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.
For months, an opposition alliance in Pakistan touted a major protest march this month as a watershed moment forcing PM Khan out of power. But internal differences led the Pakistan Democratic Movement to postpone it. What’s next for the PDM?
In this week’s Gandhara Briefing, we bring you our analysis of the wrangling over Afghanistan's new peace proposals, what is prompting Afghan journalists to flee, and an inspiring story of an Afghan policeman determined to fight the country’s mines even after one blinded him.
Afghan women have prospered during the past two decades thanks to access to education and careers and their government's commitment to women's rights. They now fear those hard-won freedoms, jobs, and opportunities will be sacrificed for the sake of the peace process.
The Afghan government has lashed out over a new U.S. proposal for the Afghan peace process. Independent experts are also skeptical about the plan, which envisions a power-sharing government with the Taliban, a cease-fire, and a U.N.-sponsored conference of regional and global powers.
The abduction of a child in northern Afghanistan has shocked the country’s Turkmen minority, prompting them to protest and shut the country’s northern river ports and border crossings with its Central Asian neighbors.
This week's Gandhara Briefing gives you the inside stories on U.S. efforts to revive the Afghan peace process a year after its agreement with the Taliban, PM Imran Khan's struggle for survival in Pakistan, and why an Afghan lawmaker is accused of smuggling gold into Tajikistan.
The defeat of Prime Minister Imran Khan's finance minister in the Senate elections will have major implications for Pakistan's struggling economy. But its immediate fallout raises questions about whether Khan has the majority to stay in power.
In an interview with Gandhara, Barnett Rubin, one of the architects of the U.S. approach toward peace in Afghanistan, paints a grim picture of Kabul's quest for peace one year after Washington signed a peace deal with the Taliban.
This week’s Gandhara’s Briefing gives you the inside stories on President Biden's grim options in Afghanistan, Russia’s newfound love for the Taliban, and the emergence of a new party within the folds of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement.
We take a closer look at Russia's motives behind calling for an interim government in Afghanistan while accusing Washington of reneging on its deal with the Taliban.
Three years after the emergence of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a civil rights movement campaigning for the rights of the Pashtun minority, several leaders confirm to Gandhara they are launching a political party to appeal to a broader secular base across Pakistan.
This week’s Gandhara Briefing gives you the inside stories on the thousands of disappeared in Balochistan and their relatives’ protest in Islamabad, why so many turn to tribal councils over state courts in the Pashtun heartland, and the plight of Afghan women begging on the streets.
War, poverty, and an entrenched patriarchy are forcing an increasing number of Afghan women, mostly direct victims of violence, to beg on the streets for survival.
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.
In Afghanistan's Pashtun tribal heartland, many turn to tribal councils instead of state courts for swift justice and unlikely routes to reconciliation.
This week’s Gandhara Briefing gives you the inside stories on the controversy over Pakistan fencing the Afghan border, how Baluch men are risking their lives smuggling fuel from Iran, and the Taliban’s mysterious diplomatic ties with Turkmenistan.
The author of best-sellers chronicling the cycles of war in Afghanistan and their impact on neighboring countries, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid talks to Gandhara about whether a fresh U.S. approach could steady and eventually resolve the crises in the two countries.
A Taliban delegation made an unusual appearance in Ashgabat on February 6 after visits to Iran and Russia. Little information is available about the trip -- and there's near silence from the Turkmen government – so it's unclear what issues were discussed during the mystery visit.
This week’s Gandhara Briefing gives you the inside stories on the current wave of intimidation of journalists in Afghanistan, the growing fissures in a Pakistani opposition alliance, and the hot-button debate over Islamic identity.
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