Afghan Commentary Post

  The Old War Is Dead: Why Pakistan and Afghanistan and Pakist shall Follow the Law of Nature This week, Pakistani aircraft struck targets in Khost, Paktia, and Kandahar, what Islamabad called precision strikes against militants who had launched drone attacks into Pakistan. Kabul reported civilian casualties, and the Taliban warned of consequences. Since 2021, when the Taliban returned to power, this script has become tragically familiar. The imbalance looks obvious. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state with a large army and modern jets. Afghanistan has no air force, a shattered economy, and a government most of the world refuses to recognize. The temptation in Islamabad is to believe that enough pressure will force Kabul to sever ties with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). But that calculation rests on a twentieth-century idea of military power. The War That Was For most of the Cold War, victory went to the side with the biggest armies, the most bases, and the fastest aircraf...

  Pakistan Is Fighting the Militancy It Once Nurtured Pakistan cannot bomb its way out of this crisis by killing Afghan civilians in the name of fighting the TTP. It needs to abandon its old approach of keeping Afghanistan under its thumb and adopt a citizen-to-citizen approach instead. By Wahab Raofi On Friday, September 18, 2026, worshippers gathered for prayers at a mosque inside the Old Police Lines in Kohat, in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the compound gate. Gunmen then stormed the site, and a second blast went off near the Special Branch building during the exchange of fire. At least 23 people were killed — including five police officers, eleven civilians, and seven of the attackers — and more than 50 were wounded. Security forces needed until the next morning to clear the compound. The attack raised the familiar question: who is behind the violence? The answer is murkier than usual. Dawn reported that It...

  Saudi Arabia Has Been Attacked. Is Pakistan Answering the Phone? Pakistan is punching beyond its weight, and with so many problems of its own at home, it is ill-placed to rush to Saudi Arabia's aid. On Friday, September 18, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a police compound in Kohat, in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The blast struck a mosque during Friday prayers, killing at least 21 people and wounding more than 100. Gunmen then stormed the compound, and a prolonged firefight followed before Pakistani forces killed several of the attackers. The timing matters. Two days earlier, Pakistan's defence minister had said the moment had come to implement the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The same military being asked to help defend the Gulf is still struggling to secure its own northwest, and that gap between commitment and capacity is the real story of this pact. To see why, it helps to start with what Paki...

 The Race For Building Medrassas in Afghani   Education as the Battleground for Political and Ideological Survival On September 7, 2026, forces from the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice surrounded and forcibly cleared the Khatam-al-Nabiyyin Islamic University and Seminary, the largest Shia religious and educational center in Kabul. While the regime cloaked the seizure in the bureaucratic language of reclaiming "public land," the local Hazara and Shia communities recognized the armed raid and subsequent detentions for what they truly were: an overt act of sectarian consolidation. This targeted crackdown stands in stark contrast to the parallel educational reality sweeping the country, as Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid recently declared that their ministry now oversees more than 20,000 Sunni madrassas, housing and indoctrinating over 2.5 million students. This sharp dichotomy illustrates that the race for building and controlling madrassas has become the premier battlegro...

  Language as a Unifying Force: A Case for National Cohesion Language is far more than a medium of communication—it can serve as a powerful catalyst for uniting a nation. In Alphonse Daudet's short story "The Last Lesson," set in a remote French village, a teacher informs his students that this will be their final day of learning in their mother tongue. Beginning tomorrow, they will be required to speak German. As he speaks, his voice catches and his eyes well with tears—a small, human moment that captures the profound emotional weight of losing one's linguistic heritage and the erosion of identity that accompanies such loss. Recently, a Taliban official asserted that Pashto should be the sole official language of Afghanistan, claiming that most Afghans speak it. The remark sparked bitter debate among Afghans at home and abroad, with many condemning it as racist and an imposition upon non-Pashtuns. This controversy emerges at a time when Afghanistan is already dee...

  The Burden of the Hero: Representation, Expectation, and the Reality of Aisha Wahab The atmosphere in the theater was electric. The crowd was joyful, eagerly waiting for the curtain to rise on a show of valor and high performance. But as the velvet was slowly pushed aside, the hero who emerged felt like a different actor entirely — not what some in the audience had come for. The actor simply performed a pre-written role, while those in the seats had arrived hoping for a panacea: a true remedy for their deepest ills. This theatrical disconnect mirrors the complex reality surrounding Aisha Wahab, the first Afghan-American woman elected to Congress. For many in the Afghan diaspora, Wahab's historic rise was a beacon of hope. They expected her to use her new platform to champion her ancestral homeland — specifically by calling for strict sanctions against the Taliban, a regime that has stripped women of their rights and shuttered schools for girls. Instead, Wahab has called for con...