For more than two decades, Pakistan has conducted repeated counterterrorism campaigns against Taliban militants and Baloch insurgents in its western regions bordering Afghanistan and Iran. Yet the country remains caught in a
On February 26, 2026, Pakistani jets struck targets in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar, Paktika, and Khost provinces. Kabul retaliated. Islamabad declared open war. The international community scrambled for its talking points. But for anyone
MoreAfghanistan remains trapped in a deep and layered crisis, marked by persistent armed resistance, extremist violence, political fragility, the collapse of law and order, and systematic institutional repression. Nearly four years after
MorePakistan’s northwest faces a sustained security challenge, with Bannu district at the centre of this pressure. The area borders Afghanistan, where militant networks exploit terrain, tribal linkages, and cross-border movement. A joint
MoreThe January 19, 2026 suicide attack on a Chinese restaurant in Kabul, which killed one Chinese national and six Afghans, and injured at least another five Chinese nationals, was strongly condemned by
MoreOn December 27, local authorities in the Swabi District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province in Pakistan issued official notices ordering Afghan refugees residing in the Barakai Afghan and Gandaf Afghan camps to
MoreOn December 23, 2025, at least five security personnel, including three Afghan nationals and two Tajikistan Border Guards, were killed in a cross-border armed clash along the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, highlighting persistent instability
MoreOn December 21, 2025, a Taliban fighter, identified as Amanullah was killed in the Jurm District of Badakhshan Province in an intra-Taliban skirmish, when a confrontation broke out between individuals affiliated with
MoreThe history of instability in Afghanistan, and the recent outbreak of violence in Badakhshan, demonstrates that the situation within the country has weakened to the extent that the processes taking place there
MoreAustralia’s imposition of autonomous sanctions on senior Taliban leaders marks a decisive moment in the global response to Afghanistan’s ongoing human rights crisis. Announced on 5 December 2025, these measures go beyond
MoreOn December 2, Taliban’s Supreme Court announced that, on the orders of Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, a man, identified as Mangal, was publicly executed at a stadium in Khost city, the provincial
MoreThe late-November 2025 incidents involving Afghan evacuees from Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) exposed deep structural weaknesses within the United States’ (US) security and immigration systems. The attack by Rahmanullah Lakanwal – an evacuee who
MoreA senior military officer has told an independent inquiry that a cover-up of potential war crimes committed by UK special forces in Afghanistan appeared to stem from a “conscious decision” by the
MoreFor more than a decade, the CIA secretly waged an unconventional war on Afghanistan’s opium trade, using a highly classified program to airdrop billions of specially bred poppy seeds over fields in
MoreIn Afghanistan today, the mere mention of the Taliban’s “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” — the so-called religious police — is enough to send women and girls trembling. Ostensibly tasked
MoreOn Wednesday, a high-level delegation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, led by intelligence chief Abdul Haq Wasiq, arrived in Istanbul for the third round of talks with Pakistan. The discussions, between
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