On September 4th, the Iranian government gave the Taliban a week to say what has happened to the missing diplomats.
Shia Iran, mindful of a hostile Sunni Taliban as a neighbour and increasingly weary of the flow of drugs and refugees across its border, is hoping that its support for the alliance will improve its relations with Central Asia.
Shot in the abdomen, arms and legs, Hamidullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said he was in his fields in Girisk district of volatile Helmand province when a battle started between Taliban and a joint force of Afghan and American soldiers.
The assassination on Sunday of Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister who was negotiating between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents -- an attack that has been claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction -- would seem to underline this point.
In Germany, on the other hand, asylum seekers who want to be recognised as refugees have to prove persecution by a government and until recently Germany did not recognise the Taliban as a government.
The shooter was assigned to a small Special Operations Forces detachment working on so-called village-stability operations, a plan to raise local self-defense forces to protect Afghan villagers from the Taliban, a military official said.
The Bonn, Germany, agreement that set up the parameters of a post-Taliban government had a provision for peacekeeping forces.
The father of a Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by a Taliban gunman has been given a job in Birmingham.
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The military has begun to grapple with the mental and emotional strains endured by personnel who may never come face to face with a Taliban insurgent, never dodge a roadside bomb or take fire, but who nevertheless may be responsible for taking human lives or putting their colleagues in mortal danger.
Worse, the Taliban pose a possible, though previously unforeseen, threat to Pakistan's own security.
He has said he wants to negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban, a move that was welcomed by the militants.
This most recent statement went even further, proclaiming that the Taliban had a vision for life after the war.
But correspondents say the Taliban are a long way from being defeated.
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Since the fall of the Taliban, a rich and diverse civil society network of training and educational programs has emerged across the country.
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In Afghanistan, the question of the Taliban is a tribal one.
So was his playing down of the Taliban threat a foolish throwaway line, which reflected the brigadier's personal view rather than the consensus among the British military?
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U.S. and British airstrikes have cut off the Taliban air supply routes to the north, leaving the Taliban only a long circular route through western Afghanistan to supply the north, Abdullah said.
Reaction in Iran has been mostly congratulatory with reformist newspaper E'temad pointing out that the elections were held despite threats of violence from the Taliban - a positive sign in the paper's view.
Though the U.S. military sees progress in the war, pointing to campaigns in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand over the past year, the Taliban remain a formidable foe, retaining the ability to launch daily attacks, assassinating government officials and operating a shadow government in large swaths of the countryside.
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Claiming asylum in Belgium, he said he had survived a murder attempt by the Taliban - allegedly a reprisal for his having worked as an interpreter for the US-led forces.
Lt James MacDonald of the third Battalion The Parachute Regiment put himself in the firing line to identify a Taliban sharpshooter earlier this year - before leading a team to neutralise the threat.
Rather than seeing the ethnic-Pushtun Taliban as its best hope of a friendly government in Kabul, its policymakers would now prefer the Taliban to be part of a broader-based Afghan government.
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During talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week, Prime Minister David Cameron reiterated his calls for further progress to be made in reaching a political settlement, including elements of the Taliban committed to a peaceful and stable future for the country.
Coalition soldiers were targeting a Taliban leader in the Zabul province when militants fired on them, according to a military statement.
Four Afghan factions at the talks in Bonn, Germany signed a landmark accord Wednesday to set up a post-Taliban government in Afganistan representing a broad range of ethnic groups and regions.
There were no heavy machine guns, either, nothing larger than a Kalashnikov, which meant that the new patrol base could be outgunned by any Taliban soldier with a grenade launcher.
Detectives with Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch spent part of Sunday interviewing Michael Rimmer, a former high school teacher who described Abdulmutallab as a "very devout" Muslim who had once expressed sympathy for Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency during a classroom discussion.
But in strict military terms, the U.S. is withdrawing while the Taliban think they're winning the war, and the Afghans are reorganizing their politics in expectation of a Taliban greater power.
The following month, Afghan forces reportedly captured a senior Pakistani Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan, a few hours' drive from Swat.
Anarchy in Afghanistan, or a Taliban restoration, would leave it prey to permanent cross-border instability.
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