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.
While the record participation of women candidates in Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary elections showcase the growing participation of women in the political process, the road to office is still strewn with obstacles.
An exiled Pakistani politician is stabbed to death outside his home in London, with reverberations quickly reaching Karachi.
As the Western military withdrawal date from Afghanistan nears, a Taliban push for imposing Shari'a law in the regions they control has rekindled a century-old debate about the role of Islamic law in the country. As RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique explains, the solution might lie in finding a broadly acceptable middle ground.
Corruption charges against a senior aide to the Afghan president, followed by reports that he and others in the Afghan administration are on the CIA's payroll, have raised serious questions about Kabul's anticorruption drive and about the transparency of U.S. policy in the country.
In an interview with the BBC, General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, says the Taliban's momentum has been reversed and predicted that Western forces will continue to make gains.
Islamic clerics and scholars have condemned the public execution by stoning of a young couple in northern Afghanistan. The two had been charged with adultery by the local Taliban. The execution brings into focus a heated debate about the interpretation of Shari’a-based law in Afghanistan, where some clerics recently called for the revival of a strict Islamic criminal code.
Monsoon floods inundating much of Pakistan are providing a new test to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's position as leader of the world's most powerful Muslim army.
Pakistan and Britain have pledged to further strengthen mutual ties after a meeting between British Prime Minister David Cameron and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari today.
After some 60 people died amid an outbreak of ethnic violence in Pakistan's largest city this week, residents of Karachi are fearful of a return to the random violence in which thousands died in the 1980s and 1990s.
The Pakistani president will be looking to respond to criticism sent his way last week by the British prime minister, while dampening a growing outcry at home about the way the government has responded to deadly floods and bloody attacks in Pakistan.
The story of Regey -- a small dusty village in Afghanistan's volatile southern province of Helmand where an alleged NATO missile recently killed 50 civilians -- illustrates the difficult road ahead for the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan.
A years-long Taliban campaign to eliminate Pashtun leaders and radicalize the youth they traditionally controlled has brought chaos to communities already ravaged by war, migration, and underdevelopment.
With the recent unrest in Baluchistan -- a vast desert region spanning Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran along the Arabian Sea shoreline -- comes renewed tensions across the region. And with renewed tensions come further setbacks to efforts to establish regional peace.
Senior U.S. civilian and military leaders are pushing for Washington to designate major Taliban networks as terrorists. But the move could adversely affect Afghan President Hamid Karzai administration's efforts to negotiate with certain Taliban networks based in Pakistan.
The change in command of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan has left Afghan leaders and observers questioning the future of the counterinsurgency effort.
Pakistan is resisting Western pressure to go after an extremist stronghold in its North Waziristan tribal district and waiting to see how NATO fares in its much talked-about campaign in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. But NATO generals across the border are reluctant to move into Kandahar without seeing major Pakistani efforts to end the main regional extremist sanctuary in North Waziristan.
Afghanistan's interior minister and intelligence chief have resigned in the wake of attacks that came perilously close to disrupting the country's peace jirga in Kabul last week. The resignations of Amrullah Salih, head of the National Security Directorate of Afghanistan, and Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar deal a blow to the Afghan president's efforts to piece together a workable cabinet and could have far-reaching consequences.
Thousands of delegates from the farthest corners of Afghanistan are assembling in Kabul in hopes of finding a way to end the violence. They must address some harsh realities.
Following a visit by senior U.S. security officials this week, Pakistani analysts are calling for Washington, when pressing for action, to exhibit a better understanding of Islamabad's limitations in its complicated struggle against extremism.
A mysterious blight is destroying poppy fields in southern Afghanistan. There are early signs that it's reshaping the opium trade that partially funds the Taliban insurgency, but also the lives of tens of thousands of poppy farmers.
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