The quake’s epicentre was located at a latitude of 36.10°N and a longitude of 71.20°E, with a depth of 130 kilometers.
In the old and new Great Game, Afghanistan has held a central position. Peter Hopkirk, in his path-breaking book The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, chronicled the 19th-century geopolitical chessboard involving Britain and Russia.
There is an unconfirmed report that the US has redeployed at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. This base was the command centre for NATO and US forces throughout their occupation of Afghanistan.
Within Pakistan, the unforgiving regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan have had an especially violent ‘gun-culture’, for a long time. Bloody, inter-tribal, anti- ‘foreigner’ and familial feuds are a way of life, and often the family sentinels peer at their neighbours through rifle ports.
Afghan refugees awaiting resettlement to the United States have written an 'open letter' to Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to immediately halt their deportation to Afghanistan as the March 31 deadline approaches closer.
Sources said that they are hiding near the hometown of Amin al Haq, the former security chief of Osama bin Laden.
Discussions focused on safety, security and early return of Indian nationals stranded in Afghanistan. The travel of Afghan nationals, especially minorities, who wish to visit to India also came up.
The letters are a traditional Afghan method of intimidation. They were used by mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation and then by the Taliban as both a propaganda tool and a threat.
Amidst apprehensions of renewed upsurge in terror strikes, the top commander of the Srinagar based strategic 15 Corps of the Army, Lt. General DP Pandey has said that the security situation in the Kashmir valley is under control and there is nothing to worry about the fallout of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.
The U.S. failures were numerous. It degraded but never defeated the Taliban and ultimately failed to build an Afghan military that could hold off the insurgents, despite $83 billion in U.S. spending to train and equip the army.
