Pakistan freed a hardline Islamist leader on Thursday, a week after removing his name from a terrorism watch list under a deal to end weeks of deadly protests by his followers, the government and his lawyer said. Saad Hussain Rizvi, the chief of a Sunni militant group – Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) – was released from a jail in Lahore city, […]

One major pillar of the international community’s engagement over the past two decades centered on strengthening subnational governance. After 20 years of an ambitious, costly international state-building effort, the government of Afghanistan collapsed in the summer of 2021 in a matter of weeks. The Afghan security forces’ remarkably rapid defeat earned significant attention, but the Taliban victory over the internationally […]

Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis urgently demands solutions to a ‘liquidity trap,’ stifled trade and blocked bank transfers. The U.S. government needs to urgently prioritize saving Afghan lives, meeting basic human needs and stemming the free-fall of the Afghan economy. The unprecedented evacuation of some 100,000 people from Kabul airport in August demonstrated what clear objectives and a whole-hearted, government-wide focus can […]