Taliban, Women’s Equality and Hindutva Nationalism
Tavleen Singh is a well known columnist. In a recent column (Religiosity is sick, not Secularism, I.E. 8 December 2024) writes about the barring the women studying medicine in Afghanistan.…
Taliban
UN-Taliban Talks: Analyzing the Stalemate over Women’s Rights
The United Nations' recent talks with the Taliban have brought to the forefront the complex and often contentious issue of women's rights in Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid's assertion that…
China, Russia pip US to the Taliban hearth
The diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government in Afghanistan on January 31, 2024 by China must be bracketed with two other far-reaching regional policy moves by Beijing in the post-cold…
Taliban Break Up Afghan Women’s Protest in Kabul
Taliban fighters violently dispersed dozens of female protesters in Kabul. About 40 Afghan women marched through the capital city demanding rights, before the Taliban broke the protest march up by…
US pips regional states at race for Kabul
In a hugely consequential advisory, the US Treasury Department quietly signalled on Wednesday that it was “tweaking” the sanctions against the Haqqani Network. The international banks can transfer money to…
The West co-opts the Taliban
The three-day conclave in Oslo on January 23-25 for interaction for a core group of Western diplomats with Taliban officials marks a new phase in the political situation in Afghanistan.…
Souring of Taliban’s relations with Pakistan
External interference in Afghanistan has reappeared much sooner than one would have expected after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in August. In a familiar pattern, the rumour mill has become…
Taliban: One Hundred Days of Solitude
As the Taliban completes its first hundred days in power, the Western powers are groping for a face-saving formula to engage with the authorities in Kabul with some modicum of…
US recognition of Taliban Government will be a game changer
The stunning disclosure late Tuesday in Brussels that the US is working on a “road map” for according recognition to the Taliban Government will take a lot of people by…
Taliban Government gains traction
All indications are that the regional states are preparing to accord recognition to the Taliban government. The meeting of regional states and Taliban officials in the so-called Moscow Format last…
Taliban is the winner at Moscow conference
The Moscow meeting of ten regional states and the Taliban officials on Wednesday has produced an outcome that by far exceeds expectations. The salience of the consensus opinion is four-fold, as…
Taliban receives overtures from near and far
The Taliban is getting many suitors lately. It is far from the “pariah” that the Biden Administration thought it was destined to be. During the past month alone, the Taliban…
Afghanistan and China, NATO, Russia
Afghanistan is now a hot issue among the world powers. China has talked to NATO while Russian Foreign Minister has said about a common approach by U.S., China, Russia and…
Oil Politics, Taliban and Islamophobia: Impact on India
Withdrawal of US army from Afghanistan has led to the Taliban coming to power. The scene created in Afghanistan has been very disturbing. The minorities trying to flee, the Muslims…
Strict Punishment, Amputations and Executions will Return to Afghanistan, says Taliban Co-founder
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, a co-founder of the Taliban who will control prisons under the new regime in Afghanistan, said strict punishment, including amputations and executions, will return. "Everyone criticized us for…
Stay Home: Taliban-run Kabul Municipality Orders Female Workers
Female employees of the Kabul municipality have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan's capital…
The rise of Taliban and Taliban-ism
One must go back a few decades to understand the birth of Taliban and the continuity of this phenomenon that has shaken the world, quite literally. Yes the world underneath…
Taliban get a government!
The regional states will be shell-shocked by the brazen way Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government that is…
Are all Fundamentalisms Similar: Can Taliban be compared to RSS?
With Taliban coming to power in Afghanistan, the memories of horror stories of yesteryears have been rekindled. When in power they not only implemented their version of Sharia law but…
Rise and rise of Qatar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
When the US State Department announced that it would host a virtual ministerial meeting on August 30 with “key partners on Afghanistan,” there was an element of surprise in the list of participants. Apart from the US’…
Terror bombs, gunfire kill at least 72 in Afghanistan capital
In what the US military described as a “complex attack,” several terrorists attacked a screening checkpoint at a gate into the Kabul airport and a nearby hotel on Thursday, inflicting…
Terrorist strikes in Kabul: A political windfall for Taliban
The horrific terrorist strikes in Kabul on Thursday which killed at least 12 US servicemen and dozens of civilians will lead to a higher level of cooperation between the US…
New Taliban, New Afghanistan?
After 20 years of US/NATO/Afghan Puppet Army’s brutal and illegal occupation of Afghanistan, Kabul, the capital city finally fell on August 15, 2021, at the hands of the reclusive but…
Taliban And India’s Threat Perception
Taliban’s re-capture of Afghanistan was virtually certain after the February 2020 (Doha) US-Taliban deal concerning US forces pull-out from Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s immediate and regional neighbours had plenty of time to…
The Taliban take Kabul
It unfolded as a story of fleeing. The Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, taking flight to Tajikistan, giving little clue of his intentions to colleagues. The fleeing of the infamous Abdul…
USA’s Hypocritical Dealings with Taliban
Speculations abound over Taliban’s aim to exploit the vacuum left by the partial withdrawal of US-NATO troop to seize control of the capital Kabul and re-establish an Islamic Emirate, similar…
Pakistan’s Geopolitical Game in Afghanistan
On June 14, 2021, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke at the inaugural Pakistan-Afghanistan Bilateral Dialogue in Islamabad. His tone was mildly aggressive. Talking about USA’s pullout from Afghanistan,…
Ilhan Omar & Moral Non-equivalence Of Hamas & Taliban Versus US & Israeli Invaders
Somali-born and Muslim American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recently caused a storm by Tweeting “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.…
US-Taliban acquiesce to live and let live
But the US withdrawal is no longer conditions-based, which means the Taliban have achieved their number one objective without bending on any of the key issues such as their continuing…
Is peace possible in Afghanistan?
Doha peace talks, held in September of 2020, between the Afghan government and Taliban, led by peace council chairman Abdullah Abdullah and Mullah Baradar Akhund respectively, is a remarkable advancement…
Afghanistan On A Very Sticky Wicket
The Afghan-Taliban and the US sponsored Ashraf Ghani government seem to be heading towards a deadlock, as very soon US, after its disastrous war with Afghan-Taliban , is slated to…
Peace process in Afghanistan: En route to failure?
The ongoing peace process provided an opportunity for Afghan factions to unite and undo all the wrongs committed against them in the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the internal strife of…
Taliban join Moscow peace talks on Afghanistan
The 19th Century British politician, Lord Palmerston was of the view that: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Henry Kissinger rephrased it: “America has…
Fought to the Table: Talks with the Taliban
“Attempting to control rural areas in Afghanistan always eventually ends up boiling down to personal survival.” Evan McAllister, former Marine staff sergeant, New York Times, July 28, 2018 It genuinely…
11 Pakistani Soldiers Killed By Taliban Gaining Strength In Afghanistan
A suicide bomber killed at least 11 Pakistani army soldiers and injured 13 at an army camp in Sawat Valley on Saturday (Feb 3). An army Captain was among…
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