A trusted voice in global media on South Asia and frequently invited as an expert commentator on politics and regional affairs by renowned media outlets, including BBC, CNN, VOA, DW, NPR, DAWN, WION, and NDTV
Published extensively in leading outlets, including Dawn, The Wall Street Journal, TRT World, and The Guardian, with regular opinion pieces for Arab News and Deutsche Welle
On the last day of July, the people of Kabul woke to the sound of thunderous blasts and a skyline covered in thick dark clouds. Rumours abounded but there was no official word on what had happened until two days
The East-West face off over the Ukrainian crisis seems dark, gloomy and long, like the cruel Russian winter. At the centre stage of the crisis is President Vladimir Putin who lives in the centuries old presidential palace, the Kremlin, from
When the Taliban overran Kandahar and Helmand, Baloch insurgents sensed their hideouts in Afghanistan were not safe anymore. Under previous Ghani and Karzai governments, the Afghan Taliban provided them shelter, but now the militia was itself the government. The Baloch
The Taliban victory in Kabul was celebrated by fighters in various ways: some sloganeered on the streets, some swarmed the presidential palace, some took photos on abandoned helicopters. Others broke through barricades of Kabul prison and freed hundreds of captured
The winds were changing in my friend Nasir Dawar’s beautiful village of Issori in North Waziristan 20 years ago. As we walked through the lush green fields, he peered and pointed to the mountain looming in the distance, the majestic
Mullah Baradar stepped on Afghan soil after 20 years amid sloganeering his fighters, “Long live Tehrik-i-Taliban!” He chose to land in Kandahar – the Taliban’s birthplace, where Baradar began his life as a Mujahid fighting alongside Mullah Omar against the
Standing at the back of a compound in Tel Aviv, I heard Arial Sharon declare united Jerusalem ‘the eternal capital of the Jewish people.’ Earlier he had gone into the Al Aqsa compound with hundreds of Israeli police officers. The
As the winter sun settled in the shadows, the old man nodded at visitors, lifting his hands in silent prayer every time someone came to condole his son’s death. But when darkness enveloped the sky and the mercury dropped, so
AS darkness settled over the Swat Valley, Mehmood* with other children would huddle around his grandmother, called Abai in Pashto, to listen to fairy tales about the bravery of princes and of evil spirits in the mountains. He would fall
Bubo’s memories are as beautiful and as haunting as her ancestral village of Anghar, which, tribal elders say, was once haunted and deserted. It is now a place of lush green fields, as if nature has rolled a carpet over
When the twin towers fell, stock markets around the world shook and fortunes were lost. And as Al Qaeda fled from Tora Bora into North Waziristan, a small-time shopkeeper Sher Gul Dawar didn’t know he was about to become a
As I walk through this relief camp in Bannu, the midday sun emits fire, the heat waves are palpable as they rise off the concrete road, adding a haze to the scenes of desperation among thousands of tribesmen who escaped
“His arm was outstretched, hand gripping the serac ice wall in K2’s notorious Bottleneck. That’s my last image of my father. That’s how I want to remember him,” says Sajid, who was accompanying his father Ali Sadpara in his quest
The deafening explosions, rocket and missile fire, convoys of Russian tanks, people running for shelter to makeshift bunkers amid air raid sirens, the chaos of war flings Afghan girls – Ayesha and Masouma Tajik – back into the past they
رات کے بارہ بجنے کو ہیں، کراچی کے سی ویو میں میرے فلیٹ کے سامنے سمندر کے ساتھ ساتھ سڑک پر ہزاروں نوجوان گاڑیوں اور موٹر سائیکلوں پر سوار، اونچی موسیقی اور پٹاخوں کی آوازوں کے درمیان، ہوائی فائرنگ میں
برسوں قبل پاکستان کی سیاست کے رموز سمجھنے اور سمجھانے کے لیے اشاروں کنایوں کا سہارا لیا جاتا تھا۔ شہر اقتدار یعنی اسلام آباد کے ایک عالی شان ہوٹل کی لابی اقتدار سے ہمیشہ جڑے رہنے والے سیاستدانوں کا گڑھ
لاہور شہر کے مختلف علاقوں کی دیواروں، کھمبوں پر پوسٹرز اور بینرز آویزاں ہیں۔ آدھی تصویر ایاز صادق کی، آدھی پاکستانی قید سے رہائی پانے والے بھارتی پائلٹ ابھی نندن کی۔ شکل ایاز صادق کی، بڑی، بڑی مونچھیں ابھی نندن
گوادر شہر میں حفاظتی باڑ کا حصار کھینچا جا رہا ہے۔ مقامی ماہی گیر اس کی وجہ سے شدید اعصابی تناؤ کا شکار ہیں اور بلوچ قوم پرست سراپا احتجاج۔ ایسا لگ رہا ہے، جیسے سمندری ہواؤں پر کانٹوں کے
بچپن میں ہمارے آبائی شہر لاڑکانہ اور اس کے گرد و نواح میں کوئی میلہ لگتا یا کوئی دوسرا تہوار ہوتا تو پتلی تماشہ سجتا تھا۔ صدیوں پرانی مومل رانڑو، عمر ماروی اور اکبر بادشاہ جیسے مقامی کرداروں کی لوک
مولانا فضل الرحمان کے سیاسی خوابوں کی تعبیر ہمیشہ سے عمران خان کی حکومت کا خاتمہ رہی ہے۔ انتخابات کے بعد ہی مولانا نے اعلان جنگ کر دیا تھا لیکن انہیں ملک کی دو بڑی سیاسی جماعتوں کی سیاسی چھتری
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