Enabling a possibility of a peace accord to help end years of bloodshed, Pakistan and local Taliban militants have agreed for a one-month ceasefire. There are also chances that it may be extended if both sides agree. "The government of Pakistan and banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have agreed on a complete ceasefire," Pakistan's Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said in a statement.

TTP attacks have killed and wounded thousands of civilians and Pakistani service personnel over the years. However, the group was badly weakened by the Pakistan military's Zarb-e-Azb operation in 2014 which drove it from its stronghold in North Waziristan.

In the past, there have been various failed attempts to reach peace agreements.&nbsp;

The latest talks came after the Afghan Taliban took over Afghanistan in August. Since then, the two sides have been meeting across the border in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network and current interior minister of the Taliban government in Afghanistan is helped in the talks.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/pakistan-taliban-want-prisoners-released-before-ceasefire-talks-427229">Also read |&nbsp;Pakistan Taliban want prisoners released before ceasefire talks</a>

The TTP combines several jihadi and militant groups that have been fighting the government of Pakistan since 2007. It is included on the US State Department's list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Recently, the Pakistan Taliban demanded the release of a number of prisoners as a pre-condition to ceasefire talks with the Pakistani government.&nbsp;

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told Turkey's TRT television last month that the government was in talks with parts of the TTP as part of a "reconciliation process".

TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a text message the group had "never refused meaningful talks."

(With inputs from agencies)

Enabling a possibility of a peace accord to help end years of bloodshed, Pakistan and local Taliban militants have agreed for a one-month ceasefire. There are also chances that it may be extended if both sides agree.

Enabling a possibility of a peace accord to help end years of bloodshed, Pakistan and local Taliban militants have agreed for a one-month ceasefire. There are also chances that it may be extended if both sides agree. "The government of Pakistan and banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have agreed on a complete ceasefire," Pakistan's Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said in a statement. TTP attacks have killed and wounded thousands of civilians and Pakistani service personnel over the years. However, the group was badly weakened by the Pakistan military's Zarb-e-Azb operation in 2014 which drove it from its stronghold in North Waziristan. In the past, there have been various failed attempts to reach peace agreements. The latest talks came after the Afghan Taliban took over Afghanistan in August. Since then, the two sides have been meeting across the border in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network and current interior minister of the Taliban government in Afghanistan is helped in the talks. Also read | Pakistan Taliban want prisoners released before ceasefire talks The TTP combines several jihadi and militant groups that have been fighting the government of Pakistan since 2007. It is included on the US State Department's list of foreign terrorist organisations. Recently, the Pakistan Taliban demanded the release of a number of prisoners as a pre-condition to ceasefire talks with the Pakistani government. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told Turkey's TRT television last month that the government was in talks with parts of the TTP as part of a "reconciliation process". TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a text message the group had "never refused meaningful talks." (With inputs from agencies)

Pakistan and local Taliban terror group on road to peace; agree to one-month ceasefire

While the Taliban regime is trying to portray a united front, the divide within is growing day by day, the rift between the Haqqanis and the Baradars refuse to die down. Amidst this, the new rulers of Afghanistan have announced key positions at the provincial level across Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: New provincial governors unveiled, rising internal threats for Taliban?

Since the Taliban take over Afghanistan, the country's highest revenue-garnering, the pine nut industry has also taken a hit. WION's Anas Mallick gets a ground report on why exporters of the country fear selling pine nuts at cheaper rates.

Afghan exporters fear selling pine nuts at cheaper prices: WION Ground Report

The Taliban has appointed 44 of its members to key roles including provincial governors and police chiefs. It is the first large-scale round of appointments announced since the cabinet was formed in September. WION's Anas Mallick brings in more on this.

Taliban designate 44 governors, police chiefs; appointments dominated by Haqqani camp?

As Kabul was falling to the Taliban in August, the young Afghan air force pilot flew his PC-12 turboprop from Afghanistan to neighbouring Tajikistan to escape. Like other Afghan officers who fled in dozens of military aircraft to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the pilot had faith that his American military partners would rescue him.

“We believed in the US military and government — that they would help us and get us out of this situation,” said the pilot, a lieutenant, who, like other pilots in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

The lieutenant is among 143 Afghan pilots and crew members now detained by Tajik authorities. They are English speakers trained by the US Air Force, and they are counting on the US government or military to evacuate them and also to help evacuate their families back home in Afghanistan.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/afghan-crisis-amid-internal-conflict-and-terrorism-locals-struggle-to-get-drinking-water-427287" hreflang="en">Afghan crisis: Amid internal conflict and terrorism, locals struggle to get drinking water</a>

Several thousand other Afghan air force pilots and crew members are in hiding in Afghanistan, feeling abandoned by the US military, their longtime combat ally. They say they and their families are at risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban.

“I stood shoulder to shoulder with my American allies for five years — but now they have forgotten us,” an Afghan air force captain who piloted C-208 airplanes said by phone from a safe house in Kabul.

Several other pilots who spoke by phone from Afghanistan said they had heard nothing from the US government. But they said they were being assisted by their former military advisers, many of them volunteers in a group called Operation Sacred Promise, formed to help get Afghan air force personnel to safety.

Brig. Gen. David Hicks, a retired Air Force officer who is CEO of Operation Sacred Promise, said the group, formed in August, had received desperate messages from stranded pilots asking whether the US government had a plan to get them to safety.

“We found out that there was no plan by the US to do anything to get these folks out,” said Hicks, who once commanded the US-led air force training mission in Afghanistan.

He said: “The US has spent millions and millions on these highly educated and highly motivated individuals. Based on what they did fighting the Taliban, we think they deserve priority.”

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/afghan-baby-handed-to-us-soldiers-amid-chaos-at-kabul-airport-still-missing-427117" hreflang="en">Afghan baby handed to US soldiers amid chaos at Kabul airport still missing</a>

A State Department spokesperson offered no timeline on relocating Afghan pilots but said Sunday, “We are in regular communication with the government of Tajikistan, and part of those communications includes coordination in response to Afghan air force pilots.”

The spokesperson said, “The United States verified the identities of approximately 150 Afghans after gaining access to the last group in mid-October.”

The United States spent $89 billion training and equipping Afghan defense and security forces, including the Afghan air force and its elite Special Mission Wing. Many of the pilots were trained in the United States.

Some pilots and crew members and their families were evacuated with the help of the US government and military just after the Taliban takeover. But many more were unable to get out, despite attempts by their former advisers to help them.

Since mid-August, Hicks said, Operation Sacred Promise has helped evacuate about 350 Afghans. The group has vetted about 2,000 Afghan air force personnel and their relatives trying to leave the country, with about 8,000 more still to be vetted, he said.

In September, a group of Afghan pilots and crew members was evacuated from Uzbekistan with the help of the US government and Operation Sacred Promise after being detained by Uzbek authorities.

But another group of 143 Afghan air force personnel remains in detention at a sanitarium near the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. They said they were growing increasingly desperate, even though US Embassy officials in Dushanbe had recently arrived to record their biometric data as part of an effort to evacuate them.

“The morale among our colleagues here is very low,” said an Afghan air force major who flew a C-208 military plane to Tajikistan. “We are in an unknown situation, and we don’t know what will happen next to us.”

Also read |&nbsp;<a data-ctorig="https://www.wionews.com/world/wion-exclusive-life-under-taliban-they-call-women-sts-419130" data-cturl="https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&amp;cx=006054055338965708568:09spwrlibei&amp;q=https://www.wionews.com/world/wion-exclusive-life-under-taliban-they-call-women-sts-419130&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjwq-mH1oj0AhWRzTgGHe85CkEQFnoECAUQAg&amp;usg=AOvVaw2l6nZWyfFJjXRmuas22wzA" dir="ltr" href="https://www.wionews.com/world/wion-exclusive-life-under-taliban-they-call-women-sts-419130" target="_blank">WION exclusive: Life Under&nbsp;Taliban- 'They call women s**ts'</a>

The major and several other pilots spoke on WhatsApp audio messages recorded on smuggled cellphones hidden from guards. They said they were not allowed to leave the facility, where most cellphones had been confiscated. They survive on meager food rations and receive only basic medical care, they said.

Many have not been in touch with their families in Afghanistan, some of whom do not know whether they are still alive, they said.

“We feel abandoned, but we still have hope the US will help us,” said a major who said he had piloted numerous combat missions.

The Tajikistan Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to email messages requesting comments.

Among those held in Tajikistan is an Afghan pilot who is pregnant and said she needed prenatal care. Her husband, also a pilot, was being held with her.

“We are living like prisoners,” she said in an audio message recorded late last month. “We are fed up. We are getting weak. I’d like to request that the US government expedite our situation here.”

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/taliban-mediating-talks-between-pakistans-tehreek-e-taliban-islamabad-report-427608" hreflang="en">Taliban mediating talks between Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Taliban, Islamabad: Report</a>

During Afghanistan’s collapse, about 25% of the Afghan air force’s aircraft were flown to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, according to an Oct. 31 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Hicks put the number at 56 to 60 aircraft. (American forces rendered unusable 80 others at the Kabul airport in late August.)

The status of the planes is uncertain. When asked in mid-August what was being done to recover the aircraft, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin replied, “We’re focused on the airfield and getting people out safely.”

Speaking from Afghanistan, several Afghan air force pilots described moving from house to house to avoid capture by the Taliban. They said they were running out of money and did not dare look for work because they feared being discovered by Taliban officials.

