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.
Realizing administrative, judicial, security, and economic reforms will be a lengthy process susceptible to setbacks and controversies. Political and social problems exacerbated by FATA’s status as a key theater in the global war against terrorism for the past 15 years are equally pressing.
The lower house of the Pakistani Parliament has adopted a landmark constitutional amendment to merge the northwestern tribal region into the neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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.
A new movement demanding security for Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun minority is calling for the country’s leaders to roll back destructive policies that have fomented domestic volatility, ruined neighboring Afghanistan and fueled the longest war in U.S. history.
Afghanistan’s top security officials and lawmakers are at loggerheads over who is responsible for preventing deadly terrorist attacks in the capital that have killed and injured hundreds this year alone.
The fall of several rural districts in northern Afghanistan this month heralds a new push by the insurgents to tighten their grip on contested regions and threaten elections scheduled for this fall.
Will addressing the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement's demands help Pakistan achieve greater stability, harmony among its diverse population, greater democratization, and establishing the rule of law?
Censorship appears to be increasingly gripping Pakistani media as journalists, watchdogs, and media organizations blame attempts by the country’s powerful military to silence critics and prevent the coverage of protests that criticize its policies and actions.
A new movement demanding security for Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun minority is transforming into a nationalist struggle with long-term consequences for the country’s politics, security, society, and foreign policy.
Government forces and insurgents are using access to irrigation water as leverage to pressure civilians into supporting them or force their opponents out of their villages and communities.
Pakistanis have spent weeks debating a set of goals reportedly outlined by the country’s powerful military chief.
Lawmakers in a restive northeastern province in Afghanistan say Taliban control has deprived hundreds of thousands of students from going to schools.
Hundreds of Afghan men and women are participating in an unprecedented protest to push the warring sides in Afghanistan to cease hostilities and conclude peace.
The Taliban and the Afghan government, along with its Western allies — the key parties to the conflict — are at odds over who should be talking to whom.
Leaders of the newly formed Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) or Movement for the Protection of Pashtuns, say they are facing a range of pressures and tactics.
In a public speech marking the onset of the Persian new year on March 21, Atta Mohammad Noor told residents of northern Balkh Province that he had reached an agreement with President Ashraf Ghani that will see him leave his post after 14 years.
Religious scholars have joined government officials in a remote eastern province to convince the insurgents to allow children in the regions they control to be vaccinated against the crippling infectious disease polio.
While preventing the Taliban from overrunning Helmand's provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, the air attacks have not reversed the insurgents’ momentum as they still control large swathes of the province.
The leaders of an Afghan Islamist political party are wrangling over who calls the shots in the organization, considered a major player in the country’s political arena.
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