Taliban’s Blame Game has Failed
Basir Mazhari, the Taliban regime’s police chief for Badakhshan, has once again pointed fingers across the Durand Line. He claims Pakistan is running training centres for armed opponents of the Taliban regime along the border. The timing is telling. This accusation surfaces just as the Taliban regime faces growing resistance, internal fractures and mounting security […]
Why May 2025 War Was Not a Deterrence Failure
There is a category error sitting at the heart of Sadia Tasleem’s recent critique of Pakistan’s nuclear posture, and once you spot it, the rest of her argument starts to unravel. She looks at what happened in May 2025, a conventional Indian strike inside Pakistani territory followed by a calibrated Pakistani response, and calls it […]
CDF Visit to Iran: Further Development in Pakistan’s Bridge-Building Credentials
ield Marshal Asim Munir landed in Tehran on 24 August, accompanied by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. The timing was not subtle. US-Iran talks had stalled, regional tensions were climbing, and Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces chose exactly this moment to show up in the Iranian capital with a full diplomatic entourage. When a country’s top […]
Inside the Provincial Capital: NRF’s Faizabad Strike and the Limits of Taliban Control
At 11:35 in the morning on 25 August, a vehicle carrying Taliban personnel came under attack near the Fifth Police Zone in Faizabad. The National Resistance Front claimed the operation, reporting three Taliban fighters killed, two more wounded, and the vehicle itself destroyed. What makes this strike worth examining closely is not the casualty count […]
Condemning Israel’s Brazen Assault on UNRWA and International Law
Israeli occupation forces stormed the UNRWA Qalandia Vocational Training Center in occupied East Jerusalem last week and forced everyone inside to leave. Staff were expelled. They have not been allowed back. Among those present for the operation was Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right settler minister whose presence at the scene turned a security operation into something […]
Resistance Reaches the Taliban’s Own Backyard in Kandahar
An operation in the Delawar area of Arghandab district killed a Taliban regime member last week. The Afghanistan United Front claimed responsibility, saying the target had spent his time extorting, harassing, and tormenting local residents. On the surface, this reads like one more entry in a long list of scattered attacks across Afghanistan. But location […]
Three Attacks in a Single Day Exposes Afghanistan’s Underground War
Three attacks, three provinces, one day. Kandahar in the south, Paktika near the Pakistani border, Badakhshan tucked into Afghanistan’s northeast corner. On paper these look like isolated incidents scattered across a large country. Put together, they tell a different story. Four years after the Taliban swept back into power, armed resistance has not gone away. […]
Germany’s Afghan Deportations Raise Hard Questions
On Tuesday, 3 September, a flight left Leipzig airport carrying 30 Afghan refugees back to Kabul. Germany had framed its deportation policy around a specific target: individuals with criminal records. German media covering this flight noted that many of those returned did not fit that description. This is now the 257th such deportation since the […]
Pakistan’s Turn at the Helm: What the SCO Presidency Could Mean
Shehbaz Sharif lands in Bishkek on 31 August. Two days of summit talks follow. Then something quieter but arguably more consequential happens: Pakistan takes over the presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. A bilateral stop in Kyrgyzstan on 2 September rounds out the trip. On paper it reads like routine diplomatic calendar filler. In practice, […]