Michael Hughes: Even if the UN successfully intervenes to persuade the Taliban to release a Franco-Afghan reporter held captive in Afghanistan for nearly fifty days, it will not change Kabul’s crackdown because the radical movement understands the power of media. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called upon the UN to take all measures possible to get
Michael Hughes: The U.S. handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban to end America’s role in the war, knowing full well that doing so would make the country seem even more comfy to jihadist groups. So long as Afghan-based terrorists did not target the U.S. homeland, Washington could care less about other scenarios. If, for instance,
Michael Hughes: A newly-released World Bank assessment suggests economic conditions in Afghanistan are improving just as UN agencies are warning that the country is on the verge of “systemic collapse.” Making the dilemma even more mysterious is the Taliban’s lack of transparency – for if business is booming, why isn’t the cash flowing to those
Small War Journal: Proponents of Iraqi partition commonly observe that Iraq is the artificial dividend of French and British diplomats drawing arbitrary lines across their maps in 1919 and 1946. In fact, most Middle Eastern borders that match this description typically divide barren, uninhabited deserts, rather than separating long-standing population groups. Instead, this description applies
The Hill: In an attempt to moderate their international image after the fall of Kabul, Taliban authorities pledged to ensure security for Afghanistan’s religious minorities. These were false promises. In reality, the Taliban has used its power to remove Hazara leaders from all levels of government, discriminate against Hazaras in distributions of humanitarian aid and
Michael Hughes: The Taliban have much to gain – both economically and militarily – by enabling the Kuchis, Pashtun nomads, to seize land and build homes within sedentary communities in Hazarajat and other areas in the country’s northeast. However, the strategy is also pregnant with risk: for land disputes have historically been known to spark
Fox News: If I could prevent one teenage girl from choosing to jump from a rooftop rather than suffer rape and abuse at the hands of the Taliban, my time in Afghanistan, however long that might be, would be worthwhile. If I could prevent one family from being forced to watch their father shoved off
8am: Since the Taliban takeover, Afghan citizens have been dealing with many psychological disorders, and the mental health of millions has been damaged. Previously, with Taliban suicide attacks, roadside bombings, assassinations of government employees and foreign institutions, and other acts of violence by this group, the collective psyche of the society had been severely damaged,
South China Morning Post: As global geopolitics continues to be driven by great power competition, China will feature more prominently in the transnational jihadist rhetoric. Jihadist groups like Isis-K require a bigger adversary to justify their extremist violence and attract funding and recruitment. For the past two decades, the raison d’être of transnational jihadism was
Michael Hughes: General Mirza Aslam Beg as a chief instructor at the National Defense College during the early 1980s allegedly first articulated Pakistan’s version of the military doctrine known as “strategic depth,” which posits Islamabad’s hegemony in Afghanistan as critical in case of war with India. Many in Rawalpindi felt the Taliban seizing Kabul (again) was crucial