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U.S. drone strike kills 15 Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan
A U.S. drone strike killed at least 15 Pakistani militants in Afghanistan’s Gomal district on Wednesday, intelligence officials said on Friday, part of an intensifying drone campaign against Pakistani militants in Afghanistan.
Three Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed Wednesday’s strike in an area bordering Pakistan’s South Waziristan region.
“Fifteen dead bodies of killed militants will be shifted soon to their native areas in Dera Ismail Khan,” one intelligence official said, referring to a town in northwestern Pakistan.
Three officials confirmed the 15 militants belonged to the Gandapur faction of the Pakistani Taliban led by Mullah Fazlullah, who claimed responsibility for the massacre of more than 130 pupils at an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar last December.
Tracking of drone strikes in Afghanistan is patchy – many of them take place in remote regions and are not reported – but Taliban commanders say that fighters there have been increasingly targeted since late last year.
The strikes come a week after Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to end a blame game over a spate of militant attacks and work to restore trust.
Traditionally hostile neighbors, the two countries accuse each other of doing too little to prevent Taliban fighters and other Islamist militants from operating on their territory.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani made closer ties with Pakistan a priority when he took office last year, hoping Islamabad could push Afghan Taliban leaders to the negotiating table to end Afghanistan’s long war.
The relationship appeared to yield fruit in July with groundbreaking official peace talks with the militants.
But after confirmation of the death of the group’s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, the process was suspended and the Taliban launched a wave of attacks in Kabul, killing more than 50 people and souring relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s foreign policy chief visited the Afghan capital Kabul last week for a regional economic conference and also held meetings with the president, foreign minister and national security adviser.
But officials on both sides said peace talks with Afghan Taliban leaders were not discussed.
Written by: Reuters
John Bass, US acting under secretary of state for political affairs, will travel to Qatar and Pakistan April 26-30, US State Department announced on Friday.
In Doha, Qatar, he will meet with senior Qatari government officials and other diplomatic missions to discuss support for Afghanistan and shared security interests in the region, US State Department said in a statement.
In Islamabad, Pakistan, Under Secretary Bass will meet with senior Pakistani government officials to discuss a range of regional and bilateral issues as part of the U.S.-Pakistani partnership, the statement added.
John Bass served as US ambassador to Afghanistan under Donald Trump administration between December 2017 and January 2020.
A tripartite meeting between the delegations of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan was held in Kabul with the aim of connecting North Asia to South Asia and reducing transit and transportation costs among these three countries, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce said in a statement.
In this meeting, an agreement was reached on the creation of a joint technical committee to continue the talks.
This tripartite meeting was held under the leadership of Nooruddin Azizi, the Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, Vice President of Turkmenistan and Srik Zhumangarin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan.
Earlier, a bilateral meeting was held between the delegation of the Islamic Emirate and Turkmenistan. The ministry of commerce said the participants of the meeting discussed the construction of a large joint logistics center in Torghondi, the trilateral transit agreement between the IEA, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, the expansion of Afghanistan’s railway, solving issues related to Afghan transit and export goods, and a number of other commercial issues.
Acting Minister of National Defense Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid has said that no destructive groups including Daesh have physical presence in Afghanistan, adding the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) will not allow anyone to pose threat to any country in the region from the Afghan soil.
Mujahid made the remarks in a meeting with a delegation from Malaysia in Kabul on Thursday.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Defense, Mujahid highlighted Malaysia’s “good treatment” of Afghan refugees and its long-standing relations with Afghanistan, and said that Malaysia is a powerful Islamic country and visits should increase.
He added that with the establishment of the Islamic Emirate, occupation and war ended in Afghanistan, and the country is fully secure.
Based on the statement, the Malaysian delegation called Afghanistan a friendly country and while emphasizing on comprehensive cooperation, it assured that what they have seen in Afghanistan will be shared with the authorities of their country.
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