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.
Matiullah Wesa, a widely known and respected campaigner for education in Afghanistan, was beaten and arrested by the Taliban in Kabul on March 27. His arrest on unknown charges has sparked an outcry and highlighted the Taliban's intensifying crackdown on dissent.
U.S. forces left a trove of weapons behind when they withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. Some of those weapons have turned up in Pakistan, where they have been used by armed groups, according to experts and security officials.
The new school year began in Afghanistan this week. But over 1 million schoolgirls above the sixth grade remain barred from attending class.
Norouz festivities are making a comeback among Pashtun communities in northwestern Pakistan. The spring celebrations marking the arrival of the new year died down a century ago due to calendar changes and imperial borders that limited contacts with fellow Pashtuns in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Also: Taliban Allegedly Kills Top IS-K Commander
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and Pakistan have tried to mend fences after recent border closures and clashes.
A growing number of Afghans are turning to the booming crystal-meth industry to earn a living amid a major humanitarian and economic crisis that has pushed millions of people toward starvation.
Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Even as many activists fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, Siraj remained in Kabul to operate a network of women’s shelters.
The potential threat of attacks by the Islamic State-Khorasan militant group appears to have forced some embassies in Afghanistan to close or reduce their staff.
General Pervez Musharraf, who rode a 1999 military coup to power but spent the last years of his life defending his actions as Pakistan's president from self-imposed exile, has died at the age of 79.
Hundreds of Afghan military officers were sent to India for training in 2021. But after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government, many remain stranded in India. Officers who spoke to RFE/RL's Radio Azadi said they fear returning to their homeland even as they live in dire conditions in India.
Large parts of Afghanistan have fallen into darkness amid massive power outages across the country. Residents in the capital, Kabul, say they have received only around one hour of electricity every two days in recent weeks.
The rule of the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has been defined by extremist policies that have alienated Afghans and isolated the Islamist group's unrecognized government internationally.
As Pakistan signals it will again rely on the weight of its military to counter the increasingly active Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), members of the country's ethnic Pashtun minority are rallying for peace.
Islamic State-Khorasan's brazen attack in Kabul's diplomatic district was a deadly escalation of the jihadist group's effort to undermine the Taliban's isolated government in Afghanistan.
Impoverished Afghans are reeling from a decision by major international aid agencies to suspend their operations in Afghanistan in response to the Taliban's ban on Afghan women working for NGOs. Afghans have been cut off from critical assistance, including food aid.
In the past year, the Taliban has imposed sweeping restrictions on women's appearances, freedom of movement, and their right to work and receive an education. Afghan women say the militant group has effectively erased them from public life, in a move reminiscent of its brutal regime of the 1990s.
The Taliban banned Afghan women from working for NGOs; Islamic State-Khorasan killed a key Taliban security official; and U.S.-trained Afghan soldiers say they are ready to join Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Islamic State-Khorasan attacks a Chinese-run hotel in Kabul, deadly gunfights erupt along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and a Taliban minister courts controversy over his remarks about female education.
Taliban Higher Education Minister Nida Mohammad Nadim has sparked a flurry of controversies since his appointment in October. A former governor and military commander, the hard-line cleric has described female education as un-Islamic and against Afghan values.
Load more
!["The problem is not going to be solved if we don't sit down and talk [with the Taliban]," Mahbouba Serajshe, seen here in Kabul in April 2021, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "We must have a country in which we can all live in."](https://gdb.rferl.org/42fab024-d8af-4aef-ae7f-305332ef6fbe_cx0_cy10_cw0_w100_r1.jpg)
!["The problem is not going to be solved if we don't sit down and talk [with the Taliban]," Mahbouba Serajshe, seen here in Kabul in April 2021, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "We must have a country in which we can all live in."](https://gdb.rferl.org/42fab024-d8af-4aef-ae7f-305332ef6fbe_cx0_cy10_cw0_w66_r1.jpg)
