The Blind Spot in Afghanistan Reporting
International human rights reporting derives its authority from independence, methodological rigor, and a willingness to interrogate all sides of a conflict equally. That credibility weakens when access constraints, political realities, and armed actors shape what can be documented, and, more importantly, what remains invisible. This challenge has become increasingly apparent in reporting on the Afghanistan-Pakistan […]
Has Amnesty International Become a Spokesperson for Terrorists?
The moral authority of human rights organisations rests on a fragile tripod: impartiality, accuracy, and consistency. When one leg buckles, the entire structure collapses into partisanship. Amnesty International’s latest report on Pakistan’s counter-terrorism operations does not merely buckle; it shatters the organization’s own foundational principles, forcing a deeply uncomfortable question into the open: has the […]
Ansarallah’s Naval Blockade Raises Stakes Across Regional Energy Corridors
The Iran-backed non-state armed group, the Houthis, declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for what they called an unjust siege against Yemen. Energy security will face greater disruption following the announcement, as tensions at the Strait of Hormuz continue to rise. The blockade of Bab-el-Mandab is not a problem just for Saudi […]
Pakistan’s Enduring Political Culture
Barrington Moore Jr. (1913 – 2005) in his classic work ‘Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (1966)’ undertakes a comparative study of modernization in different countries including India. His depiction of India under Mughal rule is perhaps the first study by a political scientist. In […]
Afghanistan’s Resistance Is Picking Up Pace
Five years after the fall of Kabul, the story of Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban resistance is no longer one of a single valley holding out against an overwhelming force. It is the story of a slow, uneven, but unmistakable diffusion. It is a story of a war that began as a last stand in Panjshir and has […]
The Field Left Open
War has always been, at its most fundamental level, a contest over what people believe. What is new in the twenty-first century is the scale at which that contest can be waged, the speed at which it operates, and the negligible cost of the tools required to wage it. A state or non-state actor with […]
What Sepahian Mihan Front’s Statement Reveals About Badakhshan
The Sepahian Mihan Front’s statement on the arrest and torture of civilians in Lower Yaftal fits a pattern that has defined Taliban rule since August 2021. When resistance fighters strike and withdraw, the regime does not pursue them. It turns instead on the villages left behind. This is a doctrine of control through fear, not […]
The Third Round
With Iran and the United States once again engaged in fighting, the world is mesmerised by guessing what happens next. This is broadly the third round of regular kinetic engagement between the two countries, albeit one in which the world is plunged into hopes for peace and not war. It is because of several factors […]
UN Counterterrorism Official Confirms Taliban-AlQaeda Terror Nexus
The Taliban, since coming to power, have been under heavy international scrutiny, and for all the right reasons. The Acting UN Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism Alexander Zuyev has now confirmed what observers suspected for a while: that the Taliban maintain a nexus with Al-Qaeda and other terror groups. According to the report, al-Qaeda has maintained a […]