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IEA to establish a ‘much smaller’ military force: Muttaqi

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(Last Updated On: November 13, 2021)

Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said on Friday in Islamabad that the country no longer needs a large military and that not all former Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) will be re-employed.

“The army that was created by foreign intervention, we are no longer in need of having such large numbers,” said Muttaqi during a discussion with the Institute of Strategic Studies.

He was responding to a question about the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s strategy for integrating IEA fighters and ANDSF personnel into one military.

He said his country needed a small army “made up of people with fidelity and commitment and patriotism ingrained in them.”

Muttaqi was in Pakistan for discussions on numerous issues including the reopening of trade routes.

On Thursday, he also met representatives from the United States, China, and Russia, who were in Pakistan for a Troika Plus meeting on Afghanistan.

In response to the international community’s calls for an inclusive government, Muttaqi said the current administration is inclusive as it includes people from different ethnicities.

He said the international community is trying to force the IEA to include their political opponents, which is not the norm in other countries.

“We have never asked [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden to include [former] president [Donald] Trump in his cabinet,” he said.

On the issue of women’s rights, he claimed the IEA has not fired a single woman from her job since they came to power.

Human Rights Watch’s Heather Barr disagreed. She said: “Maybe they didn’t say to any women you are fired from your job, but they’ve certainly told many, many, many women that they shouldn’t come to work, and they shouldn’t come to work indefinitely.”

Muttaqi meanwhile said the IEA is trying to take a balanced approach in international relations.

“As for international recognition, what we are experiencing is that we are being recognized and treated as an official government of Afghanistan in our travels and in other cases,” he said.

“Embassies are open inside our country, and we have embassies and representation in foreign countries.”

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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