Daud Khattak is a senior international correspondent covering the Near East in RFE/RL’s Central Newsroom. He was previously the managing editor of RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have been internally displaced by deadly border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent months. Among them is a father-of-six who now lives in a tent.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif begins a three-day visit to China on May 23 as tensions in the Middle East remain high. Analysts say Sharif is expected to push for renewed urgency in US-Iran negotiations.
The United Arab Emirates has deported thousands of Pakistanis, many of them Shi’a Muslims, since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign of Iran on February 28, according to a Pakistani lawmaker and media reports in the South Asian country.
Iranian traders are smuggling over 6 million liters of fuel to neighboring Pakistan each day, traders and transporters in the South Asian country told RFE/RL.
Pakistan’s role as a mediator between Washington and Tehran is drawing renewed scrutiny after reports of Iranian aircraft at a Pakistani airbase.
Sources in the Pakistani Taliban told RFE/RL that the group’s leadership has been ordered to relocate from the Afghan capital, Kabul, where it is allegedly based.
Pakistan appears to have achieved a significant diplomatic breakthrough by playing a proactive role in brokering a 14-day cease-fire and setting the stage for the US-Iran talks in Islamabad on February 10.
Pakistan has offered to host talks aimed at bringing the Iran conflict to an end, highlighting the country's strengthened ties in both the Middle East and with Washington.
Fresh Pakistani jet and drone strikes targeting Kabul and the Kandahar, Paktika, and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan have cast a shadow over China's shuttle-diplomacy efforts to restore peace between Pakistan and the Taliban.
Pakistan launched a wave of attacks on Afghanistan on February 27, in the most serious escalation between the countries since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
The Pakistani Army has set a January 25 deadline for the evacuation of Tirah, a valley of some 150,000 people. The strategic area is located along the border with Afghanistan and is a stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan extremist group.
China and Pakistan announced on January 7 the creation of a new unit to stop a rise in attacks targeting Chinese nationals, but experts and insiders who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal say that the damage to Islamabad’s relationship with Beijing may already be beyond repair.
A full-blown conflict between Afghanistan’s Taliban and neighboring Pakistan seemed unthinkable when the hard-line Islamist group, a longtime ally of Islamabad, seized power in 2021 as international troops withdrew and the government their supported collapsed.
Two senior members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group have been killed in Pakistani drone strikes in the Afghan capital, sources told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.
The death of Maulana Khan Zeb highlights the risk peace activists in Pakistan face amid ongoing violence and political instability in tribal regions. It also has raised accusations the country’s intelligence agencies are propping up various militant outfits.
Following Israel’s strikes on Iran, Pakistan finds itself having to delicately navigate diplomatic rivalries and international alliances, as well as sectarian tensions at home.
India and Pakistan agreed to an immediate cease-fire, US President Donald Trump and officials from both South Asian countries said, after the biggest flare-up of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbors in years sparked fears of a full-scale war.
Pakistan and India traded accusations of attacks on May 8, as tensions persisted amid the worst flare-up of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbors in more than 20 years.
Indian and Pakistani forces have exchanged artillery fire after overnight Indian air strikes claimed multiple lives, as tensions between the two nuclear-armed regional powers threatened to boil over.
Pakistan said eight people were killed early on May 7 in missile strikes launched by Indian armed forces and called the attack a "blatant act of war" amid mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
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