The Taliban say gunmen have killed 14 people in a Shiite-majority area in central Afghanistan.

The Taliban is rejecting concerns and criticism raised by the United Nations over new vice and virtue laws that include a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public.

The Taliban’s morality police are contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans.

The Taliban is saying the West should look past their harsh edicts on Afghan women and girls to improve relations.

The U.N. food agency says more than 300 Afghans have died in flash floods that also destroyed more than 1,000 houses in the northern province of Baghlan.

The chief Taliban spokesman says the Taliban view their rule of Afghanistan as open-ended, drawing legitimacy from Islamic law and facing no significant threat.

The Taliban's supreme leader says Afghanistan will be “ruined" without justice, in a rare audio message shared on social media.

A spokesman for the Taliban administration says it is trying to take charge of more Afghan embassies and consulates abroad.

Police say a Taliban-appointed provincial governor and two others have been killed by a bomb.

Two senior regional members of the Islamic State group have been killed in Afghanistan in recent weeks during separate raids in Kabul.

The Afghan Taliban have killed eight Islamic State group fighters and arrested nine others in raids against the militants' hideouts in Afghanistan.

A U.K.-based nonprofit says the Taliban captured, bound, and shot 27 men to death in Afghanistan's Panjshir province last month as part of their operations against resistance forces in the area.

A Taliban police spokesman in Afghanistan’s capital says the toll from a mosque bombing the previous evening has risen to 21 people killed with 33 others wounded in the attack.

An Afghan resident and police say that a bombing at a mosque in Kabul during evening prayers killed at least 10 people, including a prominent cleric, and wounded at least 27.

The U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri is intensifying global scrutiny of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.

A three-day assembly of Islamic clerics and tribal elders in Kabul has concluded with pledges of support for the Taliban and calls on the international community to recognize Afghanistan's Taliban-led government.

Villagers rushed to bury the dead and dug by hand through the rubble of homes in search of survivors after a devastating earthquake in eastern Afghanistan.

A Taliban official says a bombing at a mosque and religious school in northern Afghanistan has killed at least 33 people, including students of a religious school.

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have announced a ban on the poppy harvest, even as farmers in some parts of the country began extracting the opium from the plant that is needed for making heroin.

Officials in Pakistan are vowing to hunt down and arrest the masterminds behind a deadly mosque attack claimed by an Islamic State affiliate.

UNHCR says the Taliban freed two foreign journalists working with the U.N. refugee agency and several of the aid organization’s Afghan staff.

The Taliban and western diplomats have began their first official talks in Europe since they took over control of Afghanistan in August.

The Taliban are promising to try to open all schools for girls across Afghanistan after the Afghan New Year, which starts in late March.

A senior Taliban official says a group of Islamic State militants set off an explosion at the entrance to a military hospital in the Afghan capital.

The Taliban have ruled out cooperation with the U.S. to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan.

The United States and Pakistan have held difficult talks over the path forward in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan at a time when relations between the two countries are shaky.

Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders have met with U.K. officials for the first time since taking power, a move the group hopes will pave the way for the country to refill cash-starved coffers as it teeters on the brink of economic collapse.

The Taliban have doubled down on their hard-line trajectory in a third round of Afghanistan government appointments that encompassed a host of men named to deputy positions.

Taliban forces have raided an Islamic State affiliate’s hideout in the Afghan capital and killed several insurgents, hours after a bombing outside a mosque.

The Taliban say at least five civilians have been killed by a bomb blast at the entrance of a mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

The Taliban have expanded their interim Cabinet by naming more ministers and deputies, but failed to appoint any women.

The friction between pragmatists and ideologues in the Taliban leadership has intensified since the group formed a hard-line Cabinet last week that is more in line with their harsh rule in the 1990s than their recent promises of inclusiveness.

The Taliban's interim government for Afghanistan is all men and stacked with veterans of their hard-line rule from the 1990s and the 20-year battle against the U.S.-led coalition.

The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.

The Taliban say they have seized the last province not in their control after their blitz through Afghanistan last month.

Afghan female filmmakers who fled the Taliban are begging the world to not forget the Afghan people and to support its artists.

