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Latest Articles about Afghanistan
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Assessing China’s Afghan Peace Play
Breaking with decades of distancing itself from Afghanistan’s various armed conflicts, the Chinese government has offered to facilitate peace talks between the Afghan national government and the Afghan Taliban insurgency movement. On November 29, Sun Yuxi, China’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, for the first time... MORE
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Turkmenistan Becoming Regional Railway Hub
Buoyed by its rising hydrocarbon revenues, Turkmenistan is using some of that income to reduce its geographical isolation by upgrading and expanding its railway network while linking it to those of its neighbors. The most recent development is an Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan railroad, scheduled to be inaugurated... MORE
The Terrorist Next Door: Pakistan’s Hammad Adil
Early on August 30, 2013, a large contingent of the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Islamabad’s Capital Territory Police along with officials from intelligence agencies, the Special Branch and Criminal Investigations Departments, raided the house of Muhammad Adil, a property dealer, in a suburb of Islamabad. The... MORE
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A Brief Sketch of Khalid Mahsud: Mastermind Behind the Attack on Pakistan’s Mehran Airbase
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told a session of the National Assembly on January 29 that his government would pursue peace negotiations with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in spite of a recent spate of attacks and named a four-member committee to facilitate these talks (Dawn... MORE
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A Review of Abubakar Siddique’s The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan
For decades, works on the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan were limited to an aging generation of Western academicians tucked away in ivory towers. These scholars carried out their field research in the region prior to the 1979 Soviet invasion. Few of this generation of... MORE
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Haji Najibullah: A Brief Glimpse of the Leader of Afghan Taliban Splinter Group Feda’i Mahaz
A clandestine Taliban splinter group claimed the killing of British-Swedish journalist Nils Horner in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul in March. With this act, Islami Tehrik Fedai Mahaz, led by Haji Najibullah, achieved the international notoriety that the group with its media propaganda has been working toward.... MORE
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Can Ashgabat Reconcile Kabul With the Taliban?
The government of Turkmenistan has begun mobilizing the country’s army reservists and has sent them to the border with Afghanistan. At least a few dozen reservists were deployed to the town of Serhetabad, (formerly known as Kushka) on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border. The border situation worsened... MORE
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Will ‘Dostumistan’ Be Established Near Afghanistan’s Border With Uzbekistan?
In January 2014, the chairman of the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan party, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a well-known politician and leader of ethnic Uzbeks in Afghanistan, made unofficial visits to Uzbekistan’s capital of Tashkent, the Kazakhstani capital of Astana, and Almaty—Kazakhstan’s largest city. According... MORE
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The Quetta Shura: Understanding the Afghan Taliban’s Leadership
The Afghan Taliban, formally called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has proved to be resilient in its commitment to imposing its own version of Islam. The hardline movement is steered by a dozen veteran leaders collectively called the Rahbari Shura, better known as the Quetta... MORE
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From Hardcore Militant to Peace Envoy: A Profile of Afghan Taliban No. 2 Mullah Baradar
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the CIA conducted a joint operation on February 12, 2010 in which they captured senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The ruthless commander was once the nightmare of the United States and the... MORE