Why Afghanistan is called a global hub of terrorism
UN monitors, US intelligence and Russia all warn of terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan, as Pakistan becomes the country most affected by terrorism.
Analysis
Under the Knife: the paper’s analysis desk. One story at a time, cut open to show what is actually driving it.
Through the Maldives, Pakistan stakes a claim to a bigger Indian Ocean role
A maritime security pact signed during President Muizzu’s visit gives Islamabad a foothold in waters New Delhi has long treated as its own backyard.
With Badr, four Muslim powers bet on building their weapons together
Signed in Doha with little fanfare, the Badr memorandum joins Turkish factories, Qatari capital, Pakistani scale and an Indonesian market. Read as industrial policy rather than a pact, it may matter more than it looks.
Inside the Makkah alliance: DG ISPR on expansion, legal basis and the Muslim world’s test
DG ISPR Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry details the Makkah alliance's secretariat, its Article 51 legal basis, and a maritime coalition spanning Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, in an interview with Independent Arabia.
Air India and IndiGo are quietly retreating from the map, one route at a time
Twenty-nine Air India routes cut in three months, a Vienna-Delhi link gone by Halloween, a lonely Chennai-Réunion service flying its last leg in October. The cuts are small on their own. Together they are a pattern.
India’s airlines face a double squeeze as Pakistan’s airspace ban meets a global fuel shock
India's airlines say the squeeze from Pakistan's airspace ban and a global jet-fuel shock could sink them. Routes are being cut, but no major carrier has actually gone under.
The world’s largest democracy, in its own words
Since July, a protest movement has tested how free India's institutions really are. The record the state has filed under oath keeps colliding with the one its own evidence shows.
Pakistan, Saudi, Turkiye military chiefs meet in Riyadh
Pakistan's Asim Munir, Turkiye's Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, and Saudi Arabia's Fayyadh Al-Ruwaili held urgent talks in Riyadh under the Makkah Alliance amid escalating regional security threats.
Boris Johnson has lost it on Imran Khan
Pakistan's courts are already ordering what Johnson demands. The man who slashed Britain's aid to Pakistan now wants to use "our leverage" to overrule its courts. Everything else in his Daily Mail column is wrong, half-told or left out.
Pakistan’s Saudi commitment: deployed, declared, undefined
"Pakistan stands with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia diplomatically and physically," the Pakistan military spokesman said this week, pausing to underline the second word himself. "We will go to any extent."
