Indian police said security forces killed five foreign militants early on Friday in a gunfight in Kashmir along the Line of Control (LOC), the defacto border with Pakistan in the Himalayan region. A joint team of Indian army and police prevented infiltration across the border by the militants, police said. “Five foreign militants were killed in the operation in Jumagund […]

A recent report by the UN has said the Taliban are once again allowing the terror group Al Qaeda on Afghan soil – one of the original justifications for the US-led invasion of the country, following the group’s September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington that killed 3,000 people. The UN as well as experts spoken to by […]

Communist China’s People’s Liberation Army has established a military presence in Murghab, Tajikistan, close to the Chinese border with Afghanistan. There is also no doubt that Russia’s embarrassing military imbroglio in Ukraine has helped China supersede Moscow as guarantor of Central Asian state sovereignty. [Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart] Tokayev has…. denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As the Kazakh leader is doubtless […]

Washington and New Delhi Share Interests, Not Values It has been a ritual for decades. Whenever American policymakers travel to India, they sing paeans to the beauty of Indian politics, to the country’s diversity, and to the shared values connecting—in the words of multiple U.S. presidents—“the world’s oldest democracy” and “the world’s largest democracy.” This rhetoric may be gauzy, and […]

Despite what seemed like a honeymoon period between Iran’s leadership and the Taliban, growing tensions have been brewing. Kourosh Ziabari explains why he believes this is a doomed political relationship. In August 2021, when the Taliban completed its takeover of Afghanistan after an impetuous US withdrawal, authorities in Iran mutely celebrated what they saw as an auspicious departure of a […]

The latest report by the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team regarding the peace and security of Afghanistan was published this month. Unsurprisingly, this report, the 14th since 2011, makes for grim reading. Running 27 pages long, it lays out in detail the growing transnational terrorist threats that have evolved in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over almost two […]

A recent outcry vis-à-vis the trial of 9th May offenders in military court has been used as a tool to intensify the blame game against state institutions. Use of military courts is not a new phenomenon in international politics. Such measures have been utilized in history by many countries including United Kingdom and United States to stabilize law and order […]

Special envoy of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for Afghanistan, Tariq Ali Bakheet, visited Japan this week for talks on humanitarian assistance and development projects in Afghanistan. Bakheet held extensive discussions with top-level officials from Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs including Kansuke Nagaoka, the Director-General of the Middle East, and Special Envoy of Japan to Afghanistan, OIC said in […]

The Islamic Emirate’s economy minister Qari Deen Mohammad Hanif met with the head of UNOCHA, Isabelle Moussard Carlsen, and asked for further aid for the people of Afghanistan in different areas, the ministry tweeted on Friday. While describing the need for humanitarian aid as vital but not enough, Hanif said the UN should launch development projects in Afghanistan. The ministry […]

In response to the annual report of the United States on human trafficking, which mentions Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Saturday on Twitter that “the propaganda of Western countries regarding human trafficking in Afghanistan is baseless.” “The Islamic Emirate does not allow human trafficking to be done in the country, anyone caught for this crime will be […]