An Afghan air force major who flew C-208 planes for eight years said the Taliban had confronted his relatives, demanding to know his whereabouts. Taliban fighters searched his home and interrogated his mother, said the major, who had moved with his wife and four children to a series of safe houses.

“It’s very dangerous for us here,” the major said.

Watch |&nbsp;No hope for women athletes in Afghanistan?

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/no-hope-for-women-athletes-in-afghanistan-427654/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

He said he had been unable to reach anyone in the US government or military, other than his former US Air Force adviser. “It seems we aren’t so important to them anymore,” he said.

The Taliban have said there is a general amnesty for any Afghan who served in the former government or worked with the US government or military. But several Afghan air force pilots have been killed by the Taliban this year.

“They have no good options,” Hicks said. “They’re at risk of being hunted down and killed.”

A major who piloted C-208 planes and was trained at a US Air Force base in Texas said he turned down a chance to fly to Tajikistan in August because he did not want to leave his family behind. Now he and his wife and their seven children are in hiding, low on money and food.

“Our life gets worse day by day,” the major said. “We can’t stay in one place. We are always hiding — even our relatives don’t know where we are.”

Hicks said he feared the pilots and crew members in Afghanistan would soon run out of money and food, and possibly lose what freedom they have left.

“There’s no place for them to hide inside Afghanistan,” he said. “We have to realize that it’s about to be a very dark winter for these people.”

As Kabul was falling to the Taliban in August, the young Afghan air force pilot flew his PC-12 turboprop from Afghanistan to neighbouring Tajikistan to escape. Like other Afghan officers who fled in dozens of military aircraft to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the pilot had faith that his American military partners would rescue him.

As Kabul was falling to the Taliban in August, the young Afghan air force pilot flew his PC-12 turboprop from Afghanistan to neighbouring Tajikistan to escape. Like other Afghan officers who fled in dozens of military aircraft to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the pilot had faith that his American military partners would rescue him. “We believed in the US military and government — that they would help us and get us out of this situation,” said the pilot, a lieutenant, who, like other pilots in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns. The lieutenant is among 143 Afghan pilots and crew members now detained by Tajik authorities. They are English speakers trained by the US Air Force, and they are counting on the US government or military to evacuate them and also to help evacuate their families back home in Afghanistan. Also read | Afghan crisis: Amid internal conflict and terrorism, locals struggle to get drinking water Several thousand other Afghan air force pilots and crew members are in hiding in Afghanistan, feeling abandoned by the US military, their longtime combat ally. They say they and their families are at risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban. “I stood shoulder to shoulder with my American allies for five years — but now they have forgotten us,” an Afghan air force captain who piloted C-208 airplanes said by phone from a safe house in Kabul. Several other pilots who spoke by phone from Afghanistan said they had heard nothing from the US government. But they said they were being assisted by their former military advisers, many of them volunteers in a group called Operation Sacred Promise, formed to help get Afghan air force personnel to safety. Brig. Gen. David Hicks, a retired Air Force officer who is CEO of Operation Sacred Promise, said the group, formed in August, had received desperate messages from stranded pilots asking whether the US government had a plan to get them to safety. “We found out that there was no plan by the US to do anything to get these folks out,” said Hicks, who once commanded the US-led air force training mission in Afghanistan. He said: “The US has spent millions and millions on these highly educated and highly motivated individuals. Based on what they did fighting the Taliban, we think they deserve priority.” Also read | Afghan baby handed to US soldiers amid chaos at Kabul airport still missing A State Department spokesperson offered no timeline on relocating Afghan pilots but said Sunday, “We are in regular communication with the government of Tajikistan, and part of those communications includes coordination in response to Afghan air force pilots.” The spokesperson said, “The United States verified the identities of approximately 150 Afghans after gaining access to the last group in mid-October.” The United States spent $89 billion training and equipping Afghan defense and security forces, including the Afghan air force and its elite Special Mission Wing. Many of the pilots were trained in the United States. Some pilots and crew members and their families were evacuated with the help of the US government and military just after the Taliban takeover. But many more were unable to get out, despite attempts by their former advisers to help them. Since mid-August, Hicks said, Operation Sacred Promise has helped evacuate about 350 Afghans. The group has vetted about 2,000 Afghan air force personnel and their relatives trying to leave the country, with about 8,000 more still to be vetted, he said. In September, a group of Afghan pilots and crew members was evacuated from Uzbekistan with the help of the US government and Operation Sacred Promise after being detained by Uzbek authorities. But another group of 143 Afghan air force personnel remains in detention at a sanitarium near the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. They said they were growing increasingly desperate, even though US Embassy officials in Dushanbe had recently arrived to record their biometric data as part of an effort to evacuate them. “The morale among our colleagues here is very low,” said an Afghan air force major who flew a C-208 military plane to Tajikistan. “We are in an unknown situation, and we don’t know what will happen next to us.” Also read | WION exclusive: Life Under Taliban- 'They call women s**ts' The major and several other pilots spoke on WhatsApp audio messages recorded on smuggled cellphones hidden from guards. They said they were not allowed to leave the facility, where most cellphones had been confiscated. They survive on meager food rations and receive only basic medical care, they said. Many have not been in touch with their families in Afghanistan, some of whom do not know whether they are still alive, they said. “We feel abandoned, but we still have hope the US will help us,” said a major who said he had piloted numerous combat missions. The Tajikistan Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to email messages requesting comments. Among those held in Tajikistan is an Afghan pilot who is pregnant and said she needed prenatal care. Her husband, also a pilot, was being held with her. “We are living like prisoners,” she said in an audio message recorded late last month. “We are fed up. We are getting weak. I’d like to request that the US government expedite our situation here.” Also read | Taliban mediating talks between Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Taliban, Islamabad: Report During Afghanistan’s collapse, about 25% of the Afghan air force’s aircraft were flown to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, according to an Oct. 31 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Hicks put the number at 56 to 60 aircraft. (American forces rendered unusable 80 others at the Kabul airport in late August.) The status of the planes is uncertain. When asked in mid-August what was being done to recover the aircraft, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin replied, “We’re focused on the airfield and getting people out safely.” Speaking from Afghanistan, several Afghan air force pilots described moving from house to house to avoid capture by the Taliban. They said they were running out of money and did not dare look for work because they feared being discovered by Taliban officials. An Afghan air force major who flew C-208 planes for eight years said the Taliban had confronted his relatives, demanding to know his whereabouts. Taliban fighters searched his home and interrogated his mother, said the major, who had moved with his wife and four children to a series of safe houses. “It’s very dangerous for us here,” the major said. Watch | No hope for women athletes in Afghanistan? He said he had been unable to reach anyone in the US government or military, other than his former US Air Force adviser. “It seems we aren’t so important to them anymore,” he said. The Taliban have said there is a general amnesty for any Afghan who served in the former government or worked with the US government or military. But several Afghan air force pilots have been killed by the Taliban this year. “They have no good options,” Hicks said. “They’re at risk of being hunted down and killed.” A major who piloted C-208 planes and was trained at a US Air Force base in Texas said he turned down a chance to fly to Tajikistan in August because he did not want to leave his family behind. Now he and his wife and their seven children are in hiding, low on money and food. “Our life gets worse day by day,” the major said. “We can’t stay in one place. We are always hiding — even our relatives don’t know where we are.” Hicks said he feared the pilots and crew members in Afghanistan would soon run out of money and food, and possibly lose what freedom they have left. “There’s no place for them to hide inside Afghanistan,” he said. “We have to realize that it’s about to be a very dark winter for these people.”

Afghan military pilots, on the run, feel abandoned by US

It has been almost three months since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. The group has promised to bring prosperity to the people, but women in the country are still worried about their rights. WION's Anas Mallick spoke to the Afghan National Olympic Committee spokesperson on the Taliban's policy of sports for women.

No hope for women athletes in Afghanistan?

The Taliban appointed 44 of its members to key roles including provincial governors and police chiefs on Sunday, a key step in shoring up its governance as the country grapples with growing security and economic problems.

It is first large-scale round of appointments announced since the cabinet was formed in September.

The Taliban released the list of its members' new roles, including Qari Baryal to serve as governor of Kabul and Wali Jan Hamza as the city's police chief.

The previous commander in charge of Kabul's security, Mawlawi Hamdullah Mukhlis, was killed this month in an attack on Afghanistan's largest military hospital in downtown Kabul.

The Taliban took over the country on Aug 15 but have faced an uphill battle in their promise to restore order and security after decades of war. ISIS have carried out a spate of attacks around the country, while the economy has been plunged into crisis.

There have been international calls for the group to negotiate with other political players to form an inclusive government including minorities and women, although substantive progress on that has so far not materialised.

The Taliban appointed 44 of its members to key roles including provincial governors and police chiefs on Sunday, a key step in shoring up its governance as the country grapples with growing security and economic problems.

The Taliban appointed 44 of its members to key roles including provincial governors and police chiefs on Sunday, a key step in shoring up its governance as the country grapples with growing security and economic problems. It is first large-scale round of appointments announced since the cabinet was formed in September. The Taliban released the list of its members' new roles, including Qari Baryal to serve as governor of Kabul and Wali Jan Hamza as the city's police chief. The previous commander in charge of Kabul's security, Mawlawi Hamdullah Mukhlis, was killed this month in an attack on Afghanistan's largest military hospital in downtown Kabul. The Taliban took over the country on Aug 15 but have faced an uphill battle in their promise to restore order and security after decades of war. ISIS have carried out a spate of attacks around the country, while the economy has been plunged into crisis. There have been international calls for the group to negotiate with other political players to form an inclusive government including minorities and women, although substantive progress on that has so far not materialised.

