South Asia Archive

Nearly two months ago gunmen launched a brazen attack on Hamid Mir, one of Pakistan’s most famous and trusted journalists, riddling his car with bullets. Mir survived the assassination attempt, but soon plunged into a storm of controversy after he and his brother accused the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) of the crime. Mir’s employer, Geo television, broadcast the allegation immediately and provided it hours of coverage. Geo subsequently apologized for its unsubstantiated accusations, but the standoff worsened as the military forced cable providers to block Geo, began campaigning against the network and requested that PEMRA, Pakistan’s media regulator, […]

The United States has “a willing partner in the next Afghan president, whichever one it is,” said Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Philip Breedlove last week. He said he was “extremely confident” that Afghanistan and the United States would be able to reach an agreement to keep in Afghanistan the 9,800 U.S. troops slated to remain there past the end of the year, when the NATO-led mission in the country officially ends. But the U.S. footprint in the country is shrinking, and if Breedlove’s confidence is misplaced, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan could soon go to zero. The U.S. […]

Two separate terrorist attacks rocked the international airport in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, last week, killing dozens. On Sunday, the Pakistani military launched a long-delayed ground assault into its tribal regions in an effort to root out the militants that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif now calls a threat to “the sovereignty of the motherland.” Pakistan has for years been locked in conflict with the Pakistani Taliban, also known as the TTP, a homegrown Pakistani group with links to the Afghan Taliban. But the Pakistani military’s initial statements on its operations in the tribal areas this week emphasized that among […]