Michael Hughes: Although the Taliban at the moment may not need weapons from Rawalpindi due to the gifts left behind by the U.S. military, Afghanistan needs Pakistan as an export market, while Islamabad, for its part, needs the regime in Kabul to deny the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) sanctuary. However, despite these mutual strategic necessities, tensions
Monica Verma via Firstpost: If they can’t come back to India which was once the land of their ancestors, then where do they go? The fact that the Sikhs weren’t allowed to carry their scriptures by the current Taliban government to India and the fact that Sikhs will soon be an extinct minority in Afghanistan
Luke Coffey via Arab News: Firstly, allocate a percentage of the frozen assets of the central bank of Afghanistan to the resistance front to support and fund its activities. The US currently holds about $7 billion of these frozen funds. American policymakers should explore legal ways to divert some of them to the group’s political
Michael Hughes: The Taliban’s draconian gender-based restrictions are harmful to Afghan women and threaten to undermine the country’s entire health system, two new reports by medical experts revealed this week. The reports come as several governments and NGOs across the world ratchet up pressure on the Taliban to roll back restrictions imposed on women and
Xinhua: What Afghans say about U.S. aid to their country: -“America’s 20-year presence in Afghanistan had no results. All of them were here for their own interests.” -“U.S. gave the aid because of the expansion of its hegemony, presence and survival in Afghanistan. When U.S. left Afghanistan, it took everything away.” -“The U.S. presence in
Modern Diplomacy: After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, the Afghan state and the public rapidly declined. The country’s territories have become the source of international terrorism and many global problems. In addition to the economic decline, there has been a rise in drug production in Afghanistan. Drugs are one of the Taliban’s main income
8am: Taliban officials have called the release of Haji Bashir Ahmad Noorzai, known as Haji Bashar, as a sign of American goodwill and a “new chapter in the relations” between the Taliban and the United States. Haji Bashar is known in the media and political circles as the godfather of Afghanistan’s drug mafia. It is
Foreign Affairs: The Forces That Could Threaten the Taliban’s Control – Peering ahead, a renewed civil war could take many forms. One is the resumption of decades-long fighting between the Taliban, which is composed primarily of Pashtuns, and resistance groups based in the country’s north that tend to draw from Afghanistan’s Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek
Michael Hughes: President Joe Biden remains on the defensive over the administration’s handling of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, more than a week after the exit’s one-year anniversary, as Republican rivals sharpen their knives seeing an issue ripe for exploitation ahead of the midterm elections. With control of Congress hanging in the balance in November
Michael Hughes: A year after the U.S. military’s disastrously-managed withdrawal from Afghanistan, a train wreck of epic proportions that made America’s last days in Vietnam look sane, President Joe Biden is thumping his chest about his administration’s counterterrorism record. As he marked the one-year anniversary of the attack that killed thirteen U.S. service members and