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KABUL:  Nine months of torture at the hands of Islamic State fighters, in which he buried the decapitated head of a fellow detainee, are written on the gaunt face of Afghan student Mohammed Yousuf. Just 10 days after he was freed not by Afghan or NATO soldiers, but by the …

Commandos enter Radisson Blu Hotel with hostage situation under way in the capital Bamako. Special forces stormed a five-star hotel in the capital Bamako after gunmen attacked on Friday and took 170 people hostage. “Right now there is action by Malian forces … in order to solve this crisis,” France’s …

AT-KABUL: The National Directorate of Security (NDS) in a special operation has detained a five member terrorist group in northern Baghlan province, the agency said on Thursday. The group was involved in destructive activities under the command of Ziaulhaq in Chardara district of northern Kunduz province. In a media statement, …

By Farhad Naibekhel-KABUL: Following the national employment program recently announced by President Muhammad Ashraf Ghani to create jobs, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MoRRD) has launched the first phase of maintenance program to provide 210,000 people with employment in 12 provinces. Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Nasir Ahmad …

AT-KABUL: A coordinated attack on the Arghandab district headquarters in southern Kandahar province ended after nearly one hour of fighting, in which five suicide bombers and a soldier were killed and six more were injured, provincial officials said. The attack was launched at 7:00am when a suicide bomber blew his …

AT-KABUL: The Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai and India’s Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Tuesday explored ways to expand bilateral cooperation. Jaishankar and Karzai led the Indian and Afghan delegations in the foreign office consultations in New Delhi. The two sides commended friendly relations between the two countries and …

Abdul Zuhoor Qayomi-KABUL: The Complaints Committee of the Meshrano Jirga scolded President Ashraf Ghani’s legal adviser for his alleged involvement in signing of the Smart City Township project with a defaulter of the Kabul Bank. President’s Legal Adviser Abdul Ali Muhammadi on Wednesday told the committee that some people were …

AT Monitoring Desk-KABUL: Germany has launched eight disaster prevention projects in remote area of northeastern Badakhshan province at a total cost of 16 million Afghanis. The projects were funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation through Badakhshan Natural Disaster Program (BNDP). These projects include construction of protection walls, …

AT Monitoring Desk-KABUL: Twenty-four girls’ schools that previously were closed by the Taliban insurgents, reopened in central Logar province, provincial education officials said on Wednesday. They said that tribal elders, religious scholars and the government had put their last-ditch efforts to reopen these schools. Education Department’s spokesman, Mohammad Shapoor Arab, …

AT-KABUL: Amid deteriorating security situation and intolerance, to build social, inter and intra-regional harmony the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) on Wednesday organized a two-day symposium on Sufism in Kabul. This year’s symposium theme was, “Merging Sufism, literature and Security Studies”, based on Herat`s history of political Sufism. The …