Afghanistan

The withdrawal of US troops on August 31 midnight began last year ended America's longest war, a military intervention that began in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York.

In June, the 15-member UN Security Council's Afghanistan Sanctions Committee removed two Taliban education ministers from the exemption list over the regime's curtailment of women's rights.

Zawahiri, who took over as the leader of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden's death in 2011, was killed in a "precision strike" carried out by the CIA at a safe house in the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan's capital Kabul.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, a key plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks who took over as the leader of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden's death, was killed in Kabul by Hellfire R9X missile armed with long blades aimed at killing targets with kinetic energy to minimise major collateral damage.

The Taliban were not kept in the loop. That's because the house in Kabul's high-profile Shirpur Square where the Al Qaeda chief was hiding in was owned by senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani's top aide

According to a senior administration official, Zawahiri was on the balcony of a house in Kabul when he was targeted with two Hellfire missiles an hour after sunrise on July 31, and there were no US boots on the ground in Afghanistan at the time.

Russian travel documents rank 50th, allowing easy entry to 119 countries. China scored 69th with access to 80 countries, India ranked 87th, while Afghanistan's passport is the least helpful, granting entry to only 27 countries.

India on Thursday resumed its diplomatic presence in Kabul as it deployed a team in its embassy in the Afghan capital.

A powerful earthquake has killed at least 920 people and left scores injured in Afghanistan's Paktika province.

ISKPsaid the attack on Saturday targeted Hindus and Sikhs and the "apostates" who protected them in "an act of support for the Messenger of Allah".