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.
As delegations of Afghan society and the hard-line Taliban Islamist movement decide the agenda of expected lengthy talks over their country’s future political system, the issue of a cease-fire between their combatants looms large over the peace process.
The United Nations says an estimated 6,000 residents of Chinarto, a remote district in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, cannot access medical services and face food shortages because of the road closure by the Taliban.
An Afghan teenager who survived an alleged shooting by Iranian police that set the car in which he was traveling on fire says he is ready to again try fleeing his war-ravaged homeland.
Taj Bibi, a mother of five in her 30s, has lost three husbands, all brothers and Afghan army soldiers, to the war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s powerful generals have for decades cited political corruption as a leading problem in the country that justified the toppling of governments through repeated coups and the military's manipulation of power.
For nearly four decades, Afghans have been one of the largest refugee groups globally, but in recent years internal displacement has turned into a top humanitarian issue for the country of 35 million people.
Lawmaker Mushahid Hussain heads the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Pakistani Senate. In an interview with RFE/RL Gandhara, the former journalist weighed in on Islamabad’s recent spat with key ally Saudi Arabia and his country’s current standing in the region.
A changing regional landscape threatens longstanding security pact between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
Residents and officials in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Badakhshan say the Taliban is raking in considerable revenues by taxing illegal gold mining in the remote region bordering China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan.
As Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government completes its first two years in office this week, he and his cabinet members appeared to send out a coordinated message: The country’s rough patch is over.
For relatives, the fate of their disappeared loved ones in Pakistan is a constant agony.
Hopes for ending four decades of war in Afghanistan are high this week after a Loya Jirga or grand assembly of more than 3,000 political elites, tribal leaders, clerics, and activists approved the release of 400 Taliban prisoners.
Sardar Gurbachan Singh Ghazniwal, 50, always considered Afghanistan his homeland. He braved all kinds of threats during his country’s four-decade-long war but resisted joining members of his country’s tiny Hindu and Sikh minority community in fleeing Afghanistan.
The family of a young female Afghan police officer is seeking justice after her recent kidnapping and murder in a volatile southeastern Afghan province.
A major gathering of two Pashtun tribes in western Pakistan has requested that the government give their restive homeland its resources if security forces fail to establish peace in the region reeling from years of militant attacks and military operations.
Residents and officials in a southeast Afghan province say the group has imposed restrictions ranging from bans on music and mobile phones to shaving beards.
As Muslims across the world celebrated the Eid al-Adha festival this past weekend, the 48-year-old spent most of her time visiting the graves of her three sons and trying to console their children.
Talks between the Afghan government and the hard-line Islamist Taliban movement finally appear to be on the horizon after the two sides announced a brief cease-fire during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha this week.
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