Abubakar Siddique, a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan.
To cobble his coalition government back together, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had to drop a controversial austerity measure, leading to questions of whether he sold out the country's economic future to retain power.
Despite promises by Tehran to lift a recently imposed blockade, thousands of fuel trucks bound for Afghanistan remain stranded on the Iranian side of the border.
A rising wave of targeted assassinations in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan Province, which for years has been at a crossroads of regional rivalries and insurgent movements, is dashing hopes for peace and regional cooperation.
Despite signs that the Afghan government is nearing the inauguration of a new parliament, the political crisis generated by September's elections might be far from over.
The publication of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables has raised the debate over hot-button political and security issues in Pakistan to a fever pitch.
As Afghanistan and its partners try to combat the Taliban insurgency in the Pashtun-populated south, rising violence in ethnically mixed northern provinces poses another complex regional challenge.
A decade after its debut on the terrorism scene in the Pamirs as Central Asia's most aggressive militant group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has undergone a transformation hundreds of kilometers to the southeast, in the mountains of Pakistan's restive Waziristan region.
While Afghan and NATO leaders hailed their conclusion of an Afghanistan exit strategy in Lisbon, its success depends on the resolution of a number of internal and regional challenges that went unaddressed.
Under the "Enduring Partnership" agreement signed in the Portuguese capital, the alliance will continue to provide air support, training, advice, and logistics to Afghanistan's armed forces after 2014. But NATO's secretary-general said he did not expect international forces' combat operations to continue.
The mood in Afghanistan is ripe for peace, with Afghans exhausted by a generation of war. In a sign that their prayers could finally be answered, Kabul and its international partners appear determined to make the long journey to peace in a country where millions have been killed and displaced by successive waves of conflict since 1978.
RFE/RL talks to former leaders of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to gain a greater understanding of what the insurgents fighting the Afghan government and NATO forces would look for in a peace settlement.
The situation in Afghanistan is bad enough, but inaccurate reporting is adding to the problem. The main problem is that different interest groups, with different axes to grind, offer Western journalists lots of spin. But making sense of it all and arriving at the truth is something few reporters manage to achieve.
Participants who attended a private conference in Kabul this week have denied media reports that it involved Afghan and Pakistani officials meeting with members of the Taliban.
Beyond the immediate impact, the closure of a key NATO supply line has exposed deep rifts between Islamabad and Washington over the future course of the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan's civilian government is apparently unwilling to follow a directive by the Supreme Court to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari in Switzerland. The case is just the latest challenge to the civilian administration, setting up a collision course that observers say could end in a judicial coup that could mean the end of the coalition government and return to military rule.
Afghan journalists and international media watchdogs are expressing concerns following the detention of three Afghan journalists by Afghan and international troops this week.
Ranjbar's difficulties illustrate the obstacles faced by many independent candidates in elections where much is at stake for President Hamid Karzai and the future direction of the country.
While the record participation of women candidates in Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary elections showcase the growing participation of women in the political process, the road to office is still strewn with obstacles.
An exiled Pakistani politician is stabbed to death outside his home in London, with reverberations quickly reaching Karachi.
As the Western military withdrawal date from Afghanistan nears, a Taliban push for imposing Shari'a law in the regions they control has rekindled a century-old debate about the role of Islamic law in the country. As RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique explains, the solution might lie in finding a broadly acceptable middle ground.
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