LAST 24 HOURS:
Deputy Prime Minister Baradar called on security forces to assist with recovering past-owed debts for electricity of former officials and select departments within the government. We assess this could foment a heavy-handed response with a likelihood of violence. Involving security forces may also provide cover for additional search operations.
Another clash between resistance forces and the Taliban was reported in the Jozun-Gulogah valley in Faizabad. Reportedly, the Taliban suffered several casualties in the attack. The skirmish has not been confirmed as of printing.
We have not yet received confirmation about reported warnings issued by Pakistani authorities for their citizens to depart Afghanistan. However, we strongly believe it was a rumor started by loyalists of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sources at the main Afghan-Pakistan border crossings have reported normal flows of traffic.
Several sources reported an explosion in Kabul from a magnetic mine attached to a Taliban security truck. The report came from the 10th police district of Kabul, and several reports of sporadic gunfire arrived in the immediate aftermath.
NEXT 24 HOURS:
More fighting is expected in Badakhshan. New Taliban commanders are expected to be confirmed soon.
Uzbekistan has invited officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan to a meeting in Termez to discuss the long sought-after trans-Afghanistan railway project. While Uzbekistan and Pakistan have pledged to build their respective portions in Afghanistan, it is unclear how Afghanistan will finance the bulk of the line between Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad, especially with so many pulls on their resources.
ANALYSIS SPOTLIGHT:
China and the Taliban: Friend and Foe for Thirty Years
By Initium Media and Echowall
Behind China’s overtures to the Taliban in Afghanistan is the cold war of nation states and the absence of ordinary Afghans…
Afghani to the Dollar: $1 – 88.26 AFN (as of 12 APR 2022)
AFGHAN NEWS
Baradar Asks Security Sector to Cooperate with Collecting Electricity Debts
By Najibullah Lalzoy – Khaama Press
Deputy Prime Minister and head of the economic commission of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has asked the security sector…
Is Nonviolent Resistance Against the Taliban Possible?
By Omar Sadr – National Interest
It is a dark age for Afghanistan. The reemergence of the Taliban twenty years after…
Taliban seek to crush Islamic State as rival extremists morph in Afghanistan, Pakistan
By The New Arab
Basheer was a young Taliban fighter barely out of his teens when the Islamic State group took over his village in eastern…
REGIONAL NEWS
European Union Special Envoy for Afghanistan pays two-day visit to Tajikistan for consultations
By Asia-Plus
The European Union Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Tomas Niklasson, has completed a two-day visit to Dushanbe for…
Afghanistan will remain untouched by Pakistan crisis, says Taliban
By ANI
Taliban has issued a statement saying the political crisis in Pakistan seeing a constant soar…
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
‘Canada has left us high and dry,’ says former guard stuck in Kabul
By Robert Fife – The Globe and Mail
An Afghan security guard who was twice wounded and decorated for protecting the Canadian embassy in Kabul has been…
Watch: Iain Martin and David Loyn on lessons from Afghanistan
By Reaction News
Iain Martin talks to David Loyn, who was a foreign correspondent with the BBC for almost thirty years…
‘Here we are beggars’: Afghan refugees languish in Madagascar
By al Jazeera
Bibi Maria fled Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban killed her husband, a supplier for US and…