Will Trump Pardon Snowden and Assange?
Speculations about a presidential pardon for the whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked National Security Agency’s classified information to the press in 2013, have grown since last month after Donald Trump…
Nauman Sadiq
How Pakistan’s Military Created Rift Between Imran Khan and Modi?
During his stint in power as Pakistan’s prime minister until July 2017, Nawaz Sharif had nurtured cordial working relationship with India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and…
How Obama Administration Covered Up Swine Flu Pandemic?
It baffles the mind whether it’s willful blindness or anterograde amnesia but while drawing parallels with coronavirus outbreak, mainstream media appears to vividly recall Spanish flu of 1918 from…
Was Qassem Soleimani Killed to Avenge Saudi Oil Installations Attack?
A joint American-Israeli program [1], involving a series of short-of-war clandestine strikes, aimed at taking out the most prominent generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and targeting Iran’s…
Saudi Oil Attack and Choreographed Protests in Iran-aligned Countries
Since the planting of limpet mines on oil tankers off the coast of the UAE in May, the subsequent downing of the US surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf and…
White Helmets Founder was Allegedly Assassinated, Turkish Report
Speculation is rife in the local Turkish media that the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, might have been running away from someone before he fell or was…
New Cold War and the Attack on Saudi Oil Installations
The September 14 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility in eastern Saudi Arabia was an Armageddon for the global oil industry because it processes five million barrels crude oil per…
White Helmets Founder: Casualty of Turf War in Syria’s Idlib
Reputed Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported [1] on Thursday that the Turkish police had identified the cause of death of the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, as…
Release of Western Hostages and Prospects of Peace in Afghanistan
Three Taliban commanders have been released today, on Tuesday, by the Afghan government as part of a prisoner swap involving two Western hostages. Reportedly, the militant leaders, including senior Taliban…
Deaths of Jamal Khashoggi and White Helmets Founder Le Mesurier
There are a lot of similarities in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October last year and the alleged suicide of the…
Was the Founder of White Helmets Killed by Islamic State?
The founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was…
Did Iran Conduct the Abqaiq Attack with Russia’s Blessings?
Although the Houthi rebels based in Yemen claimed the responsibility for the September 14 complex attack involving drones and cruise missiles on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil…
Islamic State Exacts Revenge on Turkey for Selling Al-Baghdadi Out
A car bomb exploded [1] in northern Syria killing 13 and wounding 20. The blast on Saturday ripped through a crowded market in Tal Abyad, a town recently occupied by…
The Missing Pieces of Al-Baghdadi’s Execution Puzzle
Casting aspersions over the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Russia’s seasoned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed [1] while speaking to Rossiya 24 broadcaster that the Islamic State and its slain…
How Controlling Syria’s Oil Serves Washington’s Strategic Objectives?
Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria. After the drawdown of US troops at Erdogan’s insistence…
Who is the Unknown Jihadist Named as Islamic State’s New Caliph?
Confirming the deaths of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State’s spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, who was killed in a US airstrike in northwest Syria a day after the killing…
How Al-Baghdadi was not the Equivalent of Osama Bin Laden?
Although President Trump claimed in his address to the American public after the killing of al-Baghdadi that he was a “bigger terrorist” than Osama bin Laden, fact of the matter…
Al-Baghdadi’s Successors and Islamic State’s Affiliates
In the event of the death of the Islamic State’s self-styled caliph, Amaq, a news agency affiliated with the Islamic State, reported on 7 August 2019 that the terrorist organization’s…
US will Retain Hundreds of Troops in Syria despite Withdrawal
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement on Thursday, February 21, “A small peace keeping group of about 200 US troops will remain in Syria for…
Is Imran Khan a Stooge of Pakistan’s Military?
During Imran Khan’s four-month sit-in and political demonstrations in front of the parliament in Islamabad from August to December 2014, the allegations of election rigging and the demand for electoral…
Pakistan’s War on Terror and Ouster of Nawaz Sharif
In a momentous decision on July 28, 2017, then Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by the country’s apex court on the flimsy pretext…
Syrian Conflict and Beginning of the New Cold War?
In July 2003, Dr. David Kelly, a British weapons inspector who had disclosed to the media that Tony Blair’s government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up,”…
Have Islamic State’s Jihadists Joined Al-Nusra Front in Syria’s Idlib?
At its peak in 2014, when the Islamic State declared its “caliphate” in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the Islamic State, according to the mainstream media’s count, used…
Islamic State’s Chief Al-Baghdadi Survived a ‘Coup’ by his Fighters
Martin Chulov reported [1] for The Guardian yesterday, February 7, the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had survived a coup attempt last month by foreign fighters within the ranks…
Kashmir Insurgency: The Legacy of Soviet-Afghan Jihad
A question would naturally arise in the minds of curious observers of regional geopolitics that why did Pakistan choose to wage Washington’s proxy war against the erstwhile Soviet Union in…
Afghanistan Pullout: Culmination of America’s Longest War
On Saturday, January 26, Reuters reported [1] that Taliban officials said the US negotiators agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan within…
The Founder of Islam
In all, Prophet Mohammad married thirteen wives. But he married his first wife Khadija when he was 25 years old and she was 40. All other marriages were contracted after…
US will Maintain Military Presence in Syria after Withdrawal
The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered contradictory messages in a speech in Cairo on Thursday, January 18. On the one hand, he said Washington will withdraw American troops…
Fake News of Trump’s Volte-face on Syria Exit Strategy
Quoting Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, who was recently on a visit to Israel and told reporters in Jerusalem that American forces would remain in Syria until the…
Land Swap between Ankara and Damascus to Avoid Standoff over Manbij
The regions currently administered by the Kurds in Syria include the Kurdish-majority Qamishli and al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Arab-majority towns of Manbij to the west of the Euphrates…
Will Kurds Keep American Weapons After Syria Withdrawal?
