Middle East, Taliban | featured news

The father of a Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls’ education said on Friday she would “rise again” to pursue her dreams after hospital treatment.

The U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday it had frozen the assets of three Pakistani-based individuals suspected of backing the Taliban and other militant organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including one man linked to a failed attack in New York.

The brazen shooting of a defiant teen blogger has stirred the conscience of Pakistan, a nation plagued for decades by violent extremism. An angry chorus of voices in social media, on the street, in newspapers and over the airwaves has decried the attack against 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai as cowardly and an example of a government unable to cope with militants.

The United States handed control of the controversial giant Bagram jail and its 3,000 suspected Taliban inmates to Afghan authorities on Monday, amid concerns the transfer could leave prisoners vulnerable to further rights abuses.

An adolescent boy and a young girl have been beheaded in two separate incidents in Afghanistan, local officials and police said on Friday, in the latest brazen attacks that have raised fresh questions about a splintering Taliban.

British soldiers in Afghanistan are being forced to act as bait in an attempt to draw the Taliban into opening fire, a serving platoon commander has alleged. Soldiers are risking their lives to get round strict rules of engagement that allow them to shoot only if they are being attacked or are in "imminent danger".

The interior minister says the initial investigation into a bombing at a wedding hall suggests the Taliban and terrorists were responsible.

Denounced by some as propaganda and hailed by others as art, the anthology of poems by militants in Afghanistan reveals at times a surprisingly emotional tone. War is an ageless poetic wellspring, yielding wrenching odes to the white heat of combat, the longing for lost loved ones, the dust of graveyards.

While the Taliban publicly disavowed the new group, Mullah Dadullah Front, Afghan intelligence officials depicted it as a faction of the Taliban.

When it comes to negotiating with the Taliban, it's always one step forward, two steps back. Despite several serious rounds of violence this week, including the assassination of a top peace negotiator, the United States will continue to try to negotiate with the Taliban, experts say. Afghanistan has been violent for a long time, they argue. This week just brought more of the same.