PAKISTAN: Taliban Use Human Shields Against Army Offensive

Thousands of civilians are virtually being held hostage in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, where the outlawed Taliban have been refusing them passage to safer areas ahead of a government plan to intensify army offensives.

PAKISTAN: Women Shield Children From Extremism

When Farah’s 16-year-old son began to disappear for several nights a week without saying where he went, she was naturally worried. After he returned one day and shattered the television screen in their Peshawar home, the mother of three decided it was time to quit her job as a teacher and to find out what was making her youngest child so angry.

Ninety Percent of Petraeus’s Captured “Taliban” Were Civilians

During his intensive initial round of media interviews as commander in Afghanistan in August 2010, Gen. David Petraeus released figures to the news media that claimed spectacular success for raids by Special Operations Forces: in a 90-day period from May through July, SOF units had captured 1,355 rank and file Taliban, killed another 1,031, and killed or captured 365 middle or high-ranking Taliban.

PAKISTAN: Blood Donors Save Lives in Peshawar

If there’s one thing positive that has come out of the violence in this part of Pakistan, it is that people have developed a culture of donating blood that helps save lives, say doctors in the northeastern city of Peshawar.

AFGHANISTAN: Debate Rages over U.S. Withdrawal

With only three weeks left before U.S. military forces are scheduled to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, the debate over the size and pace of that withdrawal has become increasingly intense.

Slain Writer’s Book Says US-NATO War Served Al-Qaeda Strategy

Al-Qaeda strategists have been assisting the Taliban fight against U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan because they believe that foreign occupation has been the biggest factor in generating Muslim support for uprisings against their governments, according to the just-published book by Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistani journalist whose body was found in a canal outside Islamabad last week with evidence of having been tortured.

PAKISTAN: Tribes Plead for End to Army Offensives

Fear and anxiety have spread among residents of North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan after U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that the Pakistani government would launch a major offensive in the area.

MIDEAST: Killer Butterfly Takes Wing

"Look, a swallowtail!" A 70-year old moustachioed man hops jubilantly between rocks and prickly flowers, chasing a butterfly. "And look here!" What looks like a dragonfly hovers around in a mechanical whirr of transparent wings.

US-PAKISTAN: Mend Aid Programme, Don’t End It, Says Study

Amid a spate of calls by U.S. lawmakers to slash aid to Pakistan in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death, an influential think tank is calling for greater patience, precision, transparency and humility in implementing Washington's 1.5-billion-dollar-a-year development aid programme.

U.S. Uses Peace Talks to Divide Taliban from Pakistan

The leaked reports over the past two weeks of a series of meetings between U.S. officials and a Taliban figure close to leader Mullah Omar seemed to point to real progress toward a negotiated settlement of the war in Afghanistan.

PAKISTAN: Women Lose Livelihood Centres to Militants

Housewife Shahida Jabeen was devastated when she heard the news that she could no longer take sewing and embroidery classes at the local training centre in her hometown in South Waziristan in north-west Pakistan.

CANADA: Documenting the ‘Truth’

"I told you the truth, you don't like the truth", Omar Khadr shouts at a Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent. The accused, then aged 16, breaks down: "Ya Ummi! (Mummy!)", he cries in Arabic. This four-day interrogation, captured on CCTV at the notorious Guantánamo Bay prison, lies at the heart of the documentary "You don't like the truth – 4 days in Guantánamo".

U.S./SOUTH ASIA: Influential Think Tank Urges Long-Term Commitment

With public and Congressional debate hotting up over post-bin Laden U.S. policy in South Asia, a think tank with close ties to the administration of President Barack Obama is calling for a strategy that will keep Washington deeply engaged in the region for a long time to come.

CHILE: Dictatorship-Era Law Used to Squelch Activism

"What is happening in Chile isn't justice; it's a pantomime, because under the anti-terrorism law, there is absolutely no way justice can be done," José Venturelli, spokesman for the European Secretariat of the Ethics Commission against Torture, said on a recent visit to this South American country.

Tajikistan’s New Generation of Guerrillas

While most of the world is closely watching the Middle East, monitoring the human rights situations in Bahrain, Syria, Libya and Israel, the International Crisis Group (ICG) is keeping its eye on neighbouring Central Asia.

BOOKS: Victims of Quiet Terror Campaign Against Cuba Speak Out

The death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan earlier this month was hailed by people across the United States and around the world as a fitting end for a self-confessed mass murderer.

U.S. Rapping Hard Again at Pakistan’s Door

Pakistan defence experts and observers say the country could expect another unilateral raid by U.S. forces, similar to the one they carried out in Abbottabad on May 2, that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan Fighting Off U.S. Aid

The killing of Osama Bin Laden on May 2 in a covert operation by the United States has prompted strident calls by many in Pakistan to see it as a lesson for the country to stand on its feet, say no to foreign aid and shrug off the title "hired gun of the U.S."

Obama Troop Surge Decision Ignored Pak-Taliban Ties

The unilateral U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden created a spike in mutual recriminations between U.S. and Pakistani politicians, but their fundamental conflict of interest over Afghanistan was already driving the two countries toward serious confrontation.

PAKISTAN: Nearly Osama’s Neighbour

It was far from home for an eight-year old, about 400 km from the eastern city of Lahore, to be exact. But Abbottabad was home. My father lived there; he was born there, in that house which my grandfather built. Now that the dust and uncertainty about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden there seem to be settling, I think back on what was, and what might have been.

PAKISTAN: Bomb Survivors Vow to Pursue Taliban Attackers

Survivors of the twin suicide attacks on Shabqadar Fort in Charsadda town in north-west Pakistan said they were eager to take on their assignments as new members of the Frontier Constabulary (FC), even as some are still recuperating from wounds inflicted by the attacks.