Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban will release 20 Afghan government prisoners it was holding, a spokesman of the Islamist militant group said on Sunday, the first handover since the beginning of a peace process.

“Today, 20 prisoners of the Kabul administration will be released by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and handed over to ICRC in Kandahar,” the spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, said on Twitter.

KABUL (Reuters) - The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan met Taliban leadership in Doha to discuss the need to reduce violence in the war-torn country, spokesmen for both sides said on Saturday, as continued clashes threaten to derail a fragile peace process.

The meeting between Taliban leaders and General Scott Miller, commander of U.S. forces and the NATO-led non-combat Resolution Support mission in Afghanistan, took place on Friday night. It came as the insurgent group accuses U.S. forces of breaching an agreement signed between the two sides in February.

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan government freed 100 Taliban prisoners on Wednesday as a first step in a peace process with the hardline Islamists, despite the group’s suspension of talks on a planned prisoner exchange crucial to moving to formal talks to end years of war.

Differences over the prisoner release question have been complicating U.S. brokered attempts to create a lasting peace agreement to end more than 18 years of conflict in Afghanistan.

KABUL, Apr 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) – An Afghan physician, infected with the COVID-19, died from the virus on Monday, authorities confirmed.

“With deep regrets, we declare the death of Dr. Hanifullah Hanif, specialist physician, internal medicine, at the Amiri Medical Complex, due to the COVID-19,” the private Amiri hospital said, in a statement.

Monday’s fatality brought to 11 the number of national death toll, while the number of infected people have risen to 367, as of Monday evening, according to official tally.

7 April 2020; AFP: The Taliban will no longer participate in "fruitless" discussions with the Afghan government over a prisoner swap that had formed a key part of a deal with the US, the insurgents said.

In a tweet first sent in Pashto around midnight Tuesday Afghanistan time (1930 GMT Monday), the Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen blamed the administration of President Ashraf Ghani for delaying the prisoner release "under one pretext or another".

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Mahdi Noori, a young Afghan refugee in Iran, was left jobless when the factory where he’d worked cutting stone was shut down because of the coronavirus outbreak. He had no money, was afraid of contracting the virus and had no options. So he headed home.

He joined a large migration of some 200,000 Afghans and counting who have been flowing home across the border for weeks — from a country that is one of the world’s biggest epicenters of the pandemic to an impoverished homeland that is woefully unprepared to deal with it.

KABUL, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Personnel of law enforcing agencies have arrested Abdullah Orakzai alias Aslam Farooqi, the so-called leader of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan along with 19 of his fighters, said a statement of National Directorate of Security or the country's spy agency.

Without providing more information, the statement added that details on how Farooqi was arrested would be shared with the people of Afghanistan in the coming days.

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan government will release 100 Taliban prisoners from jails on Thursday, said a senior security official, adding that in exchange the Taliban will release 20 Afghan security members.

The prisoner swap is part of confidence-building measures crucial for the success of the peace deal signed between the United States and the Taliban to end nearly two decades of war.

The release of 100 Taliban fighters is the first steps towards a subsequent exchange of 6,000 prisoners held by the Afghan government and the insurgent group.

FIROZ KOAH, Afghanistan, March 29 (Xinhua) -- At least 13 Taliban militants have been confirmed dead as Afghan forces pounded Taliban hideouts in the western Ghoon on Saturday, said an army statement released here Sunday.

According to the statement, the security forces from the ground and air stormed the militants' hideouts when they were planning to launch massive offensives at security checkpoints to capture Shahrak district of the restive province, leaving 13 insurgents died.

No security personnel and civilians had been harmed during the raids, the statement added.

KABUL, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on Thursday welcomed and supported an appeal from the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres for immediate global ceasefire to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.

All sides of war should give up war and focus on fight against the epidemic and protect the life of the entire Afghan citizens, the AIHRC office tweeted.