonstrates the US extreme darkened morality," Samangani was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. Following the pullout of its troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, the US has frozen nearly 10 billion US dollars worth of assets of Afghanistan's central bank, which worsened the economic crisis and poverty in the war-torn Asian country.

On February 1, New Delhi quietly allocated Indian rupee equivalent to about $27 million for assistance to Afghanistan in its 2022-23 fiscal Budget. According to the budgetary line item, the amount will be disbursed to pay for existing Indian projects in the country, scholarships for Afghan students and aid for the Afghan people, the report said.

While the Taliban leaders are formulating the new education policy, their daughters have been enjoying studying in Qatar and Pakistan. In a shocking revelation, a report by the Afghan Analysts Network (AAN) exposes how the Taliban elites are sending their daughters to overseas schools despite the regime not allowing many female secondary students in classrooms in Afghanistan.

Gen. Michael Michael Erik Kurilla, the nominee to head the US Central Command (CENTCOM), made the remarks while addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee, TOLO News reported. "One of the challenges is the threat to the homeland from Al Qaeda and IS-K (Khorasan). They are reconstituting. The Taliban has not renounced Al Qaeda. IS-K, with the release of the prisoners both from the Bagram prison and Pul-e-Charkhi are in a process of reconstituting," he said.

Five Pakistani soldiers were killed on Sunday at a north-western border post in Khurram district by militants inside Afghanistan in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP). After a ceasefire between the group and the Pakistani government collapsed within weeks, the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said Islamabad had told the Afghan Taliban leadership it considered TTP as a test case of its ability to control militants, the report said.

In a statement on Monday, the Taliban's Foreign Ministry said: "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly rejects the recent report by the UNSC Monitoring Team asserting an increase of foreign groups in Afghanistan. The Islamic Emirate deems such reports lacking evidence, documents and addresses neither in the interest of Afghanistan, the region or the world."

"Terrorists from inside Afghanistan across the international border, opened fire on Pakistani troops in Kurram District. Pakistani troops responded in a "befitting" manner causing heavy causalities to terrorists, however, as a result of the exchange of fire, five Pakistani soldiers were martyred," read a statement issued by the Pakistani army's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Sunday.