Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
The U.S. military retreated from Afghanistan two years ago, leaving behind weapons that are now turning up in far-flung trouble spots where terrorists are fighting and killing America’s allies. In markets that have sprung up across the southern and eastern badlands, where the hottest fighting of the war took...
The battle between Imran Khan's supporters and the powerful Pakistani military has this week been raging on two fronts - on the streets and on social media. And on one battlefield, the former prime minister seems to...
A mass of protesters pushing through the gates of the national army headquarters. An angry mob setting a senior military official’s residence aflame. Demonstrators looting a school run by a paramilitary force. Once unthinkable, the scenes of violent protest that broke out across Pakistan on Tuesday...
Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar is the historical birthplace and the political base of the Taliban. Now, the country’s second-largest city appears to be becoming the de facto capital under the militant group’s rule. Several officials have recently been transferred from the capital, Kabul, to Kandahar. Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah...
The bodies are piling up in Afghanistan as the Taliban claim to be wiping the country clean of a resurgent Islamic State in a campaign that should be music to the ears of the U.S. military, counterterrorism, and intelligence communities, which regard the Islamic State as a major threat to homeland and global security...
According to a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL), the US left behind weapons and equipment, including firearms, communications gear, and even armored vehicles which gave the militants a “vast war chest”. Pakistan always desired not to indulge in blame game with Afghanistan and had repeatedly urged the...
When the United States pulled out its forces from Afghanistan in 2021, it left behind around $7 billion worth of military equipment and weapons, including firearms, communications gear, and even armored vehicles. The Taliban seized the arms following the fall of the Western-backed Afghan government...
Pakistan is beset by twin crises. An economic meltdown, underway for several years, has metastasized into a full-blown balance of payments emergency. The nuclear-armed country is running out of dollars to pay for essential imports, such as oil, and help from the IMF remains stalled because Pakistan’s...
The major investments of China in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has been targeted by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and other terrorist groups. Nikkei Asia reported that attacks on Chinese projects in the area are also a kind of retaliation for the inhuman treatment of the Muslim Uyghur population in...
During the lull between Christmas and the new year, something alarming flashed up on Heathrow Airport’s specialist scanning technology. From the depths of a shipment of scrap metal, a radioactive signal. While false alerts can sometimes be triggered, this one was not one of them. Metal bars embedded with uranium had...