A senior UN official has said that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has maintained close ties with the Taliban despite the Taliban’s assurance to the United States to cut ties with the group.  

“Senior figures remain in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of armed operatives,” the coordinator of the United Nations monitoring team for Daesh, al-Qaida and the Taliban, Edmund Fitton-Brown, said Friday during a webinar on the future of Afghanistan as quoted by VOA. 

Following a dramatic surge in crime and security incidents in Kabul, First Vice President Amrullah Saleh on Friday announced that on the order of President Ashraf Ghani, he is taking charge of Kabul security for some weeks. 

“When it comes to the implementation of the law to ensure the security of the people, there will be no compromise or mercy on criminals in my dictionary,” Saleh wrote in a Facebook post.