Latest News
Biden ‘ignored advice’ on US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan: Khalilzad
US President Joe Biden ignored the counsel of senior US diplomats, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who urged him not to pull US troops out of Afghanistan without certain conditions in place, former Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in a transcribed interview released Wednesday.
Khalilzad — who helped negotiate the Doha agreement that led to the complete withdrawal of troops – testified that Biden could have stopped or altered the plan to remove all US forces from Afghanistan by September 2021.
“The State Department — or the secretary and myself, we wanted a conditional withdrawal approach,” he said. “But the ultimate decision was, as we all know, that it was to withdraw based on a timetable.”
Khalilzad said he recommended that the Islamic Emirate and the Afghanistan government at the time reach a separate peace agreement before US troops left the country.
“Secretary Blinken and I, I believe, did recommend that conditionality. That’s my judgment, that conditionality would be the prudent thing to do,” Kalilzad told the committee in his Nov. 8 interview. “But then the response was, ‘Can you get the other side – the Talibs (Islamic Emirate) – not to go back to fighting?”
In his testimony, Khalilzad said such an agreement could have been based on an early 2021 peace negotiation that Khalilzad said visualized a “peace government,” which would have given the Islamic Emirate an equal share of power over Kabul with the then Western-backed Afghan government.
“It was essentially kind of a power-sharing formula that our experts had put together in consultation with outside experts in which the government consists of individuals with ties to both – from the Afghan Government and the Taliban – and be led by somebody acceptable to both sides,” he told the committee.
He said that when reaching such a conditional agreement appeared unlikely, Biden instead decided to move forward with the pullout to avoid IEA attacks on US forces.
Khalilzad said the sudden lack of US support helped enable the Islamic Emirate to retake power, 15 days before the last American service member left the capital.
Khalilzad also told lawmakers that State Department officials had predicted the power-sharing initiative would not have lasted longer than three years without a continued US presence in the country.
He also said at points throughout negotiations with the Islamic Emirate, there were times he believed that the IEA “negotiated merely as a stall tactic to wait out the U.S. until its military forces withdrew to zero.”
Khalilzad believed Biden’s announcement in April 2021 to withdraw all U.S troops negatively affected the morale of the Afghan government forces. He explained that: “The U.S. withdrawal had a psychological impact and negatively affected the relative balance of power for the government. That’s obvious.”
Latest News
Tajik foreign minister urges international community to help Afghanistan address its challenges
Tajikistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sirodjiddin Mukhriddin, has called on the international community to step up assistance for Afghanistan as the country continues to face challenges.
Speaking at a press conference, Mukhriddin said Tajikistan and Afghanistan maintain active coordination between their law enforcement agencies to prevent security incidents along their shared border. He noted that this cooperation remains essential, as the frequency of armed attacks and criminal activity in border regions has increased in recent months.
He said that Afghan authorities had assured Tajikistan they would take necessary measures to stop further incidents and would conduct thorough investigations into any violations.
Mukhriddin emphasized that Tajikistan supports constructive international engagement aimed at improving Afghanistan’s socio-economic conditions. He highlighted that Tajikistan has provided more than 6,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, including food and essential supplies delivered in 2025 to assist communities affected by devastating earthquakes.
The minister also pointed to growing economic cooperation between the two neighbors. Tajikistan has reopened border markets and continues to supply electricity to Afghanistan.
Tajikistan and Afghanistan share a border of more than 1,300 kilometers—over 1,100 km of which consists of waterways and about 190 km of land boundaries.
Meanwhile, Zafar Samad Director of the Drug Control Agency under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, has said that last year, 17 incidents of clashes happened with drug smugglers along the border with Afghanistan. As a result, two Tajik forces and 10 Afghan nationals have been killed, he added.
Latest News
Baradar: Afghanistan is not an easy target, but a ‘bitter tree’
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, warned during a graduation ceremony for soldiers of the Ministry of National Defense that the Islamic Emirate will respond decisively to anyone with ill intentions toward Afghanistan.
He said the country is “not an easy target, but a bitter tree that has made the throats of empires bitter and newborns can never digest.”
Baradar also announced that in the coming days, the Islamic Emirate will introduce tax exemptions of one to five years for domestic and foreign investors, based on the level of investment in new sectors. He also said that the process of distribution of land to manufacturers will be accelerated.
Baradar called on countries to engage in political and economic relations according to the values and principles of the Islamic Emirate, emphasizing that energy and resources spent on conflict would be better used to support one another and strengthen common interests.
Latest News
Fourteen former Afghan government forces killed in last three months of 2025: UNAMA
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in its latest report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, stated that 14 members of the former Afghan government forces were killed in the last three months of 2025.
The report noted that during this period, there were 28 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, and at least seven cases of torture and ill-treatment targeting officials and personnel of the former Afghan government.
According to the report, some of the officials and forces who had recently returned to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan were among those subjected to extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and detentions.
The report also highlighted restrictions on women’s work and movement, executions and flogging of individuals, and disruptions to internet and telecommunications services.
-
Sport5 days agoHosts and heavyweights advance as AFC Futsal Asian Cup reaches semifinals
-
Latest News4 days agoTerrorist threat in Afghanistan must be taken seriously, China tells UNSC
-
Latest News5 days agoUzbekistan, Pakistan advance Trans-Afghan railway project
-
Sport5 days agoWinter Olympics finally underway, ATN to broadcast exclusively across Afghanistan
-
Sport4 days agoAfghanistan beat West Indies in final T20 WC warm-up match
-
Latest News1 day agoAfghanistan to grant one- to ten-year residency to foreign investors
-
Sport3 days agoIndonesia shock Japan to reach historic AFC Futsal Asian Cup final
-
Regional5 days agoPakistan sends helicopters, drones to end desert standoff; 58 dead
