Introduction On June 10, the Foreign Office in Islamabad received a diplomatic communication from the Pakistani ambassador in Beijing (The News, June 13). China assured Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced former PM Imran Khan in April, that it is eager to work with... MORE

When the ethnic Baluch separatist insurgent group, Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for a female suicide attack by Shari Baloch in the southern port city of Karachi on April 26, it asserted that the attack was against projects launched by Beijing and Islamabad in... MORE

On June 18, Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) militants attacked a Sikh place of worship, or gurdwara, in Kabul, killing two people, although Islamic State (IS) touted a much higher casualty total (The Hindu, June 19). IS formally claimed the operation through its Amaq... MORE

As the Ukraine war has entered its fifth month, and two decades after Iran, Russia and India signed the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in 2002, Dariush Jamali, head of the Iranian-Russian Port of Solyanka in Astrakhan Oblast, announced that the first transit shipment from... MORE

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has clearly lost momentum, but the intensity of its multi-prong confrontation with the West keeps rising. Russian military command announced an “operational pause” in Donbas after the hard battles for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, implicitly admitting that a regrouping of battalions, which... MORE

The April 27 female suicide attack by Shari Baloch targeting Karachi University’s Confucius Institute underscored a turning point in the operational tactics of the Baluch insurgents from hit-and-run guerrilla operations to suicide attacks. The suicide attack was preceded by near-simultaneous gun-and-suicide assaults on the paramilitary... MORE

The Taliban government in Afghanistan is facilitating ongoing negotiations between Pakistan and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the “Pakistani Taliban,” to forge a peace deal between the two parties (Twitter/@Zabehulah_M33, May 18). The Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, made it clear there was significant progress... MORE

Taliban Outreach to India and China Indicates New Diplomatic Phase In the Taliban’s continued quest to gain international legitimacy and abandon its reputation for “terrorism,” it has been increasingly establishing and improving diplomatic relations with regional neighbors, China and India. The earthquake that struck Afghanistan’s... MORE

After implementing a number of trans-Eurasian energy and logistics mega-projects, such as the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, Southern Gas Corridor and Trans-Caspian International Transportation Route, Azerbaijan has also strategically committed itself to policies designed to turn the South Caucasus country into a regional digital hub (see... MORE

In the ten months since seizing power in Afghanistan, the Taliban has consistently stressed that its political control has eliminated armed unrest in the country. But undercutting the mullahcracy’s confident assertions is ongoing resistance centered in the northern Panjshir and Baghlan provinces. Last month (May),... MORE