Abubakar Siddique, a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan.
Will addressing the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement's demands help Pakistan achieve greater stability, harmony among its diverse population, greater democratization, and establishing the rule of law?
Censorship appears to be increasingly gripping Pakistani media as journalists, watchdogs, and media organizations blame attempts by the country’s powerful military to silence critics and prevent the coverage of protests that criticize its policies and actions.
A new movement demanding security for Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun minority is transforming into a nationalist struggle with long-term consequences for the country’s politics, security, society, and foreign policy.
Government forces and insurgents are using access to irrigation water as leverage to pressure civilians into supporting them or force their opponents out of their villages and communities.
Pakistanis have spent weeks debating a set of goals reportedly outlined by the country’s powerful military chief.
Lawmakers in a restive northeastern province in Afghanistan say Taliban control has deprived hundreds of thousands of students from going to schools.
Hundreds of Afghan men and women are participating in an unprecedented protest to push the warring sides in Afghanistan to cease hostilities and conclude peace.
The Taliban and the Afghan government, along with its Western allies — the key parties to the conflict — are at odds over who should be talking to whom.
Leaders of the newly formed Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) or Movement for the Protection of Pashtuns, say they are facing a range of pressures and tactics.
In a public speech marking the onset of the Persian new year on March 21, Atta Mohammad Noor told residents of northern Balkh Province that he had reached an agreement with President Ashraf Ghani that will see him leave his post after 14 years.
Religious scholars have joined government officials in a remote eastern province to convince the insurgents to allow children in the regions they control to be vaccinated against the crippling infectious disease polio.
While preventing the Taliban from overrunning Helmand's provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, the air attacks have not reversed the insurgents’ momentum as they still control large swathes of the province.
The leaders of an Afghan Islamist political party are wrangling over who calls the shots in the organization, considered a major player in the country’s political arena.
A close look at statements by senior Pakistani civilian and military leaders gives an idea of what is wrong with Islamabad’s counterterrorism approach and why -- despite so much suffering -- the country is still seen as a bastion of jihadist networks.
An organization in Pakistan’s insurgency-wreaked regions says its preliminary lists have identified thousands of people who have disappeared over the past 15 years.
Pakistani police are investigating six young leaders for sedition and terrorism after they organized protests against maltreatment at military checkpoints in northwestern Swat Valley.
Sangorian, a secret Afghan government militia, claims credit for defeating Taliban attempts to overrun Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah.
A Taliban attack on a luxury hotel in the capital, Kabul, killed several foreign crew members of the country’s largest airline, which forced Kam Air to drastically reduce domestic flights, which has prevented millions of Afghans from flying.
Afghan police are needed to protect people and government institutions in remote districts across Afghanistan’s largest province, Helmand. Instead, they are being deployed to protect senior officials and lawmakers in the regional capital, Lashkar Gah.
The murder of a young shopkeeper in a staged gunbattle with the police in Pakistan last month appears to have stirred up Pashtun grievances that were long suppressed.
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