U.S. officials say a drone strike has blown up a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate before they could attack Kabul’s international airport.

Here are this morning's top stories.

Sharply divided leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies have clashed over U.S. President Joe Biden’s insistence on withdrawing from Afghanistan by August 31 in the face of the Taliban takeover.

A firefight outside Kabul’s international airport has killed an Afghan soldier.

Taliban websites that delivered the victorious insurgents’ official messages to Afghans and the world at large in five languages have gone abruptly offline, indicating an effort to try to squelch them.

The Taliban face a major challenge in cementing control of Afghanistan: Money.

As the Taliban negotiates with senior politicians and government leaders following its lighting-fast takeover of Afghanistan, U.S. social media companies are reckoning with how to deal with a violent extremist group that is poised to rule a country of 40 million people.

The Taliban have vowed to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists.

The Taliban have shot and killed the director of Afghanistan’s government media center after ambushing him in the capital, Kabul.

The Taliban are pressing on with their surge in Afghanistan and say they have seized a strategic border crossing with Pakistan.

Officials say the Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan has gained momentum with the capture of several districts from fleeing Afghan forces.

Afghan authorities say a bomb exploded near a girls’ school in a majority Shiite district of west Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 30 people, many of them young pupils between 11 and 15 years old.

Afghan officials say gunmen have killed a former TV presenter as he was travelling in the southern city of Kandahar.

FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2020 photo, a Taliban delegation arrive to attend the opening session of the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. On Jan. 31, 2021, Rasul Talib, a member of the Afghan governments peace negotiating team warned the Taliban that if they dont resume peace talks in Qatar soon, the government could recall the team before a deal is reached. Talib said in a press conference the team is waiting for the return of the Taliban leadership to Doha, Qatar, where a second round of peace talks began this month but has made little progress. (AP Photo/ Hussein Sayed, File)KABUL – A member of the Afghan government's peace negotiating team Sunday warned the Taliban that if they don't resume peace talks in Qatar soon, the government could recall the team before a deal is reached. Meanwhile, the Afghan peace negotiating team praised President Biden’s administration for its decision to review the U.S.-Taliban peace deal, saying the deal favors the Taliban.

Gunmen fired on a car in northern Kabul on Sunday, killing two women judges who worked for Afghanistan's high court and wounding the driver, a court official said. It was the latest attack in the Afghan capital during peace talks between Taliban and Afghan government officials in Qatar. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)KABUL – Gunmen fired on a car in northern Kabul on Sunday, killing two women judges who worked for Afghanistan's high court and wounding the driver, a court official said. It was the latest attack in the Afghan capital during peace talks between Taliban and Afghan government officials in Qatar. The Taliban and the Afghan government earlier this month resumed peace talks in Qatar.

Afghan Journalist Rahmatullah Nikzad poses for photograph in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 29, 2019. Nikzad , a prominent local journalist was shot dead by unknown assailants in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)KABUL – A prominent local journalist was shot dead by unknown assailants in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province on Monday — the fourth to be killed in the war-ravaged nation in just two months. Nekzad, who headed the Ghazni Journalists' Union, was well known in the area. The Afghan Journalists' Safety Committee said seven media personnel have been killed this year.

Tariq Arian, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said 45 people were also wounded in a late afternoon blast in Bamiyan city in Bamiyan province. Mohammad Reza Yusuofi, spokesman for the provincial police chief in Bamiyan, said there were two bombs that exploded in quick succession. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, said the group was not involved. The Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan has declared war on the country’s minority Shiite Muslims — and Bamiyan is a mostly Shiite province. The U.S. blamed the IS affiliate for an attack on a maternity hospital earlier this year that killed 24 new mothers and infant babies.

FILE - In this March 9, 2020 file photo, Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, attends Ashraf Ghani's inauguration ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February to end 19 years of war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad has sought to stress the economic benefits of the peace deal throughout his tour. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied contacts with Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, saying the insurgents were committed to the peace deal. The peace deal called for the Afghan government to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners, in exchange for the Taliban releasing 1,000 government personnel.