The Taliban has agreed to a 25-year deal with a Chinese energy company to extract oil from Afghanistan's Amu Darya basin, the first major deal of its kind by the group.
The deal comes as Chinese nationals have faced increasing security concerns as the country strengthens its ties to the Taliban, including an ISIS-K attack last month on a Kabul hotel popular with Chinese businessmen.
Some observers believe such attacks on Chinese nationals are likely to continue, pointing out that Afghanistan's"I definitely expect… similar attacks in the future, against the interests of countries that are attempting to forge close relations with the Taliban regime," Faran Jeffery, the deputy director and head of the South Asia terrorism desk at the Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism, told the South China Morning Post Monday.
Meanwhile, the Taliban boasted last week that its forces carried out an operation against the ISIS-K group responsible for the attack on the hotel, reporting that eight Islamic State militants were killed in the raid.
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