Indian External Affairs (Foreign) Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar presided over a UN Security Council meeting last week focused on threats posed by ISIL. Davood Moradian, Director General of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, briefed the UNSC and accused the Islamic world of being passive observers. The UN Secretary-General’s report highlighted the growing terrorist threat in Africa and the importance of […]

Qatar has played an outsized role in facilitating the safe passage and evacuation of U.S. citizens and vulnerable Afghans from Afghanistan. The Biden administration has been criticized heavily for its handling of the evacuation, with charges that it was unprepared for such a complex operation despite setting the timeline. Coordination among allies has been challenging and untold numbers of private […]

When the tears dry, it is worth considering why there is so much upset about the fall of Kabul (or reconquest) by the Taliban and the messy withdrawal of US-led forces. A large shield is employed: women, rights of the subject, education. Remove the shield, and we are left with a simple equation of power gone wrong in the name […]

On February 29, 2020, the US and the Taliban signed a peace deal following months of tense, highly publicized bilateral peace talks. The finalized agreement had four key points, firstly a staggered withdrawal of foreign troops over fourteen months. Secondly assurances by the Taliban that Afghanistan will not be used as a base to launch terror attacks against the US […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkey has held its first talks with the Taliban in Kabul, adding that Ankara was still assessing Taliban’s offer to run the Afghan capital’s airport. The Turkish leader said the talks were held at a military section of the Kabul airport where the Turkish embassy is temporarily stationed. “We have held our […]

The airport blasts could re-open the military option if the Taliban do not crackdown on the ISIS The ISIS-engineered blasts near the Kabul airport on Thursday, in which 13 US soldiers were killed along with dozens of Afghan civilians, have put the US at the crossroads. The blasts have put a question mark on US military withdrawal by August 31. […]

The Taliban has placed security for the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the hands of senior members of the Haqqani Network, which has close ties with foreign jihadist groups including a long-standing association with al-Qaida. Western intelligence officials say the assignment is alarming and undercuts Taliban promises to tread a more moderate path than the movement did when it ruled the […]

Not even heroin, opium, and methamphetamine will be able to solve the problem. No government — particularly one with only a shaky claim to legitimacy, none of it democratic — will ever enjoy a sudden drop in its country’s standard of living. That is something the Taliban may shortly discover as they try to consolidate their hold over a society […]

With the protection of the nation’s interests abroad entirely subordinate to domestic politics, it’s now almost impossible to maintain a prudent strategy. A sked for his opinion of Western civilization, Mohandas K. Gandhi wryly replied: “I think it would be a good idea.” We could say the same about U.S. foreign policy. We don’t really have one, but it would […]

If you’ve read the plethora of post-mortem reports on Afghanistan, there are plenty of enemies to go around, from corruption, to incompetent leadership, to 20 years of rosy assessments from our own defense establishment. For me, there is a single day that Afghanistan died, and it was June 16, 2021. I have spent my entire adult life studying insurgency and […]