When Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States formed the AUKUS on 15 September 2021, many countries in the world have raised serious concerns that this trilateral arrangement can further heighten existing security tensions in the Indo-Pacific because of AUKUS’ expressed intention to assertively counter China’s growing political power in the region. Like the QUAD or the Quadrilateral Agreement […]

On October 20, 2021, two soldiers and two Police officers were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in the Bajaur District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. On September 30, 2021, two persons, including a Pakistan Army Captain and a TTP ‘commander’ Khawaza Din […]

On October 20, 2021, pro-Islamic State (ISIS) media outlets disparaged the Taliban for collaborating with the so-called enemies of Islam, including Russia and Iran, to advance its interests at the expense of Muslims and for Sufis to practice their rituals, which are considered polytheistic by Sufis. The content coincided with Russia-hosted talks on Afghanistan involving senior representatives of the Taliban. […]

Despite their lightning victory in August, many Taliban are expressing disappointment, and disillusion, with what their sacrifice has bought. To be sure, there is peace today and relative security, a balm to all Afghans after 40 years of war. And Taliban leaders, fighters, and many Afghans welcome restoration of the self-declared Islamic Emirate. But the Taliban are fast finding that […]

A roadside bomb exploded near a police bus parked outside a university in southwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least one officer and wounding 15 other people, mostly civilians, a provincial minister said. The attack happened outside Baluchistan University in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said Mir Ziaullah Longove, provincial interior minister. He said rescuers transported the dead and […]

The Moscow meeting of ten regional states and the Taliban officials on Wednesday has produced an outcome that by far exceeds expectations. The salience of the consensus opinion is four-fold, as reflected in the joint statement issued after the event: Then, there is the ubiquitous geopolitical angle. Simply put, the Biden Administration has lost the plot. The Fox News flashed […]

Russia is moving towards excluding the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) from its list of extremist organisations, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, a day after high-level talks between Moscow and Afghanistan’s new rulers. Russia labelled the IEA a “terrorist organisation” in 2003 but welcomed the IEA for talks in Moscow several times before it seized power in Afghanistan in […]

The Taliban imposed further restrictions on female city government employees in Afghanistan’s capital on Thursday, barring many from returning to work next week in a sign that the group will continue to restrict women’s rights despite two decades of freedoms under the previous government. Neamatullah Barakzai, the Taliban’s head of public awareness for the Kabul municipality, said many female city […]

A roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying security forces in a former stronghold of local militants in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, killing four, police said. The attack happened in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. The area served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban until a few years ago, when the army said […]

Abstract: Six themes emerge from a close examination of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces’ (ANDSF) collapse in 2021: the ANDSF collapse was months—if not years—in the making; the United States did not give the ANDSF everything they needed to be independently successful; the ANDSF did put up a fierce fight in many areas; the ANDSF were poorly served […]