Afghanistan

On a Saturday morning last month, 31-year-old journalist Abdul Saboor Sirat took a taxi to a ceremony in his home city of Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan for “Afghan Journalists Day.” He joined around 100 people gathered in the basement of a cultural center. But within thirty minutes, the journalists meant …

The security situation in Afghanistan has been a cause of concern for many years. Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the country has been embroiled in conflict and instability. The Taliban, which was ousted from power, has made a comeback in recent years, and the security situation in …

The Taliban’s ability to lead Afghanistan remains questionable and ongoing instability has provided the Islamic State the opportunity for expansion. On April 25, 2023, U.S. officials confirmed that the Taliban had killed the head of the Islamic State (IS) cell operating in Afghanistan. Though his identity has not been revealed, …

Key Points More than a year and a half on from its seizure of power, it is clear the Taliban regime rejects the idea of a pluralist political order and seems determined to impose the same restrictive social policies as were implemented in 1996-2001.As actions intended to isolate and punish …

United States Counterinsurgency Operations (COIN) in Afghanistan and Iraq were significantly hampered by the haphazard manner in which the United States military deploys units to combat zones. Replacement in Place/Transfer of Authority (RIP/TOA) is the process of the outgoing military unit in a respective Area of Operations (AO) transferring the …

Succeeding administrations have a chronic habit of blaming their predecessors. The Biden administration has been most particular on the issue, taking every chance to attack former President Donald Trump for the ills of his tenure. But the effort to almost exclusively lay blame at Trump’s door for the US fiasco …

Two large attacks on police installations have rocked Pakistan, compelling the authorities to rethink their approach to countering militancy. Their dilemma is that the insurgents’ main supporters – the new authorities in Afghanistan – are also their long-time allies. Security agencies in Pakistan are on high alert following two major …

The new Republican-controlled House of Representatives has begun its investigation into America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike McCaul, best summed up the logic behind the investigation: “What happened in Afghanistan was a systemic breakdown of the federal government at …

New reports of US-trained Afghan special forces joining the fight in Ukraine, but on the Russian side, are emerging. The Wagner Group, a Russian private military contractor firm that has played a vital role in the battle for the town of Bakhmut in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, is …

Qari Fateh, the regional Daesh intelligence and operations chief, was killed during a raid in Kabul over the weekend, while senior leader Ijaz Amin Ahingar was killed earlier this month, according to a senior Taliban spokesman. Two senior regional members of Daesh have been killed in Afghanistan in recent weeks …