Taliban

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban government has said it signed seven mining contracts amounting to $6.5 billion in investment, in the biggest such round of deals since seizing power two years ago.

The seven contracts are with locally based companies, many of whom have foreign partners in countries including China, Iran, and Türkiye.

Another group of migrants were detained in Strandzha region on their way to "Trakia" highway, Nova TV reported.

The group is about 40 people - men, women and minor children - who say they are from Afghanistan.

They claim that many other refugees want to go to Germany and France like them.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally in a former stronghold of militants in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 44 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack that a senior leader said was meant to weaken Pakistani Islamists.

Late one night two months ago, a team of Taliban security officers assembled on the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital to prepare for a raid on an Islamic State group hideout.

A ground assault by the Taliban killed the ISIL terrorist who spearheaded the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that left 13 U.S. troops and about 170 Afghans dead during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

US President Joe Biden's administration has blamed his predecessor Donald Trump for the deadly and chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021, leading to one of the darkest moments of Biden's presidency, the Associated Press reported.

As the Afghan government fell, there were scenes of despair at Kabul airport as huge crowds tried to flee the Taliban, the BBC recalled.

In a madrassa in the Afghan capital, rows of teenage girls rock back and forth reciting verses of the Koran under the watchful eye of a religious scholar.

The number of Islamic schools has grown across Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, with teenage girls increasingly attending classes after they were banned from secondary schools.

Current and former British military commanders have accused the Duke of Sussex of "making arguments" for Iran's propaganda machine and using his military career for financial gain.

 A top U.N. envoy met with the Taliban-led Afghan government's higher education minister Saturday to discuss the ban on women attending universities. Markus Potzel is the first international official to meet with him since the ban was introduced last month.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says it will commit $1.2 billion to the effort to end polio worldwide. The money will be used to help implement the Global Polio Eradication Initiative's strategy through 2026.