Afghanistan’s Taliban government is gaining international legitimacy while militant threats associated with its territory remain unresolved. Russia has formally recognised Kabul’s rulers, China is pursuing economic cooperation, and regional powers continue discussing
When delegates left Moscow on 5 October, they had little to show for the day. The eighth round of the Moscow Format consultations on Afghanistan ended without a joint statement. According to the account Pakistan’s side offers, it was the
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, one of al-Qa`ida’s most durable assets may be a name rather than a commander, training camp or
Anti-Taliban armed resistance is spreading across Afghanistan, with the National Resistance Front, Afghanistan Freedom Front, Afghanistan United Front and National Mobilization Front claiming thousands
Pakistan’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
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The 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
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On 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
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On 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
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On 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
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The 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
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Australia’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
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On 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
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The 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
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A 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
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For 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
More In 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
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On 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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The state cannot take Decisions abruptly overnight; it follows a series of processes to identify enduring strategic objectives. For that matter, viewing Pakistan’s October 9 strikes on Afghanistan as a counter-response to
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Water, the lifeblood of civilizations, is growing rapidly as the new instrument of power in South Asia. Afghanistan’s recent pronouncements about building dams on the Kunar and Kabul rivers are more than
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