Opinion

From Tirah to Kabul: Militancy, Political Ambiguity and the Fracturing of Power in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Opinion /

(Aqeel Yousafzai) The security crisis unfolding across Pakistan’s northwest and Afghanistan cannot be understood through isolated incidents or partisan slogans. It is a deeply interconnected story of militancy, political opportunism, state ambiguity and ideological fractures that now threaten to destabilise both countries simultaneously. Recent developments in Tirah Valley, the sharpening political divide in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, […]

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When Unity Becomes a Myth: Inside the Taliban’s Growing Internal Crisis

Opinion /

(Shamim Shahid) The recent investigative report by the BBC has pulled back the curtain on what many regional observers, journalists, and intelligence analysts have long suspected but few within the Taliban leadership had openly acknowledged: deep and potentially destabilising internal divisions within the Afghan Taliban. For the first time since the Taliban’s return to power

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Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, National Action Plan, North Waziristan, Pakistan, NAP Gap

Revisiting the National Action Plan in a Changing Security Landscape

Opinion /

(Zahir Shah Sherazi) More than a decade has passed since Pakistan adopted the National Action Plan (NAP) in the aftermath of the Army Public School tragedy in December 2014. Announced with the promise of ending terrorism “across the board,” the 21-point framework was meant to be a comprehensive national consensus against militancy, extremism, terror financing,

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Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the Brink: Governance Paralysis, Security Collapse and the Politics of Distraction

Opinion /

(Mushtaq Yusufzai)  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa today stands at a dangerous crossroads where worsening security challenges intersect with an alarming vacuum of governance. For more than two years, the province has been sliding back into an atmosphere that many feared had been left behind after immense sacrifices by the state, security forces and civilians. Instead of decisive

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Militancy, Protests in Iran, Poverty in Afghanistan, PTI & Terrorist Attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and the Regional Peace

Militancy, Protests and Poverty: The Regional Storm Pakistan Faces

Opinion /

The security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, militancy, reached a point where no single day passes without tragic news from one district or another. Attacks, targeted killings, armed clashes and bombings have become a grim routine, particularly in the southern belt of the province. From Lakki Marwat to Dera Ismail Khan, from Bannu to North and

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From Jihad to Selective Nationalism: Who the Taliban Really Fight

Opinion /

(Shamim Shahid) For years, the dominant question surrounding militant violence in Pakistan has been deceptively simple: why do groups that claim to fight in the name of Islam increasingly behave like political and nationalist actors, selectively targeting some parties while sparing others? Yet beneath this apparent simplicity lies a long, complex history of ideological mutation,

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Message, Sarbaqaf Mohmand’s Message, TTP and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Afghan Terrorists, Cross-Border-Terrorism

Sarbakaf Mohmand’s Message Exposes Deepening Fault Lines Within TTP and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar

Opinion /

“I would like to send a message to all our Mujahideen that the Afghans are our brothers. We have been comrades and have fought wars together. I would like to urge our Afghan comrades who are willing or attempting to come to Mohmand, or to Pakistan, not to do so, and instead remain in their

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When Terror Meets Politics

Opinion /

(Arif Yousafzai) When the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) stepped up for his latest press briefing, it was evident from the outset that this was not going to be a routine year-end security update. Beyond the statistics, maps, and operational summaries, the briefing carried a sharper political tone, a harder regional posture,

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Politics, Street Politics, Security Operation, CM Sohail Afridi in Karachi, Pakistan's War on Terror in 2025

Street Politics or Provincial Responsibility, A Question for KP’s CM

Opinion /

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the ruling party is busy in streets politics, and while doing so they know no boundaries. On one side, security forces are conducting operations across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On the other, political statements are being issued against these operations. This contradiction has now become a defining feature of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s internal posture,

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