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Khalilzad’s Trip to Regional Countries Won’t Revive Peace Talks: MPs

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(Last Updated On: October 24, 2022)

A number of Afghan lawmakers on Saturday said that the U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad’s trip to regional countries is “pointless” without ensuring peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

Khalilzad is on a multi-nation trip on Afghan peace starting from January 8 – 21. According to the U.S. Department of State, the envoy will visit India, China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan during this trip.

On Friday, Khalilzad met India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale in New Delhi, where they discussed the Afghan peace process and the situation in Afghanistan. 
 In the meeting, Indian officials emphasized that the peace process in Afghanistan “must be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled.”

Following the matter, the Afghan parliament members also stressed on intra-Afghan dialogue.

“The hopes of [ensuring peace] have slowly turned into disappointment and frustration,” the Lower House speaker Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi said. “The fact is that the regional countries’ any kind of meeting with oppositions [Taliban] without the presence of representatives of the national unity government would certainly not help the peace process, but it would be more of heroism for Taliban.”

It comes as the Taliban have rejected repeated requests from regional countries to sit down in negotiating table with the Afghan government, insisting that the United States is their main adversary.

Though, figures close to the Taliban said that the armed group is ready to talk with impartial Afghans if the foreign forces leave Afghanistan.

“The Taliban are committed to peace talks,” said Sayed Akbar Agha, a former member of the Taliban. “Impartial tribal elders and impartial ulema from any sects can resolve the Afghanistan issue.”

The High Peace Council, meanwhile, said that the regional powers including Pakistan have changed their stand against Afghanistan and that assured of cooperation in the Afghan peace process.

“Pakistan has vowed to take certain steps regarding the Afghan peace process, and to convince the Taliban that peace is in favor of them and two neighboring countries,” the council’s deputy spokesman  Asadullah Zayeri said.

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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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