Mohammad Saeed had just turned 18 when he fled to Iran with his parents and younger brother and sister, escaping the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Now Saeed and his family are among thousands who have returned home to escape the economic crisis in Iran triggered by the conflict with the U.S. and Israel. The family came back nearly empty-handed, Saeed said. “The Iranian currency had fallen so sharply,” he said, that the family’s ‌savings, held in Iranian ri

Pakistan has launched two new overland trade corridors through Iran and China, offering Central Asian countries alternative routes to Pakistani ports after Islamabad closed its main transit crossings with Afghanistan because of security concerns. The new corridors provide Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, with overland access to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan while bypassing Afghanistan. Uzbekistan has already begun using the Gabd-Rimdan route to

A delegation from the Afghan Taliban met with European Union staff in Brussels for closed-door talks that focused on diplomatic services and “dignified returns” of Afghans to the isolated and war-ravaged nation, said a Taliban official. “This was a historic visit as first time ever that delegation from Islamic Emirate visited the E.U. and held talks with member states in Brussels,” said Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesperson for the Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs who led the

[A] Taliban leader banned fiber optic internet in an Afghan province to “prevent immorality,” a spokesman for the administration said....