ISLAMABAD: The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday dismissed reports that Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob, a senior Taliban leader and the son of the insurgency’s late founder, Mullah Omar, had been killed in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar.
Yaqoob, 31, is Omar’s eldest son and in charge of the Taliban’s military commission in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
Reports of Yaqoob’s death could undermine unity within the insurgency and threaten a fledgling peace process to bring a negotiated end to an 18-year-long war in Afghanistan.
“This is an utter lie, which Kabul is spreading to hide its shame and defeat,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Arab News, referring to reports that Yaqoob had been killed.
A statement released by the Taliban on Tuesday also dismissed reports of Yaqoob’s death.
Afghanistan’s first deputy speaker of the national assembly Zahir Qadir had last claimed in 2015 that Omar’s son had been killed in Quetta, followed by quick denials from the Taliban.
The same year, the Taliban finally conceded that Omar, the one-eyed Afghan cleric who transformed a small group of seminary students into a national guerrilla insurgency, was dead. The Afghan government believes he died in a hospital in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi in April 2013.
The Taliban are currently engaged in a flurry of talks with representatives of the US government to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan. They have so far refused direct talks with the Kabul government whom they view as an illegitimate, foreign-appointed regime.
Taliban dismiss reports Mullah Omar’s son murdered in Pakistan
Taliban dismiss reports Mullah Omar’s son murdered in Pakistan
- Spokesman calls reports of Yaqoob’s murder an “utter lie“
- Rumours could threaten fledgling peace process in Afghanistan
Pakistan reports current account surplus in Jan. owing to improved trade, remittances
- Pakistan’s exports crossed the $3 billion mark in Jan. as the country received $3.5 billion in remittances
- Last month, IMF urged Pakistan to accelerate pace of structural reforms to strengthen economic growth
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded a current account surplus of more than $120 million in January, the country’s finance adviser said on Tuesday, attributing it to improved trade balance and remittance inflows.
Pakistan’s exports rebounded in January 2026 after five months of weak performance, rising 3.73 percent year on year and surging 34.96 percent month on month, according to data released by the country’s statistics bureau.
Exports crossed the $3 billion mark for the first time in January to reach $3.061 billion, compared to $2.27 billion in Dec. 2025. The country received $3.5 billion in foreign remittances in Jan. 2026.
Khurram Schehzad, an adviser to the finance minister, said Pakistan reported a current account surplus of $121 million in Jan., compared to a current account deficit of $393 million in the same month last year.
“Improved trade balance in January 2026, strong remittance inflows, and sustained momentum in services exports (IT/Tech) continue to reinforce the country’s external account position,” he said on X.
Pakistan has undergone a difficult period of stabilization, marked by inflation, currency depreciation and financing gaps, and international rating agencies have acknowledged improvements after Islamabad began implementing reforms such as privatizing loss-making, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and ending subsidies as part of a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program.
Late last month, the IMF urged Pakistan to accelerate the pace of these structural reforms to strengthen economic growth.
Responding to questions from Arab News at a virtual media roundtable on emerging markets’ resilience, IMF’s director of the Middle East and Central Asia Jihad Azour said Islamabad’s implementation of the IMF requirements had been “strong” despite devastating floods that killed more than 1,000 people and devastated farmland, forcing the government to revise its 4.2 percent growth target to 3.9 percent.
“What is important going forward in order to strengthen growth and to maintain the level of macroeconomic stability is to accelerate the structural reforms,” he said at the meeting.
Azour underlined Pakistan’s plans to privatize some of the SOEs and improve financial management of important public entities, particularly power companies, as an important way for the country to boost its capacity to cater to the economy for additional exports.
“This comes in addition to the effort that the authorities have made in order to reform their tariffs, which will allow the private sector of Pakistan to become more competitive,” the IMF official said.
