On July 14, a key Uzbek power broker in the plains of northern Afghanistan, Ahmed Khan Samangani, was killed by a suicide bomber who embraced him while accepting guests at his daughter’s wedding in the town of Aibek, capital of the strategic province of Samangan.... MORE

On July 3, 2012, the leader of a Salafist group in Kostanay, northern Kazakhstan, was convicted of recruiting Kazakhstani citizens and providing them with fraudulent documents to help them travel to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and join the insurgency (Interfax [Kostanay], July 3). While the Salafist... MORE

Perhaps one of the most important developments in the war on al-Qaeda in the last two years has been the gradual demise of al-Qaeda Central in Pakistan as a result of the war of attrition carried out by the CIA’s Predator and Reaper drones. Hundreds... MORE

Maulana Amir Hamza is one of the most important leaders of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) terrorist group after its amir Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. He is a fiery speaker and a prolific writer. These two skills enabled him to rise to a top slot in the... MORE

SAUDI ARABIA, U.S. AND INDIA COOPERATE TO CAPTURE MUMBAI “26/11” ATTACKER ABU JINDAL Syed Zabihuddin Ansari (a.k.a Abu Jundal) is infamous for being the “voice” that delivered orders from a control room in Pakistan by telephone to the terrorists who infiltrated Mumbai's Taj hotel on... MORE

Anti-Taliban leaders of the former Northern Alliance coexist uneasily with the Kabul government and NATO in Afghanistan’s north. There, China proposes to explore and develop oil and gas fields and to build a transit pipeline for Turkmenistani gas via Afghanistan to China. The coexistence in... MORE

Quietly and unobtrusively, a Russo-Pakistani rapprochement has been developing behind the scenes of world politics for the last two years. On Pakistan’s side, the almost spectacular deterioration of relations with the United States and NATO has led it to seek new friends, especially as the... MORE

In a pre-dawn attack on April 15, 2012, militants belonging to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) stormed the Bannu Central Jail in the district of Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP). In what is considered the largest prison break in Pakistan’s history, the Taliban successfully freed... MORE

The Afghan-American “Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement” was signed by President Barack Obama and President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on May 2. The impact this agreement will have on the Afghan conflict is not yet clear. However, it could affect Afghanistan in one of two ways.... MORE

China typically exercises caution when making public statements about terrorist attacks in Xinjiang. When China blames attacks on Pakistan-based terrorist organizations, such as the possibly defunct East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), it risks adding tensions to the Sino-Pakistani “all-weather” friendship. [1] However, when China blames... MORE