Iranian officials are carefully weighing their options after the surprisingly swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan amid fears of instability, a refugee influx, and extremist groups such as Islamic State (IS) gaining a permanent foothold in its eastern neighbor. Tehran, which has cultivated loose ties with the Taliban in recent years …

The events that the governments of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been increasingly dreading in recent weeks have begun to happen. The Afghan government has fallen to the Taliban and despite the Central Asian governments having had years to contemplate and plan for such an occurrence, the initial shock waves …

Joe Votel was only a few weeks into his new job as commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, the US Army’s elite special operations force, when Al Qaeda hijackers attacked New York. At his base in Fort Benning, in the southern state of Georgia, his secretary came into his office …