On July 14, thirteen people, including nine Chinese nationals and four Pakistanis, were killed and 28 others were injured when a bus carrying them to a construction site of the Dasu hydropower project fell into a ravine following an explosion in the Upper Kohistan area... MORE

Following the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan, local and international observers have raised concerns about the future of women in the renamed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. While the Taliban has a known history of oppressing women, this record is showing signs of change based upon... MORE

Anti-Taliban Resistance in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Finds Support in Tajikistan Jacob Zenn On September 4, videos surfaced of Afghan Taliban forces reaching the Panjshir governor’s office (Twitter/@hamimafghan, September 4). This appeared to be the death knell for the attempted Panjshir resistance to Taliban rule led by... MORE

The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan has sparked concern in Central Asia and Russia that this development will generate refugee flows into both regions and that among those migrants will be members of radical Islamist groups who might mobilize extremist forces within the five countries of... MORE

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan threatens to destabilize the North Caucasus for three interrelated reasons. First, the Taliban victory is certain to inspire Islamist rebel groups in that region of southern Russia to act, just as earlier Islamist victories in the Middle East motivated them... MORE

The suddenness of the Taliban’s victory amidst the final departure of United States forces from Afghanistan has intensified fears in Central Asia about the threat that movement poses to them. Consequently, it has sparked discussions across Central Asian capital about how they should respond—both in... MORE

In two battlegrounds 1,500 kilometers apart, veteran Chechen freelance fighters are being rebuked by those with whom they aligned against a common foe. In June, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group in the Idlib Governorate of Syria, issued a demand that the hundreds... MORE

With the ongoing withdrawal of the United States’ military forces and the consequent weakening of the Afghan government, the Taliban now controls much of the territory of Afghanistan and most of its northern borders, posing a threat to its three immediate northern neighbors (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan... MORE

Despite the relative success of the Syrian regime in stopping the advance of the armed opposition (with help from the Russian expeditionary force and Iranian-backed Shia militias), the war-torn country still remains a magnet for foreign Islamic volunteers. Over 1,800 Dagestanis from the Russian Federation... MORE

On March 11, government forces in Makhachkala, Dagestan, killed a suspected rebel. According to official sources, the suspect had been plotting a terrorist attack on government agencies. Reportedly, the authorities found a machine gun, ammunition and an improvised explosive device (IED) at the site of... MORE