Abdul Hai Kakar is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal.
Locals in northwestern Pakistan, where the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan extremist group is seeking to reclaim its former strongholds, say it has imposed extortion, banned music, and shut down some girls’ schools.
Pakistan is taking a strong stance against mob justice following the lynching of a man with a mental disorder accused of blasphemy. But rights campaigners say Islamabad is reluctant to repeal or reform the country's strict blasphemy laws and rein in hard-line Islamists.
Al-Qaeda is expected to revive and even thrive in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, but it might choose to avoid trouble for its Afghan allies and nurture local jihadist movements instead of attracting international attention through global attacks.
As the United States heads for a complete exit from Afghanistan, support for the Afghan Taliban’s war effort remains robust in Pakistan amid recriminations between Kabul and Islamabad. Taliban sanctuaries and this support network will be critical in determining Afghanistan’s post-withdrawal future.
In Pakistan, many believe most deaths in the restive province of Balochistan are caused by separatist violence and attacks by Islamist groups. But independent studies show that the region’s poorly maintained highways claim more lives.
Pakistan's Abdul Wali Khan University is still reeling from the lynching of a student four years ago. Mashal Khan's murder is one of the most brutal examples of how the accusation of blasphemy has been weaponized in the Muslim-majority country.
The human toll of a two-decade-old simmering insurgency in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province is mounting as the region’s political problems remain unresolved.
The author of a book apparently banned by Pakistani authorities for describing his time in prison for his ties to a civil rights movement says he will challenge the ban in a court of law.
For relatives, the fate of their disappeared loved ones in Pakistan is a constant agony.
As infection rates and death toll mount across Pakistan because of a growing coronavirus outbreak, the country’s healthcare system is facing an unprecedented crisis amid a lack of beds, oxygen, and medicine, as well as attacks on medical staff
For decades, remittances from hundreds of thousands of expatriate workers in the Gulf have proved a lifeline for Pakistan’s fledgling economy.
They braved great risks to flee danger in their Balochistan homeland in southwestern Pakistan, where thousands have been killed and disappeared amid a separatist rebellion that began two decades ago.
Woman are not the only victims of so-called "honor crimes" in Pakistan.
Women are not the only victims of so-called "honor crimes" in Pakistan.
Across Pakistan, hundreds of families of people accused of committing blasphemy face economic ruin, their reputation tarnished and social isolation even if such accusations are based on trumped-up charges.
Pakistani authorities are investigating five prominent journalists and a blogger for displaying the photo of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s on social media during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s visit to Pakistan last month.
Major cities across Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Balochistan have been shut down as part of a protest strike against the alleged killing of a senior leader of a Pashtun civil rights movement by police.
Mullah Fazlullah's reported death in a U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan last week has prompted many of his prominent victims to questioned Islamabad’s counterterrorism gains given that most senior Taliban figures were reportedly killed in attacks by unmanned U.S. drone aircrafts.
Manzoor Pashteen says the beatings, sleeplessness, harassment, searches, questioning, and constant surveillance he endured during that journey on May 12 and 13 have strengthened his resolve and made it crystal-clear to him why the authorities were desperate to prevent him from addressing tens of thousands of supporters in Karachi.
Thousands of residents in northwestern Pakistan are staging a sit-in protest to pressure authorities into arresting those responsible for a string of recent murders.
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