Taliban members are now governors, police chiefs in Afghanistan

The Taliban has appointed 44 of its members to key roles including provincial governors and police chiefs. It is the first large-scale round of appointments announced since the cabinet was formed in September.

Taliban appoints 44 governors, police chiefs around Afghanistan

Even before the Afghan Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul, Pakistan started discussions with the government-in-waiting to deal with militant outfits such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch groups operating out of the neighbouring country.

In their interactions with the Taliban leadership, Pakistani officials made it clear that all these groups must not only be denied operating space but also face military action.

According to reports, the Taliban is now mediating talks between the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistan government.&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/bowing-down-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-approves-tlps-de-proscription-427362">Bowing down? Pakistan PM Imran Khan approves TLP's de-proscription</a>

The chief of the Haqqani network, the Islamic Emirate's acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, is thought to have played the role of mediator.&nbsp;

Although the Islamic Emirate declined to confirm the reports, it said it would play its part.&nbsp;

"The stance of the Islamic Emirate is that it will act in a role to resolve problems that are important," said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.&nbsp;

Despite the absence of an official confirmation, reports suggest that the TTP agreed to announce a ceasefire for a month in exchange for the release of dozens of the group's prisoners.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/pakistan-taliban-want-prisoners-released-before-ceasefire-talks-427229">Pakistan Taliban want prisoners released before ceasefire talks</a>

However, there are differing views regarding whether mediation of talks would serve Afghanistan's interests. TTP previously demanded the release of its prisoners as a pre-condition for a ceasefire.&nbsp;

The Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mansoor Ahmed Khan, said he could neither confirm nor deny reports of talks between Pakistan and the TTP. He added that engaging with the TTP or its affiliates should be seen in the context of Pakistan and the Taliban government's counter-terrorism efforts and the strategy they agreed on.

Watch |&nbsp;Taliban appoints 44 governors, police chiefs around Afghanistan

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/taliban-appoints-44-governors-police-chiefs-around-afghanistan-427554/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

According to the leader of the National Solidarity Movement, Sayed Ishaq Gailani, the Islamic Emirate considers the ongoing negotiations to be an achievement.

"If Sirajuddin Haqqani facilitated the negotiations, it is an honour for the people of Afghanistan," he said.&nbsp;

TTP has been active in several parts of Pakistan since 2007.&nbsp;

Even before the Afghan Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul, Pakistan started discussions with the government-in-waiting to deal with militant outfits such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch groups operating out of the neighbouring country.

Even before the Afghan Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul, Pakistan started discussions with the government-in-waiting to deal with militant outfits such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch groups operating out of the neighbouring country. In their interactions with the Taliban leadership, Pakistani officials made it clear that all these groups must not only be denied operating space but also face military action. According to reports, the Taliban is now mediating talks between the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Pakistan government. Also read | Bowing down? Pakistan PM Imran Khan approves TLP's de-proscription The chief of the Haqqani network, the Islamic Emirate's acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, is thought to have played the role of mediator. Although the Islamic Emirate declined to confirm the reports, it said it would play its part. "The stance of the Islamic Emirate is that it will act in a role to resolve problems that are important," said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate. Despite the absence of an official confirmation, reports suggest that the TTP agreed to announce a ceasefire for a month in exchange for the release of dozens of the group's prisoners. Also read | Pakistan Taliban want prisoners released before ceasefire talks However, there are differing views regarding whether mediation of talks would serve Afghanistan's interests. TTP previously demanded the release of its prisoners as a pre-condition for a ceasefire. The Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mansoor Ahmed Khan, said he could neither confirm nor deny reports of talks between Pakistan and the TTP. He added that engaging with the TTP or its affiliates should be seen in the context of Pakistan and the Taliban government's counter-terrorism efforts and the strategy they agreed on. Watch | Taliban appoints 44 governors, police chiefs around Afghanistan According to the leader of the National Solidarity Movement, Sayed Ishaq Gailani, the Islamic Emirate considers the ongoing negotiations to be an achievement. "If Sirajuddin Haqqani facilitated the negotiations, it is an honour for the people of Afghanistan," he said. TTP has been active in several parts of Pakistan since 2007.

Taliban mediating talks between Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Taliban, Islamabad: Report

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have averted for now further violence by caving in to demands of a militant, supremacist religious group. But in doing so, Mr Khan is allowing radical ultra-conservatism to fester, undermining social cohesion, threatening economic development, and giving militants a say in foreign policy.

The government’s surrender to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan or ‘I am Present Pakistan ‘(TLP), an outlawed far-right group, comes at a moment that Mr Khan has taken several steps towards Islamicizing Pakistani society.

It also comes on the heels of ultra-conservatives in Pakistan feeling emboldened by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Further, the cave-in will do little to support Pakistan’s efforts to be removed from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog.

In separate talks, Mr Khan’s government has been negotiating a ceasefire with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban. The talks were mediated by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Afghan Taliban interior minister, who heads the notorious Haqqani network. The network has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States while the FBI has declared Mr Haqqani one of its most-wanted people.

The ceasefire would halt the TTP’s 14-year insurgency aimed at forcing the government to introduce Islamic law in Pakistani tribal areas. Thousands have been killed in TTP attacks and clashes with security forces.

For its part, the TLP has made blasphemy its signature issue. It has repeatedly leveraged its self-declared position as a defender of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed to pressure the government to meet its demands. The group uses mass protests that besiege Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as its battering ram.

Four people were killed and some 250 injured last week in a clash with security forces during the latest confrontation between the government and the group. Thousands of TLP supporters had blocked a key highway as they marched from Lahore to Islamabad, a distance of 380 kilometres. They ended the blockade once the government reportedly agreed to their demands.

The group demanded the lifting of the ban imposed on it in April; release from prison of its activists and leader, Saad Rizvi; unfreezing of its bank accounts, and the expulsion of the French ambassador.

Details of the agreement with the TLP have yet to be released but Pakistani media reported that the only demand rejected by the government was that Pakistan should expel the French ambassador because of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in 2015 by a Paris-based satiric magazine. Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said the government would put the issue to parliament, but it has yet to do so.

Militants attacked the magazine at the time and killed 12 of its staff. The online Pakistan edition of Saudi Arabia’s Arab News last week appeared to try to calm Pakistani tempers by reporting that French companies wanted to invest in Pakistani tourism infrastructure despite the volatility in the country.

The TLP is a political expression of the Barelvi strand of Sunni Islam that has long been viewed as more moderate than Deobandism, the other major wing of the faith in Pakistan.

Recent Barelvi militancy speaks to the deep roots that ultra-conservatism has struck in Pakistan. Decades of varying government policies that contributed to Islamization coupled with past massive public and private Saudi funding for militant religious seminaries or madrassas and militant groups have helped weave ultra-conservatism into the fabric of Pakistani society.

Syed Badiuddin Soharwardy, a 66-year-old Canadian-Pakistani imam watched how Saudi-funded religious ultra-conservatism was instrumentalized by the Pakistani armed forces in its dispute with India over Kashmir and in Afghanistan starting with the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s. He also registered how ultra-conservatism changed the demography of the military.

The son of a prayer leader and teacher, Mr Soharwardy recalls accompanying his father to mosques on bases across the country of the Pakistani army air force and navy to celebrate the Prophet’s birthday, a ritual frowned upon by ultra-conservatives. “My father would participate in the celebration and the kids would sing rhymes praising the Prophet,” Mr. Soharwardy said.

Mr Sohawardy calculated based on analysis of the sectarian affiliation of Pakistan mosques that if 70 per cent of mosques were Barelvi in the late 1970s, that number had shifted more than 30 years later to 55 per cent identifying themselves as Deobandi. The shift in the affiliation of military mosques was even more dramatic with 85 per cent currently adhering to Deobandism as opposed to 90 per cent in the 1970s aligning themselves with the Barelvis.

Barelvis were not immune to the spreading tentacles of ultra-conservatism. Khatm-e-Nubawwat Lawyers Forum, a network of 800 lawyers with close ties to the police forces, drove a spike in blasphemy prosecutions that started around the time the TLP was founded in 2015. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan.

The forum is associated with The Assembly to Protect the End of Prophethood or Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e Nabuwwat founded in 1950 as a Barelvi organization. The organization focused on preventing Ahmadis from identifying as Muslims.

Mainstream Muslims accuse Ahmadis of blasphemy because they refuse to recognize Mohammed as the last prophet. The founder of the Ahmadis, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, proclaimed himself in the late 19th century to be a Muslim prophet.

“Whoever does this (blasphemy), the punishment is only death. There is no alternative," said the forum’s head, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry.

Mr. Chaudry was the defence lawyer for Mumtaz Qadri who became a hero after he was convicted to death and executed in 2016 for the killing in 2011 of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab and an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s draconic blasphemy law.

Mr. Qadri’s grave in Bhara Kahu on the outskirts of Islamabad, a 25-minute drive from where he assassinated Mr. Taseer, has become a pilgrimage site that attracts scores of visitors. Graffiti celebrates Mr. Qadri on the road leading to his grave. Nearby shops sell flowers and pictures of the assassin.

