Fazl-ur-Rehman’s Further Claims Continue to Ignore Reality
Numbers can be a convenient shield. Say “ninety percent” often enough, and with enough conviction, and it starts to sound like a fact rather than a boast. That is roughly what Maulana Fazlur Rehman has been doing since he claimed that the overwhelming majority of the public, ninety percent by his own count, had rallied […]
Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme and the History DW Chose to Ignore
Deutsche Welle, Germany’s publicly funded international broadcaster, recently aired a documentary titled Pakistan, Nuclear Power at a Crossroads, examining the origins, safety and oversight of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Nuclear weapons remain among the most consequential issues in international security, and critical examination of any state’s strategic capabilities is both legitimate and necessary. The problem is […]
AFF Destroys Taliban Convoy as Resistance Expands
The reported destruction of a Taliban reinforcement convoy in Baghlan’s Doshi district, and the killing of four senior commanders in Badakhshan’s Zibak district, point to Taliban’s losing grip on Afghanistan’s northeast. Once treated as a settled matter after the 2021 takeover, is being actively contested again, and in ways that are difficult for Kabul to […]
Downing of Taliban Drones by Freedom Fighters Reveals Afghanistan’s Shadow War
The reported downing of two Taliban military drones over Zebak district on Saturday is, on its face, a minor tactical episode in a remote corner of northeastern Afghanistan. But set against the events of the preceding days, it reads as a marker of how far the confrontation between the Taliban and the Afghanistan Freedom Front […]
Supreme Court Draws the Line on NAB Appeals and Bail
On 24 July 2026, a three member bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan resolved a constitutional question that had been quietly building since the creation of the Federal Constitutional Court under the twenty seventh constitutional amendment. The question was narrow on its face […]
How Badakhshan Became a Tipping Point for Taliban Rule
Five years after marching into Kabul unopposed, the Taliban are fighting a war they said was already won. In the mountains of Badakhshan, that claim is being tested district by district, ambush by ambush, and this past week may have been the clearest signal yet that Afghanistan’s northeast has become the regime’s most dangerous front. […]
The Ghosts Kabul Didn’t Account For
Every newsroom I still talk to has spent the past few weeks with its cameras pointed at Tehran and Washington, watching a different kind of fire spread. It is an understandable place to look. But wars have a way of using the world’s distraction as cover, and Afghanistan has quietly used the Iran-US spotlight to […]
Badakhshan and the Limits of What Kabul Controls
Years of reading situation reporting on Afghanistan teach you to distrust the loud claim and pay attention to the quiet one. Not the casualty count a group puts out within hours, that number is always a negotiating position, aimed as much at donors and diaspora audiences as at the enemy. What I trust is the […]
Badakhshan Is Burning: Is It Becoming the Epicentre of Afghanistan’s Next Ethnic Crisis?
According to ground sources in Badakhshan, the province is witnessing a clear expansion of anti-Taliban activity, fueled by public dissatisfaction over governance, resource control, particularly mining contracts, and the growing influence of the Kandahar leadership over provincial affairs. Ground sources indicate that senior figures associated with the Kandahar leadership have tightened oversight of provincial governance […]