Pakistan Taliban

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Brown University Watson Institute Costs of War Project has put out a report concluding that the US-led “War on Terror” has displaced 37 million people. While there are parts of the report I agree with, some of the argument seems to me flawed. Let me explain why that is, […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

Al-Qaeda Everywhere: US support for Oppressive Gov’t’s made Bin Laden’s Killing Moot

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US government has never understood insurgency for the most part. Smart USG officials with whom I’ve interacted have had a firm belief that leadership is a rare quality and that you can attrite an organization by killing its leaders. This theory is patently false. It […]

Mental Health

Women Refugees from radical groups like Taliban suffer Psychological Disorders

contributors

By Ashfaq Yusufzai | (Inter Press Service) | – – PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 26 2015 (IPS) – “My two sons were killed by Taliban militants mercilessly three years ago. My husband died a natural death two year back. Now, I am begging to raise my two grandsons,” Gul Pari, 50, told IPS. Pari, who is […]

Islam

Over 40 Ismaili Shiites shot down by Sunni Extremists in Pakistan

contributors

BBC | – “Dozens of people are thought to have died after an attack by gunmen on a bus in Karachi. They surrounded the bus, which was carrying Ismaili Shia Muslims, and opened fire. It is believed that there were up to 60 people on board the bus, including women and children.” Dozens killed in […]

Education

Pakistan – Court jails 10 for life over attack on Malala and on Women’s Education

contributors

France24 English | – An anti-terror court in Pakistan has sentenced 10 men for their roles in the 2012 attack on Malala Yousafzai. France24 English: “PAKISTAN – Court jails 10 for life over Malala attack”

Constitution

US admits it has no Idea who it is Assassinating by Drone

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The tragic deaths last January, just now being revealed, of two Western hostages in drone strikes on a relatively empty housing complex in northern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border underlines that the Obama administration is killing people from the air without knowing who they are and is killing […]

Featured

As Iran talks Progress, US, Iran forces cooperate in taking Tikrit

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – By now the Iraqi government has a long history of claiming areas are “liberated” when the local picture remained mixed. This is the sort of thing that occurred recently in where Tikrit, where PM Haydar al-Abadi went on television and declared Tikrit no longer in the hands of […]

Education

Pakistan: Fighting Extremism with Schools, Not Guns

contributors

By Zofeen Ebrahim | — KARACHI (IPS) – As a wave of outrage, crossing Pakistan’s national borders, continues a month after the Dec. 16 attack on a school in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, some citizens are turning away from collective expressions of anger, and beginning the hard work of building grassroots alternatives to terrorism […]

Epidemics

Another Terror: Do Taliban stand in the Way of Eradication of Polio Scourge?

contributors

By Inter Press Service Correspondents | KATHMANDU/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (IPS) – The goal is an ambitious one – to deliver a polio-free world by 2018. Towards this end, the multi-sector Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is bringing out the big guns, sparing no expense to ensure that “every last child” is immunised against the crippling disease. […]