Government critics charge the government’s deal with the TLP has undermined its authority and constitutes one more step towards affirming a greater role for religion in the country’s life.

Mr. Khan’s government has sought to Islamicise Pakistani education with the development of a new national curriculum and mandatory religion classes s part of university education. He has also recently established a body to monitor the curriculum, syllabi and social media for "blasphemous" content.

“The writ of the state has yet again crumbled in the face of violent extremism.,” said columnist Zahid Hussain. The “agreement with the TLP has worsened the internal security situation arising from increasing faith-based extremism.”

Saad Hafiz, another columnist, argued that appeasement of militant religious groups like the TLP explains Pakistan’s welcoming of the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. &nbsp;He warned that their influence was shaping Pakistani foreign policy and curtailing the South Asian nation’s ability to achieve its geopolitical goals.

Pakistan’s perceived embrace of the Taliban even if it has refrained from recognizing the group’s government has fuelled anti-Pakistani sentiment in Washington. US President Joe Biden has yet to call Mr. Khan since coming to office in January.

“The collective triumphalism in Pakistan on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has not gone down well in Washington,” Mr. Hafiz said. “The street power of radical Islam has constrained international options. These factors have caused disarray and drifts in foreign policy that the country can ill afford. The net result is fewer allies, limited diplomatic space, and strategic mobility.”

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have averted for now further violence by caving in to demands of a militant, supremacist religious group. But in doing so, Mr Khan is allowing radical ultra-conservatism to fester, undermining social cohesion, threatening economic development, and giving militants a say in foreign policy.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have averted for now further violence by caving in to demands of a militant, supremacist religious group. But in doing so, Mr Khan is allowing radical ultra-conservatism to fester, undermining social cohesion, threatening economic development, and giving militants a say in foreign policy. The government’s surrender to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan or ‘I am Present Pakistan ‘(TLP), an outlawed far-right group, comes at a moment that Mr Khan has taken several steps towards Islamicizing Pakistani society. It also comes on the heels of ultra-conservatives in Pakistan feeling emboldened by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Further, the cave-in will do little to support Pakistan’s efforts to be removed from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog. In separate talks, Mr Khan’s government has been negotiating a ceasefire with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban. The talks were mediated by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Afghan Taliban interior minister, who heads the notorious Haqqani network. The network has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States while the FBI has declared Mr Haqqani one of its most-wanted people. The ceasefire would halt the TTP’s 14-year insurgency aimed at forcing the government to introduce Islamic law in Pakistani tribal areas. Thousands have been killed in TTP attacks and clashes with security forces. For its part, the TLP has made blasphemy its signature issue. It has repeatedly leveraged its self-declared position as a defender of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed to pressure the government to meet its demands. The group uses mass protests that besiege Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as its battering ram. Four people were killed and some 250 injured last week in a clash with security forces during the latest confrontation between the government and the group. Thousands of TLP supporters had blocked a key highway as they marched from Lahore to Islamabad, a distance of 380 kilometres. They ended the blockade once the government reportedly agreed to their demands. The group demanded the lifting of the ban imposed on it in April; release from prison of its activists and leader, Saad Rizvi; unfreezing of its bank accounts, and the expulsion of the French ambassador. Details of the agreement with the TLP have yet to be released but Pakistani media reported that the only demand rejected by the government was that Pakistan should expel the French ambassador because of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in 2015 by a Paris-based satiric magazine. Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said the government would put the issue to parliament, but it has yet to do so. Militants attacked the magazine at the time and killed 12 of its staff. The online Pakistan edition of Saudi Arabia’s Arab News last week appeared to try to calm Pakistani tempers by reporting that French companies wanted to invest in Pakistani tourism infrastructure despite the volatility in the country. The TLP is a political expression of the Barelvi strand of Sunni Islam that has long been viewed as more moderate than Deobandism, the other major wing of the faith in Pakistan. Recent Barelvi militancy speaks to the deep roots that ultra-conservatism has struck in Pakistan. Decades of varying government policies that contributed to Islamization coupled with past massive public and private Saudi funding for militant religious seminaries or madrassas and militant groups have helped weave ultra-conservatism into the fabric of Pakistani society. Syed Badiuddin Soharwardy, a 66-year-old Canadian-Pakistani imam watched how Saudi-funded religious ultra-conservatism was instrumentalized by the Pakistani armed forces in its dispute with India over Kashmir and in Afghanistan starting with the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s. He also registered how ultra-conservatism changed the demography of the military. The son of a prayer leader and teacher, Mr Soharwardy recalls accompanying his father to mosques on bases across the country of the Pakistani army air force and navy to celebrate the Prophet’s birthday, a ritual frowned upon by ultra-conservatives. “My father would participate in the celebration and the kids would sing rhymes praising the Prophet,” Mr. Soharwardy said. Mr Sohawardy calculated based on analysis of the sectarian affiliation of Pakistan mosques that if 70 per cent of mosques were Barelvi in the late 1970s, that number had shifted more than 30 years later to 55 per cent identifying themselves as Deobandi. The shift in the affiliation of military mosques was even more dramatic with 85 per cent currently adhering to Deobandism as opposed to 90 per cent in the 1970s aligning themselves with the Barelvis. Barelvis were not immune to the spreading tentacles of ultra-conservatism. Khatm-e-Nubawwat Lawyers Forum, a network of 800 lawyers with close ties to the police forces, drove a spike in blasphemy prosecutions that started around the time the TLP was founded in 2015. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan. The forum is associated with The Assembly to Protect the End of Prophethood or Majlis-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e Nabuwwat founded in 1950 as a Barelvi organization. The organization focused on preventing Ahmadis from identifying as Muslims. Mainstream Muslims accuse Ahmadis of blasphemy because they refuse to recognize Mohammed as the last prophet. The founder of the Ahmadis, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, proclaimed himself in the late 19th century to be a Muslim prophet. “Whoever does this (blasphemy), the punishment is only death. There is no alternative," said the forum’s head, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry. Mr. Chaudry was the defence lawyer for Mumtaz Qadri who became a hero after he was convicted to death and executed in 2016 for the killing in 2011 of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab and an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s draconic blasphemy law. Mr. Qadri’s grave in Bhara Kahu on the outskirts of Islamabad, a 25-minute drive from where he assassinated Mr. Taseer, has become a pilgrimage site that attracts scores of visitors. Graffiti celebrates Mr. Qadri on the road leading to his grave. Nearby shops sell flowers and pictures of the assassin. Government critics charge the government’s deal with the TLP has undermined its authority and constitutes one more step towards affirming a greater role for religion in the country’s life. Mr. Khan’s government has sought to Islamicise Pakistani education with the development of a new national curriculum and mandatory religion classes s part of university education. He has also recently established a body to monitor the curriculum, syllabi and social media for "blasphemous" content. “The writ of the state has yet again crumbled in the face of violent extremism.,” said columnist Zahid Hussain. The “agreement with the TLP has worsened the internal security situation arising from increasing faith-based extremism.” Saad Hafiz, another columnist, argued that appeasement of militant religious groups like the TLP explains Pakistan’s welcoming of the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He warned that their influence was shaping Pakistani foreign policy and curtailing the South Asian nation’s ability to achieve its geopolitical goals. Pakistan’s perceived embrace of the Taliban even if it has refrained from recognizing the group’s government has fuelled anti-Pakistani sentiment in Washington. US President Joe Biden has yet to call Mr. Khan since coming to office in January. “The collective triumphalism in Pakistan on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has not gone down well in Washington,” Mr. Hafiz said. “The street power of radical Islam has constrained international options. These factors have caused disarray and drifts in foreign policy that the country can ill afford. The net result is fewer allies, limited diplomatic space, and strategic mobility.” (Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

Ultraconservative triumph puts Pakistan at risk

It has been nearly 3 months since the Taliban captured Kabul. In that time the group has taken over all of Afghan institutions, they have elected their own acting cabinet, dissolved the democratic structures and now in the latest sources tell WION that the Taliban attempted an unsuccessful coup -at Afghanistan's cricket board.

Taliban takes over all of Afghan institutions, elect their own acting cabinet

Like most industries one of Afghanistan's highest revenue-garnering industry the pine nut has also taken a hit since the Taliban takeover while the newly formed government has promised to bring prosperity for the people. Our correspondent -- Anas Mallick will tell us how much Taliban will follow through.

Afghanistan's highest revenue-garnering industry takes a hit since Taliban takeover

Taliban's foreign minister Maulvi Amir Khan Mottaki on Saturday met Chinese Ambassador in Afghanistan Wang Yu in Kabul, said a Taliban spokesperson. Both officials spoke on relations between Taliban regime and China.

As per the spokesperson, the trade between the two countries was discussed during the meeting. Export of Afghan pine nuts to China found a mention. The Chinese side is said to have promised Mottaki that necessary visas will be provided to Afghan businessmen trading pine nuts.

Taliban foreign minister thanked China for its role in the development of political and trade relations between the two countries.

<img alt="Taliban China" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="eac8c57e-df48-4554-870d-9fd221f84358" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/WhatsApp%20Image%202021-11-06%20at%209.57.23%20PM%20%281%29.jpeg" />

Chinese interests in Afghanistan are largely aligned with those of Pakistan which has a geographical advantage when it comes to influencing situation in Afghanistan.

