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.
A year ago, India was not happy about the state of affairs in Afghanistan. The U.S. was negotiating its exit. The Taliban was consolidating power. And decades of India supporting anti-Taliban forces was evaporating. But just last month, Indian officials went to Kabul to meet with Taliban leaders. India has also partially...
Nearly a decade ago, life and death was not just a state of being and nothingness for the Karachi-based Aurangzeb Alai of the Awami National Party (ANP). He was part of a cat and mouse game, where his very survival was at stake. The game was simple. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) would have to kill him to...
Since taking power last summer, Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government has been isolated internationally; not a single country has yet recognized it. But in recent weeks, Taliban officials have made a series of increasingly public overtures to a once unlikely prospective partner: India. And the interest has been...
A year after Pakistan’s powerful army chief unveiled a foreign policy shift away from confrontation with its neighbours, Islamabad is waging its largest crackdown against jihadist groups involved in terrorist attacks against India since the 1990s. Driven by the threat of...
Asfandyar Mir of the U.S. Institute of Peace and Daniel Byman of Lawfare, Brookings, and Georgetown, are both analysts of al-Qaeda and terrorist groups. They have a different analysis, however, of how al-Qaeda is faring in the current world. Rather than...
Until a few months ago, then Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ‘digital warriors’ were at the forefront of propagating Pakistan’s state narrative on national security and foreign policy. Digital strategy became a “regular feature” on the agenda of...
They exchanged views on “strengthening mutually beneficial, broad based relationship” and “promotion of peace, development and security”
“Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban are teetering on the brink of a major crisis,” Afandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a Washington-based US government think tank, noted in a recent commentary. “After taking over the country, the Taliban gave the TTP de-facto political asylum. The TTP has used its improved political status in Afghanistan to step-up cross-border attacks and is now regularly sending fighters into Pakistan,” Mir said
At least 100 people have died in terrorist attacks over the past two weeks, as the Islamic State targets minorities in Afghanistan and aims to undermine the Taliban government.
The airstrikes killed at least 45 people, stoking fears of a violent resurgence of the conflict in eastern Afghanistan, which has become a base for Pakistani militants.