#Taliban

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There will be no more nation-building in Afghanistan under the “Trump doctrine”. But will its policies allow a role for the Taliban in a future government?

Islamists not only look at religion as a panacea to political issues, but also as a provider of social justice and an engine of economic prosperity.

In a country where terror strikes are commonplace, you grow insensitive. You don’t flinch at the sound of a bomb, you don’t jolt at the sound of a gunshot. Death tolls that don’t touch the double digits don’t leave you in a state of shock, debilitated.

Just days after Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP) militants attacked the Karachi airport, the U.S. ended its hiatus on drone strikes in Pakistan. Approximately 16 died in the strikes, according to Pakistan’s English-language newspaper Dawn. Both strikes targeted locations in North Warziristan. For the past several months, Pakistan has been drone-strike free, leaving the U.S. to focus most of its targeted […]

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a recently released prisoner of the Taliban, has become the target of one of Washington’s favorite games: shooting first and asking questions later. Much of what has been said  about Bergdahl is so blatantly partisan or so needlessly abusive as not to deserve comment. In the course of it, however, a couple of […]

Pakistani born British author, Nadeem Aslam, once said that “Pakistan produces people of extraordinary bravery. But no nation should ever require its citizens to be that brave.” Aitizaz Hasan is one such brave 15-year-old boy. Born and raised in the village of Ibrahimzai, Hangu, in the North-Western province of Khyber Pakhtunkwa of Pakistan, Aitizaz was […]

During the Bosnia conflict, reporters in Sarajevo kept quiet about at least two great stories. We did so with an unwritten rule of realizing that sometimes silence is more important than scoops. The first was most of U.S. knew ABOUT the existence of a tunnel from Sarajevo to beyond the lines that had the city […]

This documentary is all over the place. It is in part a history of modern Afghanistan and also a film about independent journalists – some of whom were killed – trying to report on the situation on the ground. Afghanistan is called “The Graveyard of Empires” for good reason: Every country or empire that has […]

by Jennifer Norris Americans who left the theatre watching “Zero Dark Thirty” thinking that the dark stain of torture is in our past, should be cautioned by our exit strategy in Afghanistan. As a 2014 deadline for ending our combat mission in Afghanistan approaches, policymakers say that our main objective is to prepare Afghan security […]

According to new media reports (here and here), the Pakistani army has revised its doctrinal handbook to give priority to the country’s burgeoning internal security challenges.  The change appears, at least on the surface, to represent a fundamental shift away from the “India-centric” orientation that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful army chief, has long […]