The Taliban after Mullah Omar
The story of Afghanistan is one of superpower stupidity accompanied by the hare-brained ‘strategic’ ambitions of neighbouring states and the insatiable lust for power among local warlords. These three factors…
Mullah Omar’s Eid message
“The Afghans have slain the black ox and are marching to battle. They have beaten upon their shields with spears, and have put on their helmets,” wrote Oscar Wilde at…
Meeting Mullah Omar
The day I was reassigned to the Afghanistan Desk at the foreign office in November 1996,I had my first,and somewhat comical,encounter with the Taliban. President Farooq Leghari had just dismissed…
Rahimullah Yusufzai: journalism as war
WITH the passing away of Rahimullah Yusufzai ends an important phase in the reporting of imperialist wars in Afghanistan and the adjacent Pakhtun tribal areas. Despite his painful cancer treatment…
Rahimullah Yusufzai
With the death of Rahimullah Yusufzai, a chapter of journalism in the South Asian region has ended forever. I was lucky to have known him, and, over the years, I…
Mullah Mansour exits
Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour's killing in a drone strike in Dalbandin district near the Iran border has once again altered all the permutations and combinations attending the Afghan…
Tackling militancy
The January 30 terror attack inside a mosque in Peshawar has terrified the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), who had been warning the government of the possible resurgence of militancy…
Learning from Afghanistan
WHAT did Afghan kids study after Mullah Omar’s Taliban were ousted in 2001? What was their school curriculum and, most importantly, how does it differ from PTI’s controversial Single National…
Ironies of a war of revenge
AMONG the many ironies of the US war in Afghanistan was the instance when Hamid Karzai in December 2001 came very close to an agreement that provided for the Afghan…
Intra-Afghan peace talks
WITH the last hitch removed, the elusive intra-Afghan dialogue is now likely to take place next week to discuss the country’s political future that could bring an end to the…
