As the Taliban shift their focus from insurgency to government, their most formidable rival is the Islamic State’s regional chapter, which has staged a string of bloody attacks in recent weeks. The latest atrocity claimed by Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) killed at least 19 people Tuesday, including a senior Taliban commander at a military hospital in Kabul, with dozens more wounded. […]

The Haqqani network has long been the most lethal and vicious element of the Taliban. Afghanistan’s newly appointed minister of interior and acting minister of refugees each have $5 million bounties on their head for their involvement with international terrorism. Sirajuddin Haqqani and his uncle, Khalil, are members of the Haqqani network, an Afghan Sunni Islamist militant organization that is […]

China’s establishment of military bases in Tajikistan reflects a shared concern with Central Asian countries about the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. Tajikistan is pivotal to China and other actors because it borders areas of Afghanistan where there is a small, but active, armed opposition to the Taliban. Regional and global powers no longer trust the Taliban’s pledges to […]

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have averted for now further violence by caving in to demands of a militant, supremacist religious group. But in doing so, Mr. Khan is allowing radical ultra-conservatism to fester, undermining social cohesion, threatening economic development, and giving militants a say in foreign policy. The government’s surrender to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan or ‘I am Present Pakistan […]

AFGHANISTAN The Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-KP) claimed an attack on a military hospital in Kabul that killed at least 25 people and injured 50 others. This is the latest in a string of attacks by the jihadist group since mid-August when their bigger rivals the Taliban seized power. The Taliban have raided IS-KP hideouts, arrested hundreds of suspected members […]

A Taliban military commander was killed when his men responded to a Daesh suicide bomb and gun attack on a hospital in the Afghan capital, officials said Wednesday. The Taliban spent 20 years waging an insurgency against the ousted US-backed government before seizing control of Kabul in August. Now they face the struggle of bringing stability to Afghanistan, which has […]

Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight. But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic […]

In an interview aired in the US in June 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Pakistan will deny US use of its territory for “over-the-horizon” surveillance of possible terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Now, there are negotiations for the US to use Pakistan’s airspace for military operations in Afghanistan, but is this really an ally on which the United […]

The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan is transforming the regional landscape and unnerving neighbouring countries. Central Asian countries face migration flows, humanitarian challenges and political uncertainty. The post-American Afghanistan also provides Moscow and Beijing, as well several other regional powers like Tehran and Islamabad, with opportunities to enhance regional engagement as the world moves towards multipolarity. China and Russia, and regional […]

The Imran Khan government’s secret deal with the banned group will get the latter off the streets but at a price. The government of Pakistan has signed yet another agreement with the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) after a two- week-long protest by the group, which killed scores of policemen and caused massive economic losses. It has refused to divulge details of […]