Abubakar Siddique, a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan.
Supporters of two major Pakistani opposition political parties, lawmakers, rights campaigners, and activists have expressed anger and disappointment after the lower house of the parliament passed laws granting the country’s powerful army chief a new term in office.
Afghanistan’s four-decade-long conflict has been defined by the intervention of great powers and the meddling of neighbors who have ostensibly pursued their interests by arming or fighting various Afghan factions or facilitating their infighting.
Across Pakistan, hundreds of families of people accused of committing blasphemy face economic ruin, their reputation tarnished and social isolation even if such accusations are based on trumped-up charges.
A string of judgments by Pakistani courts this year now poses a serious threat to the domination by the top army generals over the country’s fate for nearly six decades.
The prospects of such a peace agreement puts the quarter-century-old Taliban movement at a crossroads.
Afghan officials and analysts have contradicted claims by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. peace envoy for Afghanistan, that the Taliban military operations contributed to routing the Islamic State (IS) militants from a restive eastern Afghan province.
Pakistan has emerged as the new front for the global rivalry between the United States and China as the two powers jostle to shape the 21st century.
The Afghan president has that the Islamic State (IS) militants have been crushed in a restive eastern province where they have controlled large swathes of territories for many years.
Clerics and tribal leaders in an eastern Afghan province want authorities to rebuild and expand madrasahs, or religious schools, to prevent local youth from seeking Islamic education abroad.
For decades, Pakistan’s powerful military has shaped politics by imposing dictatorships and persecuting politicians. When not ruling directly, it has been frequently accused of manipulating political parties, elections, and civilian governments.
A growing number of Kabul residents are turning to bicycles to get around the Afghan capital where many downtown roads are clogged during rush hours and sometimes even at other times of the day.
The Pakistani Supreme Court has suspended a ruling by the high court in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province that could have led to the release of thousands of victims of forced disappearances and indefinite detentions.
The Pakistani government appears to be employing a range of tactics to prevent a major opposition protest aimed at toppling the administration of Prime Minister Imran Khan from reaching the capital, Islamabad.
The worsening economic conditions in Pakistan are helping an Islamist political party to threaten the survival of the country’s civilian government.
A large number of the more than 10,000 Waziristan families who fled into the adjacent southeastern Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika in 2014 are waiting to be allowed back into their homeland.
Their stateless status prevents Afghanistan's tiny Jogi minority from owning property, building business, accessing jobs, education, healthcare, other services, and fundamental rights.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s civilian government is facing an unprecedented protest aimed at toppling his administration.
Two leading Pakistani opposition political parties seem noncommittal about joining an Islamist political party in an all-out protest aimed at toppling Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government this month.
One of the frontrunners for Afghanistan’s presidency is carefully playing his cards as he presses for victory in another election apparently snowballing into a dispute between the leading candidates.
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