Herald Report   The US invasion of Iraq was aimed at setting up permanent military bases there and to benefit energy corporations and weapons industry, comments Professor Noam Chomsky, an internationally acclaimed American linguist in a conversation with Hassan Mirza, published in The Express Tribune Blogs section. The conversation is based on correspondence between the two over a period of …

Dr Tetsu Nakamora was widely respected for his humanitarian work, who devoted his career to improving the lives of the poor Afghans

  A submachine gun that started a quest to know more about the Kirghiz exodus from the Pamirs   Raheel Siddiqui   When one is trotting on a horse at a high altitude through a mountain pass, accompanied by a friend who’s running low on sleep due to low oxygen, there is a slight hope that one won’t be bothered …

KRASLICE, (Czech Republic): In the winter of 1978-79, Afghanistan’s communist regime deployed a hit squad to find and kill Babrak Karmal, the high-profile ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Fearing for his life, Czechoslovak authorities secretly hid Karmal and his family in a remote hunting lodge in the dense forests straddling the border with East Germany. The family-of-six lived covertly for a year …

The reported shoot-out near the Uzbek and Afghan borders will concern Russia and China as well. The attack in Tajikistan could have broad implications for Central Asia DUSHANBE: A deadly attack on a Tajik border post reported early on Wednesday is disturbing for many reasons, including the fact Tajik officials are blaming the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group for the …

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR Compared to the events two decades ago when the Afghan Taliban appeared in the Amu Darya region in northern Afghanistan and Central Asian states and Russia went into feverish tantrums, there is an eerie calm palpable in the steppes today.  The contrast couldn’t be sharper. In 1997 when Taliban first appeared in Mazar-i-Sharif on the Amu …

by Frud Bezhan Seventeen men will contest Afghanistan’s presidential election in a race among old power brokers — ex-government officials, prominent technocrats, and a notorious former warlord. The twice-delayed September 28 election is slated to be only the second-ever democratic transition of power in the war-wracked country of 35 million people. The candidates include some controversial figures from the last …

Sayvaly Shafiev leads a group of about 200 fighters from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and other Central Asian countries in Afghanistan, says UN report Herald Report A little-known Tajik man has emerged as a unit leader of the Islamic State (IS) affiliate in Afghanistan as the extremist group tries to expand its footprint in the war-torn country, reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty …

    By Ron Synovitz & Freshta Jalalzai   KABUL — Mohammad Wali was just 12 years old when his widowed mother began arranging his marriage to a 24-year-old woman from their village in Ghazni Province. “I don’t want to be married,” the young Afghan boy is said to have pleaded with his mother. “I just want to play soccer and cricket. …

Islamabad needs to rethink its foreign relations in the context of a new ‘Great Game’ in the Eurasian region and beyond war and peace in Afghanistan, say experts   HAH Report   Islamabad: Diplomats and experts on Wednesday stressed the need for a thorough revamping of Pakistan’s foreign policy and it’s relations with its neighbours and the United States in …

Zaynab Mukhammad-Dost The Turkish and Turkic Collections at the British Library are the largest collections of manuscript and printed material from the Turkic world housed anywhere in the United Kingdom, says Michael Erdman in an Interview with Zaynab Mukhammad-Dost. What is special about the British Library’s Turkish and Turkic collections? What is the most treasured item? Does the British Museum, …

Kurdish-led group says last of militants cleared from stronghold of Baghuz After almost five years, the battle to dismantle Islamic State’s brutal “caliphate” has ended with an announcement from US-backed forces that the militants have been driven out of their last stronghold of Baghuz, deep in the Syrian desert. Isis had held out for months against the Syrian Democratic Forces …