Though China is worried about situation in restive Xinjiang region populated mainly by Uyghur Muslims, China has been seen as being gradually accommodative of Taliban regime after the group assumed power in Afghanistan in August this year.

In political game inside Afghanistan, China and Pakistan are in the opposite camp to that of India. Though India has spent a lot in Afghan reconstruction and even enjoys a certain goodwill among common Afghans, India lacks geographical advantage that Pakistan has.

Taliban's foreign minister Maulvi Amir Khan Mottaki on Saturday met Chinese Ambassador in Afghanistan Wang Yu in Kabul, said a Taliban spokesperson. Both officials spoke on relations between Taliban regime and China.

Taliban's foreign minister Maulvi Amir Khan Mottaki on Saturday met Chinese Ambassador in Afghanistan Wang Yu in Kabul, said a Taliban spokesperson. Both officials spoke on relations between Taliban regime and China. As per the spokesperson, the trade between the two countries was discussed during the meeting. Export of Afghan pine nuts to China found a mention. The Chinese side is said to have promised Mottaki that necessary visas will be provided to Afghan businessmen trading pine nuts. Taliban foreign minister thanked China for its role in the development of political and trade relations between the two countries. Chinese interests in Afghanistan are largely aligned with those of Pakistan which has a geographical advantage when it comes to influencing situation in Afghanistan. Though China is worried about situation in restive Xinjiang region populated mainly by Uyghur Muslims, China has been seen as being gradually accommodative of Taliban regime after the group assumed power in Afghanistan in August this year. In political game inside Afghanistan, China and Pakistan are in the opposite camp to that of India. Though India has spent a lot in Afghan reconstruction and even enjoys a certain goodwill among common Afghans, India lacks geographical advantage that Pakistan has.

Taliban foreign minister meets Chinese ambassador, talks on pine nut trade 

In a shocking incident Forouzan Safi, a 29-year-old activist and economics lecturer has been shot dead in northern Afghanistan. Forouzan Safi’s body was identified in a morgue in the city of Mazar-I-Sharif days after she went missing on the 20 October.

29-year-old activist, economics lecturer shot dead in northern Afghanistan

Besides war, internal conflict and terrorism in Afghanistan, what we don't quite hear enough about is the state of its water resources. A safe and reliable supply of water is one of Afghanistan’s most critical national needs, leaving the country in a horrible state of duress.

Afghanistan’s water crisis: Residents struggle to get potable water | Taliban | WION

Pakistan has threatened to stop the transit of the Afghans across the Durand Line if the Taliban government failed to accept the fence being constructed along the border.

Pakistan is said to be arm-twisting the Taliban government in Kabul to accept the Durand Line, reported The Singapore Post.

Also Read |<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/taliban-supreme-leader-akhundzada-issues-a-warning-against-infiltrators-in-the-rank">&nbsp;Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada issues a warning against infiltrators in the ranks</a>

The Taliban government is reportedly miffed at this Pakistani blackmail and has made it clear in no uncertain terms that such conditions on the Durand Line were unacceptable.

The Durand Line divides the traditional Pashtun homelands in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border was mainly porous until recently fenced and heavily guarded due to the tribal, linguistic, social, and economic ties.

Afghanistan for long has always refused to recognize the Durand Line as an international border. Durand is currently a disputed boundary for several reasons. Pashtuns on both sides believe that they have been indiscriminately divided and separated from their family and land on either side.

Pakistan has viewed the Durand Line as critical to its survival as a Punjabi- dominated Sunni country. Even whispers of Great Paktunistan, a Pashtun nation encompassing Pashtun-dominated areas across the current border, raises grave suspicions in Pakistan, especially in the army. The area is home to some 35 million Afghans, 15 million of them in Afghanistan, reported The Singapore Post.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/afghanistan-attacks-on-shia-minority-trigger-mass-exodus-to-iran-426615">Afghanistan: Attacks on Shia minority trigger mass exodus to Iran</a>

As it began to lose clout over militant groups, once spawned and controlled by them, the Pakistan Army decided to fence the long and arduous border with Afghanistan, a move which triggered several run-offs between the armed forces of both countries. With the Taliban taking over Kabul, Pakistan visualised a cakewalk.

But, the Taliban government refused to make any commitment on the issue despite Pakistan making it clear at the outset that it could become a stumbling block in their relationship.

Once the Taliban spokesman made its opposition to the border fencing, Pakistan hit back with a crippling blockade at the Chaman border post early October.

It is the second-largest border checkpoint with thousands of trucks and men travelling across the highway every day. The crossing is a major source of revenue for the cash-strapped Taliban government.

With border disruptions at Torkham and withdrawal of PIA flights from Kabul, Pakistan's message to the Taliban is loud and clear--fall in line or face consequences, reported The Singapore Post.

These brazenly threatening posturing from Pakistan has riled the Taliban government where there is no consensus on any remission on the issue of Durand Line or the border fencing. It is well known how fiercely the Taliban founder, Mullah Omar, had opposed any reconciliatory position on Durand Line, reported The Singapore Post.

The Durand Line could thus become a point of conflict between the two allies.

Pakistan has threatened to stop the transit of the Afghans across the Durand Line if the Taliban government failed to accept the fence being constructed along the border.

Pakistan has threatened to stop the transit of the Afghans across the Durand Line if the Taliban government failed to accept the fence being constructed along the border. Pakistan is said to be arm-twisting the Taliban government in Kabul to accept the Durand Line, reported The Singapore Post. Also Read | Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada issues a warning against infiltrators in the ranks The Taliban government is reportedly miffed at this Pakistani blackmail and has made it clear in no uncertain terms that such conditions on the Durand Line were unacceptable. The Durand Line divides the traditional Pashtun homelands in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border was mainly porous until recently fenced and heavily guarded due to the tribal, linguistic, social, and economic ties. Afghanistan for long has always refused to recognize the Durand Line as an international border. Durand is currently a disputed boundary for several reasons. Pashtuns on both sides believe that they have been indiscriminately divided and separated from their family and land on either side. Pakistan has viewed the Durand Line as critical to its survival as a Punjabi- dominated Sunni country. Even whispers of Great Paktunistan, a Pashtun nation encompassing Pashtun-dominated areas across the current border, raises grave suspicions in Pakistan, especially in the army. The area is home to some 35 million Afghans, 15 million of them in Afghanistan, reported The Singapore Post. Also Read | Afghanistan: Attacks on Shia minority trigger mass exodus to Iran As it began to lose clout over militant groups, once spawned and controlled by them, the Pakistan Army decided to fence the long and arduous border with Afghanistan, a move which triggered several run-offs between the armed forces of both countries. With the Taliban taking over Kabul, Pakistan visualised a cakewalk. But, the Taliban government refused to make any commitment on the issue despite Pakistan making it clear at the outset that it could become a stumbling block in their relationship. Once the Taliban spokesman made its opposition to the border fencing, Pakistan hit back with a crippling blockade at the Chaman border post early October. It is the second-largest border checkpoint with thousands of trucks and men travelling across the highway every day. The crossing is a major source of revenue for the cash-strapped Taliban government. With border disruptions at Torkham and withdrawal of PIA flights from Kabul, Pakistan's message to the Taliban is loud and clear--fall in line or face consequences, reported The Singapore Post. These brazenly threatening posturing from Pakistan has riled the Taliban government where there is no consensus on any remission on the issue of Durand Line or the border fencing. It is well known how fiercely the Taliban founder, Mullah Omar, had opposed any reconciliatory position on Durand Line, reported The Singapore Post. The Durand Line could thus become a point of conflict between the two allies.

Pakistan blackmails Taliban over Durand Line dispute, threatens to stop transit of Afghans across border

Pakistan Taliban has demanded release of number of prisoners as a pre-condition to ceasefire talks with Pakistani government, Reuters said quoting sources within Pakistan Taliban.&nbsp;

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP and separate from the Afghan Taliban, have had two rounds of preliminary talks, facilitated by the Afghan Taliban, a commander based in the Afghan province of Kunar said.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of Haqqani network and current interior minister of Taliban government in Afghanistan is helping the talks

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/taliban-supreme-leader-akhundzada-issues-a-warning-against-infiltrators-in-the-ranks-426859">Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada issues a warning against infiltrators in the ranks</a>

The TTP, which combines a number of jihadi and militant groups that have been fighting the government of Pakistan since 2007, is included on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told Turkey's TRT television last month that government was in talks with parts of the TTP as part of a "reconciliation process".

The release of the prisoners is meant to be a confidence-building measure, three TTP commanders said, adding that the outcome of the talks was still uncertain.

"We aren't too hopeful of the immediate results of the talks but our leaders had demanded the release of prisoners if they are sincere in meaningful negotiations," a TTP commander told Reuters from Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/womens-rights-activist-and-economics-lecturer-frozan-safi-shot-dead-in-afghanistan-427159">Women’s rights activist and economics lecturer Frozan Safi shot dead in Afghanistan</a>

No comment was available from the Pakistani government. The interior ministry, foreign ministry and the ISPR, the armed forces communications wing, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

According to negotiators, the two sides agreed not to issue statements either supporting or opposing the peace process or against each other till the accord is signed and made public.

TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a text message the group had "never refused meaningful talks" but that there were no developments on the ground yet.

TTP attacks have killed and wounded thousands of civilians and Pakistani service personnel over the years but the group was badly weakened by the Pakistan military's Zarb-e-Azb operation in 2014 which drove it from its stronghold in North Waziristan.

