Education Fights Militants and Military

Eight-year-old Muhammad Akram was forced to quit school when he was in the second grade, when the Taliban destroyed the small, government-run school that he and his brother had been attending.

The Politics of Polio in Pakistan

The murder of nine health workers vaccinating children against polio in Pakistan’s northwest cities of Peshawar and Charsadda in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, and its southern port city Karachi, have elicited shock and outrage.

Remittances Soothe the Scourge of Militancy

Fifty-nine-year-old Sherdil Shah, a resident of South Waziristan – a hotbed of militancy in northern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – used to run a modest grain shop that fetched enough money to keep his family of 10 well-fed and looked after.

Taliban Face Sick Police

The Taliban’s ruthless campaign against security forces has demoralised the forces, who are unable to put up a strong resistance to Islamic militants.

A Million Hardships in Pakistan’s North

More than a million people displaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas by growing militancy and military operations are facing severe hardship after losing businesses and work.

Little Support for Military Offensive on Af-Pak Border

As shock and outrage over the Taliban’s shooting of young Malala Yousafzai - a female activist - subsides, a new question has begun to make its rounds among political commentators in Pakistan: whether or not the government should launch an offensive against militants along the country’s border with Afghanistan.

Parents Worry After Malala Attack

Young schoolgirls seemed undeterred by the attempt to kill Malala Yousafzai, but parents in northern Pakistan are becoming increasingly concerned over their children going to school.

‘Malala’s Cause Is Our Cause’

Less than two weeks after being left for dead by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai is standing up on her own two feet.

OP-ED: Pakistani Taliban’s Indoctrinated Child Bombers*

In the late afternoon of Apr. 3, 2011, in the Pakistani city of Dera Ghazi Khan, an annual Sufi Muslim religious festival at the shrine of the 13th century saint Ahmed Sultan was hit by twin suicide bomb attacks which killed over 50 people and left more than 120 wounded.

Girls Determined to Fight Guns With Books

Shazia Begum, one of three girls injured in the attack on the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai says the Taliban had sought to silence a very influential schoolgirl.

Clock Running Out on Afghan Political Solution

After more than a decade of international military intervention in Afghanistan, U.S. policymakers have come to accept that a political solution is the way forward in Afghanistan, analysts here are suggesting.

Bounty Offered in Pakistan Activist Shooting

The Pakistani government has offered a Rs10 million (105,000-dollar) bounty for the capture of the Pakistani Taliban assailants who shot Malala Yousafzai, a teenage rights and education activist in the northwestern Swat Valley, officials say.

Vaccines Get Past Taliban, Finally

Over thirty thousand children in the remote Tirah area of the Khyber Agency, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Northern Pakistan, have waited four years for protection from polio, a viral disease that is sometimes referred to as ‘infantile paralysis’ due to its crippling effects on children.

U.S.: Gloomy News, Prognosis Out of Afghanistan

With all foreign troops due to leave Afghanistan just two years from now, the news out of the Central Asian nation is becoming increasingly gloomy.

Taliban Outflank U.S. War Strategy with Insider Attacks

Sharply increased attacks on U.S. and other NATO personnel by Afghan security forces, reflecting both infiltration of and Taliban influence on those forces, appear to have outflanked the U.S.-NATO command’s strategy for maintaining control of the insurgency.