South East Asia

The war in Afghanistan — the world’s deadliest ongoing conflict — enters a crucial phase in 2021. The United States is set to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by May as part of a deal with the Taliban aimed at ending the 19-year war.

Tensions between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) once again came to a head when an improvised explosive device (IED) laid by the PKK in the Amedi district of Duhok killed one KDP-affiliated Peshmerga and injured at least one more.

As the U.S. military scrambles to meet a mid-January deadline to draw down to 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, a milestone in the conflict has passed almost unremarked: The combined NATO force on the ground now outnumbers the U.S. contingent. About 13,000 U.S. troops were deployed to Afghanistan as of the …

Pakistan on Monday said it has made it clear to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that Islamabad cannot recognize Israel until a “concrete and permanent settlement” of the Palestinian issue.

Lawmaker Khan Mohammad Wardak survived the blast but is among 20 injured including women and children, Afghan Interior Minister Massoud Andarabi said. A car bombing in Kabul targeting an Afghan lawmaker killed at least nine people, officials said.

Pakistan has returned $1 billion to Saudi Arabia as a second instalment of a $3 billion soft loan, as Islamabad reaches out to Beijing for a commercial loan to help it offset pressure to repay another $1 billion to Riyadh next month, officials said on Wednesday according to a report …

China has agreed to bail out Pakistan by providing it with $1.5 billion to help to repay a $2 billion debt to Saudi Arabia, according to the Express Tribune.

After more than a month of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government, progress toward a peace agreement remains slow.

A combustible mixture of political unrest, stalled governance and military meddling await the incoming Biden administration. Political uncertainty has descended on Pakistan as the combined opposition, seeking to dislodge the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, has gathered under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). While the conflict …

China has embarked on a grand journey west. Officials in Beijing are driven by aspirations of leadership across their home continent of Asia, feelings of being hemmed in on their eastern flank by U.S. alliances, and their perception that opportunities await across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean. Along the way, …