(With inputs from agencies)

Pakistan Taliban has demanded release of number of prisoners as a pre-condition to ceasefire talks with Pakistani government, Reuters said quoting sources within Pakistan Taliban.

Pakistan Taliban has demanded release of number of prisoners as a pre-condition to ceasefire talks with Pakistani government, Reuters said quoting sources within Pakistan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP and separate from the Afghan Taliban, have had two rounds of preliminary talks, facilitated by the Afghan Taliban, a commander based in the Afghan province of Kunar said. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of Haqqani network and current interior minister of Taliban government in Afghanistan is helping the talks Also Read | Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada issues a warning against infiltrators in the ranks The TTP, which combines a number of jihadi and militant groups that have been fighting the government of Pakistan since 2007, is included on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organisations. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told Turkey's TRT television last month that government was in talks with parts of the TTP as part of a "reconciliation process". The release of the prisoners is meant to be a confidence-building measure, three TTP commanders said, adding that the outcome of the talks was still uncertain. "We aren't too hopeful of the immediate results of the talks but our leaders had demanded the release of prisoners if they are sincere in meaningful negotiations," a TTP commander told Reuters from Afghanistan's Kunar province. Also Read | Women’s rights activist and economics lecturer Frozan Safi shot dead in Afghanistan No comment was available from the Pakistani government. The interior ministry, foreign ministry and the ISPR, the armed forces communications wing, did not respond to emailed requests for comment. According to negotiators, the two sides agreed not to issue statements either supporting or opposing the peace process or against each other till the accord is signed and made public. TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a text message the group had "never refused meaningful talks" but that there were no developments on the ground yet. TTP attacks have killed and wounded thousands of civilians and Pakistani service personnel over the years but the group was badly weakened by the Pakistan military's Zarb-e-Azb operation in 2014 which drove it from its stronghold in North Waziristan. (With inputs from agencies)

Pakistan Taliban want prisoners released before ceasefire talks

Afghan baby handed to US soldiers amid airlift chaos still missing as Taliban takes over .

Afghan toddler handed over to US Army, still missing

29 year old women’s rights activist and economics lecturer Frozan Safi shot dead in Afghanistan.

Women’s rights activist killed in northern Afghanistan

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, activists and journalists have been living in fear. Activists have said that they are being hunted down by the Taliban. In a tragic incident, a 29 year old activist, Frozan Safi has been shot and killed in northern Afghanistan. She worked as an economics lecturer.

This appears to be the first known death of a women’s rights defender since the Taliban took control.

The Guardian newspaper quoted a doctor named Meraj Faroqi as saying that the Taliban security forces brought the bodies of two unidentified women who had been shot dead.

The bodies were alongside those of two men in a house in Mazar-i-Sharif. &nbsp;Zabihullah Noorani, Taliban’s director for information and cultural affairs in Balkh province, suggested that this could have been the result of a “personal feud”. He further told that the police were investigating the case.

Frozan's body was identified in a morgue in Mazar-i-Sharif after she went missing on October 20.&nbsp;

“We recognised her by her clothes. Bullets had destroyed her face,” said Safi’s sister, Rita.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/unicef-aiming-to-fund-afghan-school-teachers-without-giving-money-to-taliban-report-426685">Also read |&nbsp;UNICEF aiming to fund Afghan school teachers without giving money to Taliban: Report</a>

It has been revealed that Frozan received a call from an anonymous number. She was asked to gather proof of her work as a rights defender and leave for a safer place. The activist believed that her request for asylum in Germany was under way. Therefore, she stuffed some documents, including her university diploma, and left home, her sister told. Rita said that they are completely unaware of who killed her.

Abdul Rahman Safi, her father, said that Frozan’s body had been found in a pit. It was registered by hospital workers as unknown.

Recently, the Human Rights Watch said that the rules formulated by the Taliban have been prohibiting most women from operating as aid workers in the country. This is further contributing into a humanitarian disaster.

Women have been holding nationwide protests regularly against the Taliban. They demand that their rights should be restored and protected.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

&nbsp;

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, activists and journalists have been living in fear. Activists have said that they are being hunted down by the Taliban.

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, activists and journalists have been living in fear. Activists have said that they are being hunted down by the Taliban. In a tragic incident, a 29 year old activist, Frozan Safi has been shot and killed in northern Afghanistan. She worked as an economics lecturer. This appears to be the first known death of a women’s rights defender since the Taliban took control. The Guardian newspaper quoted a doctor named Meraj Faroqi as saying that the Taliban security forces brought the bodies of two unidentified women who had been shot dead. The bodies were alongside those of two men in a house in Mazar-i-Sharif. Zabihullah Noorani, Taliban’s director for information and cultural affairs in Balkh province, suggested that this could have been the result of a “personal feud”. He further told that the police were investigating the case. Frozan's body was identified in a morgue in Mazar-i-Sharif after she went missing on October 20. “We recognised her by her clothes. Bullets had destroyed her face,” said Safi’s sister, Rita. Also read | UNICEF aiming to fund Afghan school teachers without giving money to Taliban: Report It has been revealed that Frozan received a call from an anonymous number. She was asked to gather proof of her work as a rights defender and leave for a safer place. The activist believed that her request for asylum in Germany was under way. Therefore, she stuffed some documents, including her university diploma, and left home, her sister told. Rita said that they are completely unaware of who killed her. Abdul Rahman Safi, her father, said that Frozan’s body had been found in a pit. It was registered by hospital workers as unknown. Recently, the Human Rights Watch said that the rules formulated by the Taliban have been prohibiting most women from operating as aid workers in the country. This is further contributing into a humanitarian disaster. Women have been holding nationwide protests regularly against the Taliban. They demand that their rights should be restored and protected. (With inputs from agencies)

Women’s rights activist and economics lecturer Frozan Safi shot dead in Afghanistan

The Taliban's top commander has warned of the dangers of infiltrators and turncoats in the group that has taken control of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Taliban's leader warns against infiltrators

Australia has postponed a one-off test match with Afghanistan. The decision was taken amid concerns about women's cricket under the Taliban. Palki Sharma tells you how Australia is taking a stand against the Taliban.

Gravitas: Cricket Australia calls off test match with Afghanistan

The supreme leader of the Taliban has warned against the danger of turncoats and infiltrators in the movement that has taken charge of Afghanistan.

Taliban leader warns against danger of infiltrators

Russia, Iran and Central Asian countries have confirmed presence at the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan on November 10.

India is hosting the meeting this year which will be chaired by India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Sources told WION that "there has been an overwhelming response to India's invitation", calling the "high-level participation" in the meet hosted by New Delhi reflective of "widespread and growing concern of regional countries about the situation in Afghanistan and their desire to consult and coordinate with each other. India has an important role to play in this process."

In a first, all central Asian countries will be present at the meet, not just countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who share land border with Afghanistan. "The enthusiastic response is a manifestation of the importance attached to India's role in regional efforts to promote peace and security in Afghanistan," sources explained.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/taliban-supreme-leader-akhundzada-issues-a-warning-against-infiltrators-in-the-ranks-426859" hreflang="en">Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada issues a warning against infiltrators in the ranks</a>

For central Asian countries, concerns of a spillover from Afghanistan have been increasing, and they have been raising the matter in multiple ways. Last month, Russia hosted a meet on Afghanistan in which India was invited. The "Moscow format" meet on Afghanistan has been taking place for last few years and this was the first since the collapse of Afghan republic under President Ashraf Ghani.&nbsp;

The meet comes months after Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August. Since then, situation has deteriorated in the country and worries mounted over worsening humanitarian situation. In the past&nbsp;two meetings under the current NSA format has met in Iran, in September 2018 and December 2019. The third such meet was to take place in India but could not happen due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/unicef-aiming-to-fund-afghan-school-teachers-without-giving-money-to-taliban-report-426685" hreflang="en">UNICEF aiming to fund Afghan school teachers without giving money to Taliban: Report</a>

China has not yet responded&nbsp;to India's invite while Pakistan's NSA Mooed Yusuf has publicly announced he will not participate, terming India as "spoiler". Asked on Pakistan's decision, sources said, "Pakistan's decision is unfortunate, but not surprising. It reflects its mindset of viewing Afghanistan as its protectorate. Pakistan has not attended the previous meetings of this format", adding the "media comments against India are an unsuccessful attempt to deflect attention from its pernicious role in Afghanistan."

Pakistan has also not yet responded to Indian proposal to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan via Wagha border. Islamabad has been backing Taliban to the hilt and working on at international floras to get the government&nbsp;under the grouping legitimacy. Pakistan Foreign Minister SM Qureshi had recently visited Kabul and engaged with top Taliban leadership.

