Encouraged by their success elsewhere in the country, the Taliban is attempting to take control of Hazara areas to prove it is a viable alternative to the government in Kabul.
Dozens of people have been killed in violence across Afghanistan, including in a suicide bombing in Kabul targeting a protest by members of the mainly Shi'ite Hazara minority, officials say.
Afghan officials say fifteen civilians and 10 elite force members have been killed in Ghazni Province, as a days-long battle continued November 11.
The Taliban are not ready to negotiate with the Afghan government, a Taliban member said at talks in Moscow on November 9.
Officials in Afghanistan say Taliban attacks have killed at least 10 soldiers and seven police officers as U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad opens a tour of the region to push for peace negotiations with the militants.
Craftsmen in the Afghan city of Herat have been making glass for hundreds of years. But with few tourists traveling there, and locals buying cheap imports, the art of glassblowing may be dying out.
The U.S. State Department says it is exempting Iran's big port project in Chabahar from sanctions in recognition of its importance to landlocked Afghanistan.
The United Nations says attacks and intimidation by the Taliban against last month's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan resulted in a record number of civilian casualties.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, in a surprise visit to Kabul, has called on the Taliban to participate in negotiations to end the 17-year conflict in Afghanistan, saying continued fighting in the war-torn country was "pointless and counterproductive."
Twelve newborns have died at a health center in northeastern Afghanistan amid an outbreak of "an unknown and as yet not determined origin," the Italian nongovernment organization running the facility says.
Afghan officials say at least 13 members of Afghanistan's security forces have been killed in a battle in Ghazni Province about 150 kilometers southwest of Kabul.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the United States will exert "relentless" pressure on Iran unless it behaves "like a normal country."
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