The US commanders planning for the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria are recommending that the Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State be allowed to keep the US-supplied weapons,…
Is Manbij Handover to Syrian Government a ‘Psyops’ by Kurds?
The Syrian army said it entered Manbij on Friday for the first time in years, after the Syrian Kurds urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of impending…
Afghanistan Drawdown: End of American Interventionism
After Donald Trump’s surprise announcement in a tweet on December 19 to withdraw 2,000 American troops from Syria after a telephonic conversation with the Turkish President Erdogan on December 14,…
Trump’s Midterm Electoral Defeat and Syria Withdrawal
Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw American troops from Syria was reportedly made during a telephonic conversation with the Turkish President Erdogan on December 14, before President Trump made the…
Khashoggi’s Murder and Trump’s Syria Withdrawal
In a momentous policy decision on Wednesday, the Trump administration has decided to pull out the US troops from Syria. Although the current redeployment of American troops will be limited…
Is Saudi Arabia Building a Nuclear Weapons Program?
David Sanger and William Broad reported in The New York Times [1] on Thursday that before Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was implicated in the killing of Jamal…
Is Russia Arming the Taliban to Avenge Loss of Ukraine?
On November 9, Russia hosted talks between Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, the members of the Taliban from its Doha, Qatar office and representatives from eleven regional states, including China, India,…
Iran Nuclear Deal was Meant to Give US Face-saving in Syria
Recently, the Trump administration has announced the most stringent set of sanctions against Iran to appease Benjamin Netanyahu. Donald Trump has repeatedly said during the last two years that the…
Why Pakistan Army Killed ‘Father of Taliban’?
On Friday evening, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq was found dead in his Rawalpindi residence. The assassination was as gruesome as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He…
Why is Israel desperate to escalate Syrian conflict?
After seven years of utter devastation and bloodletting, a consensus has emerged among all the belligerents of the Syrian war to de-escalate the conflict, except Israel which wants to further…
The spillover of Taliban-Hazara conflict in Pakistan
The Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region is essentially a political conflict between the Gulf Arab autocrats and Iran for regional dominance which is being presented to lay Muslims…
The Appropriation of Pashtun Rights Movement
Historically speaking, from the massacres in Bangladesh in 1971 to the training and arming of Afghan jihadists during the Soviet-Afghan war throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and then launching ill-conceived…
Skripals Poisoning and Syria Strikes
On April 11, one of the “smartest” US presidents ever tweeted: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be…
Endgame in Syria: Trump Signals Withdrawal of US Troops
In a momentous announcement at an event in Ohio on Thursday, Donald Trump said, “We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon.…
How Syrian Conflict Sparked New Cold War
On March 4, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping…
Islamic State’s Leadership and Arms Pipeline
In June last year, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that according to information, the leader of the Islamic State Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi had reportedly been killed as a result of…
Was Russian Spy Poisoned To Avert Brexit?
In July 2003, Dr. David Kelly, a British weapons inspector who disclosed to the media that Tony Blair’s government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up,” was…
Machiavellian Intrigues Of Pakistan’s ‘Establishment’
In Pakistan’s context, the national security establishment originally meant civil-military bureaucracy. Though over the years, civil bureaucracy has taken a backseat and now “the establishment” is defined as military’s top…
Who Are The ‘Arsonists And Firefighters’ In Syria?
Recently, General Joseph Votel, the head of US Central Command, accused Kremlin of playing as both arsonist and firefighter in Syria. This projection is farthest from truth because in fact…
Why Washington Struck Russian Contractors In Syria?
On February 7, the US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor that reportedly killed and wounded dozens of…
Al-Baghdadi Incapacitated In Russian Airstrike
In June last year, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that according to information, the leader of the Islamic State Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi had reportedly been killed as a result of…
Pakistan’s Voiceless Pashtuns Find Voice
Is it not ironic that two very similar insurgencies have simultaneously been going on in Pakistan for the last several years: the Baloch insurgency in the Balochistan province and the…
Afrin Offensive: Erdogan’s Madness Continues
During the last 24 hours, 72 Turkish jets have reportedly struck 150 targets inside the Kurdish-controlled Afrin district in north-western Syria in which six civilians and three Kurdish militiamen have…
Petro-Islam: The Nexus Between Oil And Terrorism
Inquisitive observers of the Middle Eastern politics would naturally wonder why do Western powers prop up the Gulf’s petro-monarchies, knowing fully well that they are the ones responsible for nurturing…
CAR’s Report on Islamic State’s Arms is Misleading
During the last week, a report by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) on the Islamic State’s weapons found in Iraq and Syria has been doing the rounds on the media.…
Trump Administration’s Turnaround In Syria
On the campaign trail, in his speeches as well as on TV debates with other presidential contenders, Donald Trump repeatedly mentioned that he has a ‘secret plan’ for defeating the…
How Afghan Jihad Triggered Insurgency In Kashmir?
In Pakistan, there are three distinct categories of militants: the Afghanistan-focused Pashtun militants; the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants; and foreign terrorists including the Arab militants of al-Qaeda, the Uzbek insurgents of…
Terrorism And Islam: Correlation Is Not Causation
Since the time immemorial, it has been an article of faith of every Muslim that suicide is ‘Haram’ (prohibited) in Islam. There is a well-known Islamic precept that whoever commits…
‘Dawn Leaks’ And The Ouster Of Nawaz Sharif
In a momentous decision on 28 July, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by the country’s Supreme Court on the flimsy pretext of holding an…
Imran Khan’s Collusion With Pakistan’s Military
The predicament of Imran Khan’s fanboys has been somewhat like the pubescent girl who falls head over heels in love with a promiscuous playboy; and when her family and friends…
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