Today in Pakistan universities have proliferated and where in 2000 there were about 1 million post secondary students, in 2020 there were nearly 5 million and they have expectations, and they are also more political. But it is also the 30 and 40 year olds, generations of Pakistanis who are frustrated with the lifestyle of the rich and corrupt,…

Militant groups are proliferating at an alarming rate. The last U.N. report on Afghanistan named scores of militant groups setting up house in Afghanistan, destabilizing an already fragile region. Well known among them is the Islamic State and the Tehrik -e-Taliban Pakistan as well as scores of lesser known militant groups. These groups are…

For Afghans to find their own solutions they need an engaged international community inside Afghanistan.  The more isolated they become the more possible it is for the most regressive among the Taliban – which it must be said is not a monolith – to impose tighter and tighter controls, which is what is currently happening.

When the world descended on Afghanistan in 2001, Afghans believed it was about them, about a better life for them. It never was. It never is, writes senior reporter Kathy Gannon, who has covered Afghanistan since the 1980s. Looking back at the second Taliban takeover in 2021 she looks at why the ironically named ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ of…