Saad Emirati was a senior founding military commander of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) who died in 2016 after leading the ISKP war against the Afghan Taliban, the U.S army, and Afghan armed forces in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. However, little was known... MORE

Muhammad Suhail Shaheen is the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar and the Afghan Taliban’s representative-designate to the United Nations. He was also a member of the Taliban’s 21-member negotiation team in Doha when it was negotiating with the U.S. These... MORE

Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki is the leader of the Pakistani-based militant group, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). The 74-year-old Makki is a U.S-designated terrorist and, under its Rewards for Justice program, the U.S has announced a reward of up to $2 million for information on Makki (Reward for Justice,... MORE

On July 28–29, Tashkent hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers. This was the final rehearsal before the SCO summit scheduled to take place later this year in Uzbekistan’s historic city of Samarkand on September 15–16. The foreign ministers of all member... MORE

Introduction U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya’s three-day visit to Nepal in May evoked a strong reaction from China. During the visit, Zeya, who is also President Joseph Biden’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, met with an... MORE

On April 26, Shari Hayat Baloch, a female suicide bomber of the Baluch Liberation Army (BLA)’s Majeed Brigade, targeted Karachi University’s Confucius Centre, killing four people, including three Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver (Dawn, April 26). This was the first ever female suicide bombing... MORE

After years of hiding, Muhammed Farhatullah Ghauri, one of India's elusive yet most wanted Islamist ideologues, resurfaced with a series of audio-visual messages. Ghauri's sudden re-emergence on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Telegram in early 2022 caught the attention of... MORE

In conjunction with the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP)’s push to broaden its appeal to speakers of Central Asian languages, an extensive and seemingly growing network of Tajik pro-Islamic State (IS) hubs has emerged using Telegram, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and other online platforms to... MORE

Since its seizure of power in August 2021, the Taliban has repeatedly asserted that it accomplished something the Ashraf Ghani administration could never do: provide nationwide security and eliminate regional transnational terror threats, the latter a topic of profound interest to Afghanistan’s neighbors, including China,... MORE

Following the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nupur Sharma’s remarks denigrating the Prophet Muhammad, several Muslim countries in Asia registered strong protests against India (The Hindu, June 6). The Indian Muslim community also protested in several cities, resulting in a tense communal environment... MORE