In August 2021, following nearly two decades of armed resistance, the Taliban movement forced their way to power in Afghanistan, coinciding with the withdrawal of international troops from the country. Following their return media attention and international policy discussions have, correctly, focused on the deteriorating economic situation, the looming humanitarian …
Read More »Hamas’s Useful Idiots in the U.S., Europe
These demonstrators, who appear to feel so virtuous, send a message to the terrorist groups that people in the West happily support violence, terrorism and the Jihad (holy war) not only against Israel and Jews, but also against Christians, all “infidels,” Europe, the United States and the West. Although many …
Read More »In a Major Rift, Pakistan Ramps Up Pressure on the Taliban
Tensions over anti-Pakistan TTP terrorist group, expulsion of Afghan refugees will have implications for U.S. interests. On November 8, in an unprecedented press conference, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar offered a blistering critique of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He announced that the Taliban leadership was supporting the …
Read More »Cost of Trans-Afghan railway project estimated at $7 billion
Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan estimate the cost of construction of the Trans-Afghan railway at almost $7 billion, Kun.uz News Agency reported on Thursday. Recently, the head of the Ministry of Transport, Ilkhom Mahkamov, held negotiations in Pakistan with local industry departments and large transport and logistics companies NLC-Logistics and TCS, …
Read More »Iran says Mossad drone attack foiled, 3 ‘agents’ arrested
Iran said on Sunday that it foiled a Mossad drone attack in eastern Iran after arresting three local agents of the Israeli spy agency in a joint operation with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) near its eastern borders with Afghanistan. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in cooperation with Afghanistan’s IEA “neutralized …
Read More »Taliban Leaders Conspicuously Silent on Israel-Hamas War in Gaza
Amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has been notably quiet on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza — in sharp contrast to the fervent, daily anti-Israel comments from neighboring Iran. While Akhundzada has no public-facing digital accounts, his edicts and statements …
Read More »Learning from Failed Peace Efforts in Afghanistan
The United States should be applying lessons for when and how to negotiate with adversaries to other conflicts — starting with Ukraine. Over the course of 20 years, the United States made strategic mistakes in its war with the Taliban that helped fuel the insurgency and likely precluded an earlier …
Read More »China Courts The Taliban – Analysis
On September 13, China’s newly appointed ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Xing, arrived at the presidential palace in Kabul to present his credentials to the acting prime minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Mohammad Hassan Akhund. Uniformed Taliban members welcomed him to the palace in a grand theatrical ceremony. While …
Read More »Beijing And Kabul Sans Islamabad – Analysis
Right from the inception of Pakistan, it has had the insatiable desire to keep Afghanistan under its tacit control; anything and everything for Afghanistan should go through Pakistan. Pakistan, from the 1980s, increasingly meddled in the affairs of Afghanistan. From training and nurturing the Taliban in the early 1990s to …
Read More »Two Years Under the Taliban: Is Afghanistan a Terrorist Safe Haven Once Again?
The Taliban have enabled some terrorist groups and reined in others, elevating longstanding concerns for U.S. policy. Two years into Taliban rule, the question of whether Afghanistan would once again become a safe haven for international terrorism remains alive. Longstanding fears were affirmed a little over a year ago, when …
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