Taliban have absorbed former fighters from various terrorist groups into their local security forces to draw on their combat experience, a United Nations sanctions monitoring report says, warning that the practice raises concerns about infiltration and ideological alignment within their ranks. In its latest comprehensive report covering developments through Dec. 8, 2025, the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said […]

The resumption of direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi in December 2025 is more than a matter of convenience. It symbolizes a broader recalibration in South Asian geopolitics following Bangladesh’s student-led uprising of 2024, which toppled Sheikh Hasina’s long-standing regime and ushered Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus into interim leadership. Against this backdrop, Dhaka’s foreign policy is shifting away from its […]

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Wednesday that Mohammad Reza Bahrami, Director General for South Asia at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has invited the Islamic Emirate’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to visit Tehran. According to the ministry, the invitation was extended during Bahrami’s official visit to Kabul, where he met with Muttaqi. During the meeting, Bahrami briefed […]

In early November, Sajid Akram, 50, and his bricklayer son Naveed, 24, travelled from Australia to the Philippines. Their destination was Davao, a city in Mindanao, the second-largest of the Philippines’ many thousands of islands — and a region in which the notorious terror organisation Islamic State is regrouping. Here, the Akrams spent four weeks receiving military-style training. When they […]

On 10 December 2025, U.S. forces seized the oil tanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela, carrying over a million barrels of crude. “Well, we keep [the oil],” President Trump told reporters. Venezuela’s foreign ministry called it “blatant theft and an act of international piracy,” adding: “The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed. It […]

Earlier this year, after U.S. President Donald Trump effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world’s largest bilateral aid program, many observers raised fears that China would step in to fill the geopolitical vacuum. USAID, after all, had served as a key tool of U.S. diplomacy for more than six decades, and the American retreat has created […]

Tajikistan has accused armed groups operating from Afghanistan of carrying out two deadly cross-border attacks over the past week, leaving five people dead and five others injured in what officials describe as a dangerous escalation along Central Asia’s most volatile frontiers. The announcement came through the Tajik presidential press service on Monday, which said President Emomalu Rahmon convened an emergency […]

Abdul Rahman Munir, the Deputy Minister for Counter-Narcotics at the Ministry of Interior, said on Saturday at the meeting of the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre for Combating Drugs (CARICC) in Uzbekistan that the cultivation, trafficking, and sale of narcotics in Afghanistan have “almost dropped to zero.” Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, said in […]

The December 2025 meeting between Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi in Delhi came at a moment when Russia continues to face Western economic pressure and India is navigating a shifting multipolar environment. The visit reaffirmed the long-standing depth of India–Russia relations, while also revealing the structural constraints that now shape the partnership. Public statements from both governments reiterated ongoing cooperation […]

Tajikistan said on Monday that five people were killed and five others wounded over the past week in two separate shooting incidents originating from inside Afghan territory, marking a further escalation in security concerns along the Central Asian nation’s southern frontier. In a statement, the presidential office said President Emomali Rahmon reviewed the situation with security officials and described the […]