Russia, Iran and Central Asian countries have confirmed presence at the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan on November 10. India is hosting the meeting this year which will be chaired by India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

Russia, Iran and Central Asian countries have confirmed presence at the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan on November 10. India is hosting the meeting this year which will be chaired by India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Sources told WION that "there has been an overwhelming response to India's invitation", calling the "high-level participation" in the meet hosted by New Delhi reflective of "widespread and growing concern of regional countries about the situation in Afghanistan and their desire to consult and coordinate with each other. India has an important role to play in this process." In a first, all central Asian countries will be present at the meet, not just countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who share land border with Afghanistan. "The enthusiastic response is a manifestation of the importance attached to India's role in regional efforts to promote peace and security in Afghanistan," sources explained. Also read | Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada issues a warning against infiltrators in the ranks For central Asian countries, concerns of a spillover from Afghanistan have been increasing, and they have been raising the matter in multiple ways. Last month, Russia hosted a meet on Afghanistan in which India was invited. The "Moscow format" meet on Afghanistan has been taking place for last few years and this was the first since the collapse of Afghan republic under President Ashraf Ghani. The meet comes months after Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August. Since then, situation has deteriorated in the country and worries mounted over worsening humanitarian situation. In the past two meetings under the current NSA format has met in Iran, in September 2018 and December 2019. The third such meet was to take place in India but could not happen due to the coronavirus pandemic. Also read | UNICEF aiming to fund Afghan school teachers without giving money to Taliban: Report China has not yet responded to India's invite while Pakistan's NSA Mooed Yusuf has publicly announced he will not participate, terming India as "spoiler". Asked on Pakistan's decision, sources said, "Pakistan's decision is unfortunate, but not surprising. It reflects its mindset of viewing Afghanistan as its protectorate. Pakistan has not attended the previous meetings of this format", adding the "media comments against India are an unsuccessful attempt to deflect attention from its pernicious role in Afghanistan." Pakistan has also not yet responded to Indian proposal to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan via Wagha border. Islamabad has been backing Taliban to the hilt and working on at international floras to get the government under the grouping legitimacy. Pakistan Foreign Minister SM Qureshi had recently visited Kabul and engaged with top Taliban leadership.

Iran, Russia, Central Asia confirm presence at Delhi NSA meet on Afghanistan

In the two months since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K has stepped up attacks across the country. The attacks have been aimed mostly at Taliban units.

How will Taliban deal with ISIS-K threat?

The supreme leader of the Taliban has warned against the danger of turncoats and infiltrators in the movement now leading Afghanistan. Haibatullah Akhundzada has issued a rare written public statement to urge Taliban commanders to purge their ranks.

Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhunzada warns against danger of infiltrators and turncoats

Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State group ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight.

But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic State was just beginning.

“If we knew where they were from, we would pursue them and destroy them,” Mohammed, 19, said from his hospital bed in Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province where the Islamic State has maintained a presence since 2015.

In the two months since the Taliban took control of the country, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan — known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K — has stepped up attacks across the country, straining the new and untested government and raising alarm bells in the West about the potential resurgence of a group that could eventually pose an international threat.

The attacks have been aimed mostly at Taliban units like Mohammad’s and at Afghanistan’s Shiite minorities. Suicide bombings in Kabul, the capital, and in important cities including Kunduz in the north and Kandahar in the Taliban’s southern heartland have killed at least 90 people and wounded hundreds of others in the span of just several weeks. And Tuesday, Islamic State fighters carried out a coordinated attack with gunmen and at least one suicide bomber on an important military hospital in the capital, killing at least 25 people.

This has placed the Taliban in a precarious position: After spending 20 years fighting as an insurgency, the group finds itself wrestling with providing security and delivering on its hallmark commitment of law and order. This has proved especially challenging for the Taliban as they try to defend themselves and civilians in crowded cities against almost daily attacks with an army that was trained for rural guerrilla warfare.

The surge in attacks has fueled growing unease among Western officials, with some predicting that the Islamic State — often considered a regional threat — could gain the capability to strike international targets in a matter of six to 12 months.

Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told lawmakers last week that the Taliban’s ability to pursue the group “is to be determined.”

Kahl’s sentiments underline the core concern of Western intelligence communities: There is little way to measure the Taliban’s effectiveness against ISIS-K. There is no longer reliable access to intelligence, as limited drone flights provide piecemeal information given the distance they have to fly just to get to Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials, and the established network of informants has collapsed.

The Taliban, who have refused to cooperate with the United States in countering the Islamic State, instead are fighting the war on their own terms, with tactics and strategies that look far more localized than a government campaign against a terrorist organization.

“The Taliban became accustomed to fighting as insurgents, relying on a range of asymmetric attacks to target Afghan and U.S. forces,” said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York. “But it seems clear that the Taliban has not given much thought at all to how the equation changes as a counterinsurgent, which is effectively the role they are playing now against the Islamic State.”

But where the Taliban have changed their strategy to fight against the Islamic State — once working together with the Americans and the former government to contain the terrorist group in the east — is on the diplomatic stage.

As the Taliban seek international recognition, the group has used the resurgence of the terrorist group as a bargaining chip for more financial aid, according to Qatari officials, reminding other countries that a powerful Islamic State poses a threat to them as well.

Recognizing the potential threat along its shared border with Afghanistan, Pakistan is feeding some intelligence to the Taliban about the Islamic State, according to U.S. officials.

Basir, the head of the Taliban’s intelligence arm in Jalalabad who goes by one name, is one of the group’s leaders adapting to fighting a war he was once on the other side of as a Taliban insurgent. He is now responsible for defending and securing a city of several hundred thousand people.

In the last several years, Jalalabad has been an easy target for the Islamic State, which has dispatched cells of fighters into the city from surrounding districts, carrying out assassinations and bombings at will.

But the group has taken advantage of the weeks during which the new government was coming together and has drastically widened its reach.

Between Sept. 18 and Oct. 28, the Islamic State has carried out at least 54 attacks in Afghanistan — including suicide bombings, assassinations and ambushes on security checkpoints, according to an analysis by ExTrac, a private firm that monitors militant violence in conflict zones. It amounts to one of the most active and deadly periods for the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

Most of those attacks have targeted Taliban security forces — a marked shift from the first seven months of the year, when the Islamic State primarily targeted civilians, including activists and journalists.

In countering the Islamic State, Basir said his men had adopted methods similar to the previous government, even relying on equipment used by the former intelligence service to intercept communications and radio traffic — tools gifted by the West over the last two decades in an effort to surveil the Taliban.

But he insisted that the Taliban have what the last government and Americans did not: the broad support of the local population, which has been a boon for the type of human intelligence capable of alerting authorities of attacks and fighter locations that had always been difficult to obtain in the past.

That level of trust and cooperation could wane, security analysts say, as there is increasing fear that the Taliban could use the ISIS-K threat as an excuse to carry out with impunity state-sponsored violence on certain segments of the population, such as members of the former government.

“There’s also a bit of a hubris and overconfidence because they think ISKP has such limited appeal in country — that, according to the Taliban, it is so beyond the pale that it will never have that widespread appeal, so they think they can afford to ignore the threat,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, an International Crisis Group consultant and an independent research analyst.

In 2015, the Islamic State in Khorasan was officially established in Afghanistan’s east by former members of the Pakistani Taliban. The group’s ideology took hold partly because many villages there are inhabited by Salafi Muslims, the same branch of Sunni Islam as the Islamic State. A minority among the Taliban, who mostly follow the Hanafi school, Salafi fighters were eager to join the new terrorist group.

The draw of young fighters to the Islamic State is especially pronounced in Jalalabad, where Salafi mosques have sprung up in growing numbers in recent years, providing ample recruiting grounds for the terrorist group.

The Taliban have made a show of openness to the Salafists, accepting a pledge of allegiance from some Salafi clerics earlier this month. But there is still widespread unease within their community, especially in Jalalabad.

At one Salafi religious school in the city, the Taliban cracked down on the ideology by forcing the school’s founder to flee. They have allowed boys to continue their Quranic studies but have banned Salafist works from the curriculum.

For Faraidoon Momand, a former member of the Afghan government and a local power broker in Jalalabad, the worsening economic situation in the country is also driving the Islamic State’s recruitment.

“In every society, if the economy is bad, people will do what they have to do to get by,” Momand said.

As dusk fell over Jalalabad on a recent day in October, a unit of Taliban fighters belonging to the intelligence agency rode through the streets in a modified Toyota pickup, a machine gun mounted in its bed, as the streets filled with commuters and evening shoppers.

The Talibs pulled up at key intersections and checkpoints, jumping out and assisting with the screening of cars and the ubiquitous yellow three-wheeled rickshaws that jostle and honk as they throng streets. They poked their heads in, shining flashlights inside, questioning passengers, and waved them on.

“We have a court for every criminal,” said Abdullah Ghorzang, a Taliban commander. “But there is no court for ISIS-K. They will be killed wherever they are arrested.”

Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State group ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan.

Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State group ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight. But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic State was just beginning. “If we knew where they were from, we would pursue them and destroy them,” Mohammed, 19, said from his hospital bed in Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province where the Islamic State has maintained a presence since 2015. In the two months since the Taliban took control of the country, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan — known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K — has stepped up attacks across the country, straining the new and untested government and raising alarm bells in the West about the potential resurgence of a group that could eventually pose an international threat. The attacks have been aimed mostly at Taliban units like Mohammad’s and at Afghanistan’s Shiite minorities. Suicide bombings in Kabul, the capital, and in important cities including Kunduz in the north and Kandahar in the Taliban’s southern heartland have killed at least 90 people and wounded hundreds of others in the span of just several weeks. And Tuesday, Islamic State fighters carried out a coordinated attack with gunmen and at least one suicide bomber on an important military hospital in the capital, killing at least 25 people. This has placed the Taliban in a precarious position: After spending 20 years fighting as an insurgency, the group finds itself wrestling with providing security and delivering on its hallmark commitment of law and order. This has proved especially challenging for the Taliban as they try to defend themselves and civilians in crowded cities against almost daily attacks with an army that was trained for rural guerrilla warfare. The surge in attacks has fueled growing unease among Western officials, with some predicting that the Islamic State — often considered a regional threat — could gain the capability to strike international targets in a matter of six to 12 months. Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told lawmakers last week that the Taliban’s ability to pursue the group “is to be determined.” Kahl’s sentiments underline the core concern of Western intelligence communities: There is little way to measure the Taliban’s effectiveness against ISIS-K. There is no longer reliable access to intelligence, as limited drone flights provide piecemeal information given the distance they have to fly just to get to Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials, and the established network of informants has collapsed. The Taliban, who have refused to cooperate with the United States in countering the Islamic State, instead are fighting the war on their own terms, with tactics and strategies that look far more localized than a government campaign against a terrorist organization. “The Taliban became accustomed to fighting as insurgents, relying on a range of asymmetric attacks to target Afghan and U.S. forces,” said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York. “But it seems clear that the Taliban has not given much thought at all to how the equation changes as a counterinsurgent, which is effectively the role they are playing now against the Islamic State.” But where the Taliban have changed their strategy to fight against the Islamic State — once working together with the Americans and the former government to contain the terrorist group in the east — is on the diplomatic stage. As the Taliban seek international recognition, the group has used the resurgence of the terrorist group as a bargaining chip for more financial aid, according to Qatari officials, reminding other countries that a powerful Islamic State poses a threat to them as well. Recognizing the potential threat along its shared border with Afghanistan, Pakistan is feeding some intelligence to the Taliban about the Islamic State, according to U.S. officials. Basir, the head of the Taliban’s intelligence arm in Jalalabad who goes by one name, is one of the group’s leaders adapting to fighting a war he was once on the other side of as a Taliban insurgent. He is now responsible for defending and securing a city of several hundred thousand people. In the last several years, Jalalabad has been an easy target for the Islamic State, which has dispatched cells of fighters into the city from surrounding districts, carrying out assassinations and bombings at will. But the group has taken advantage of the weeks during which the new government was coming together and has drastically widened its reach. Between Sept. 18 and Oct. 28, the Islamic State has carried out at least 54 attacks in Afghanistan — including suicide bombings, assassinations and ambushes on security checkpoints, according to an analysis by ExTrac, a private firm that monitors militant violence in conflict zones. It amounts to one of the most active and deadly periods for the Islamic State in Afghanistan. Most of those attacks have targeted Taliban security forces — a marked shift from the first seven months of the year, when the Islamic State primarily targeted civilians, including activists and journalists. In countering the Islamic State, Basir said his men had adopted methods similar to the previous government, even relying on equipment used by the former intelligence service to intercept communications and radio traffic — tools gifted by the West over the last two decades in an effort to surveil the Taliban. But he insisted that the Taliban have what the last government and Americans did not: the broad support of the local population, which has been a boon for the type of human intelligence capable of alerting authorities of attacks and fighter locations that had always been difficult to obtain in the past. That level of trust and cooperation could wane, security analysts say, as there is increasing fear that the Taliban could use the ISIS-K threat as an excuse to carry out with impunity state-sponsored violence on certain segments of the population, such as members of the former government. “There’s also a bit of a hubris and overconfidence because they think ISKP has such limited appeal in country — that, according to the Taliban, it is so beyond the pale that it will never have that widespread appeal, so they think they can afford to ignore the threat,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, an International Crisis Group consultant and an independent research analyst. In 2015, the Islamic State in Khorasan was officially established in Afghanistan’s east by former members of the Pakistani Taliban. The group’s ideology took hold partly because many villages there are inhabited by Salafi Muslims, the same branch of Sunni Islam as the Islamic State. A minority among the Taliban, who mostly follow the Hanafi school, Salafi fighters were eager to join the new terrorist group. The draw of young fighters to the Islamic State is especially pronounced in Jalalabad, where Salafi mosques have sprung up in growing numbers in recent years, providing ample recruiting grounds for the terrorist group. The Taliban have made a show of openness to the Salafists, accepting a pledge of allegiance from some Salafi clerics earlier this month. But there is still widespread unease within their community, especially in Jalalabad. At one Salafi religious school in the city, the Taliban cracked down on the ideology by forcing the school’s founder to flee. They have allowed boys to continue their Quranic studies but have banned Salafist works from the curriculum. For Faraidoon Momand, a former member of the Afghan government and a local power broker in Jalalabad, the worsening economic situation in the country is also driving the Islamic State’s recruitment. “In every society, if the economy is bad, people will do what they have to do to get by,” Momand said. As dusk fell over Jalalabad on a recent day in October, a unit of Taliban fighters belonging to the intelligence agency rode through the streets in a modified Toyota pickup, a machine gun mounted in its bed, as the streets filled with commuters and evening shoppers. The Talibs pulled up at key intersections and checkpoints, jumping out and assisting with the screening of cars and the ubiquitous yellow three-wheeled rickshaws that jostle and honk as they throng streets. They poked their heads in, shining flashlights inside, questioning passengers, and waved them on. “We have a court for every criminal,” said Abdullah Ghorzang, a Taliban commander. “But there is no court for ISIS-K. They will be killed wherever they are arrested.”

ISIS poses a growing threat to new Taliban government in Afghanistan

The Taliban has now promised to honour the rights of its people especially women, and it is being said that they would enjoy the same rights that they did before the Taliban stormed to power.

Afghanistan: Afghan girls urge Taliban to not snatch their education

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, there have been numerous attacks against civilians and particularly against Taliban members.

The United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) is aiming to set up a system to directly fund teachers in Afghanistan without letting that money reach Taliban.<o:p></o:p>

UNICEF told news agency Reuters that the organisation is about to commence registering all public school teachers in Afghanistan, and make sure that the money they donate reaches teachers and young girls.<o:p></o:p>

UNICEF Afghanistan’s chief of Education&nbsp;Jeannette Vogelaar&nbsp;said that the best way to support young girls in getting their education is to support their schools and teachers. "UNICEF is calling upon donors not to let Afghanistan’s children down," she was quoted as saying by Reuters.

<o:p>Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/afghanistan-attacks-on-shia-minority-trigger-mass-exodus-to-iran-426615">Afghanistan: Attacks on Shia minority trigger mass exodus to Iran</a></o:p>

This announcement comes at a time when the country has been struggling to stabilise its economy under the rule of terrorist organisation, Taliban. The country has been plunged in economic crisis as the international organisations froze all assets of Afghanistan. The United States (US), World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have also seized loans for the country.<o:p></o:p>

Experts believe that the assets should not be handed over to Taliban as they fear the funds can be misused by the new government.<o:p></o:p>

While Taliban claim they are supporting equal rights for women and girls, local reports from the country tell a different tale. Women have been reporting incidents of torture, oppression and unfair treatment in education sector and employment. Women have been complaining that they are not being allowed to return to work.

<o:p>Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/afghanistan-controversy-erupts-over-shipping-container-full-of-coprses-in-kabul-426236">Afghanistan: Controversy erupts over 'shipping container full of coprses' in Kabul</a></o:p>

In schools and universities, girls and women have been asked to attend segregated classes, leave five minutes prior to men to make sure the boys are not tempted, be taught only by female teachers, come to schools fully covered and more.<o:p></o:p>

"We are working especially with UNICEF and some other international organisations…to come up with a good solution…we have meetings on a daily basis," Taliban's director of external programmes and aid at Afghanistan’s ministry of education, Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters.<o:p></o:p>

The United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) is aiming to set up a system to directly fund teachers in Afghanistan without letting that money reach Taliban. UNICEF told news agency Reuters that the organisation is about to commence registering all public school teachers in Afghanistan, and make sure that the money they donate reaches teachers and young girls.

The United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF) is aiming to set up a system to directly fund teachers in Afghanistan without letting that money reach Taliban. UNICEF told news agency Reuters that the organisation is about to commence registering all public school teachers in Afghanistan, and make sure that the money they donate reaches teachers and young girls. UNICEF Afghanistan’s chief of Education Jeannette Vogelaar said that the best way to support young girls in getting their education is to support their schools and teachers. "UNICEF is calling upon donors not to let Afghanistan’s children down," she was quoted as saying by Reuters. Also read | Afghanistan: Attacks on Shia minority trigger mass exodus to Iran This announcement comes at a time when the country has been struggling to stabilise its economy under the rule of terrorist organisation, Taliban. The country has been plunged in economic crisis as the international organisations froze all assets of Afghanistan. The United States (US), World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have also seized loans for the country. Experts believe that the assets should not be handed over to Taliban as they fear the funds can be misused by the new government. While Taliban claim they are supporting equal rights for women and girls, local reports from the country tell a different tale. Women have been reporting incidents of torture, oppression and unfair treatment in education sector and employment. Women have been complaining that they are not being allowed to return to work. Also read | Afghanistan: Controversy erupts over 'shipping container full of coprses' in Kabul In schools and universities, girls and women have been asked to attend segregated classes, leave five minutes prior to men to make sure the boys are not tempted, be taught only by female teachers, come to schools fully covered and more. "We are working especially with UNICEF and some other international organisations…to come up with a good solution…we have meetings on a daily basis," Taliban's director of external programmes and aid at Afghanistan’s ministry of education, Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters.

UNICEF aiming to fund Afghan school teachers without giving money to Taliban: Report

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