Taliban leader Mullah Omar has formally confirmed the death of top commander Mullah Dadullah, through a spokesman, and nominated Mullah Bakht Mohammad as his replacement. The elusive Mullah Omar also claimed there are thousands of fighters ready to avenge Dadullah’s… Read moreAfghanistan: Taliban leadership shake-up, more border clashes with Pakistan
Two years ago, following rumors that Osama bin Laden had taken refuge in Nuristan, we warned that the remote mountain region immortalized as “Kafiristan” in Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King would be drawn into Afghanistan’s war. Now,… Read moreAfghanistan: war comes to Kipling’s “Kafiristan”
The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has brought in trainers from Colombia to prepare a new Afghan anti-narcotics force. Opium cultivation has steadily grown in Afghanistan since the US invasion of 2001, leaping from 183,000 acres in 2002 to 408,000… Read moreAfghanistan: opium booming
Thousands of Afghans protested outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul May 16, chanting “Death to Pakistan, Death to Musharraf!” The rally comes days after the bloodiest clash in decades on the disputed border between the two countries. Pakistani forces crossed… Read moreAfghans rally against Pakistan
A US and Pakistani soldier are purported to have been killed [May 14] after meeting Pakistani troops near the Afghan border. NATO announced that two of its soldiers, as well as two civilian employees, were injured in the incident. [BBC,… Read moreAfghanistan: US solider killed in Pakistan border clash
Street fighting in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, left at least 39 dead over the weekend, as competing rallies timed for a visit by suspended chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry exploded into violence. Fighting spread to neighborhoods dominated by rival ethnic… Read morePakistan: death toll rises in political violence
After initially denying reports of his death, Taliban spokesmen have now confirmed that Mullah Dadullah, their most public and prominent leader, has been killed in clashes with Afghan and Nato forces in the southern province of Helmand. [Al Jazeera, May… Read moreAfghanistan: Mullah Dadullah dead?
An air raid killed 21 civilians in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand May 8, the provincial governor charged. “Twenty-one civilians, including women and children, were killed” in the raid on a village in Sangin district, Gov. Assadullah Wafa said. AlJazeera… Read moreAfghanistan: air strike kills civilians —again
Tehran has expelled tens of thousands of Afghans from Iran since mid-April, with authorities saying they will repatriate 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees over the next years. The UNHCR says it is powerless to intervene as those being forcibly repatriated… Read moreIran expels Afghan refugees; protests in Kabul
Afghanistan’s parliament is poised to pass a new media law considerably reducing freedom of the press. The controversial package—proposed by the religious and cultural affairs commission of the parliament, chaired by former warlord Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq and supported by the… Read moreAfghanistan to limit press freedom
The recent military campaign by tribesmen in Pakistan’s northwest borderlands to drive out Uzbek Islamist militants, portrayed as a victory against extremism by Islamabad, may have more to do with mere animosity between Pashtuns and Uzbeks than a rejection of… Read morePakistan Taliban: Osama welcome
Afghan troops tore down part of a new “anti-Taliban” fence being erected by Pakistan on the border between the two countries April 19, leading to an armed clash with Pakistani forces. An Afghan defense ministry statement said the fighting took… Read moreAfghan and Pakistani troops clash over “anti-Taliban” wall
