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About this Channel

The AfPak Channel has become a premier clearinghouse of news and analysis from and about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and issues of transnational terrorism. Edited by Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland, dozens of contributing experts weigh in at the center of an important conversation about this most pressing foreign-policy challenge facing the United States, its allies, and the rest of the world.

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FP Wide Angle
injustice system

Karzai's bid for a dictatorial detention law

In March, the United States and Afghanistan announced that the U.S.-run Bagram prison near Kabul will soon be handed over to Afghan control. It was a major diplomatic breakthrough that paved the way for the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement by President Obama and President Karzai on May 2. But the agreement to handover Bagram is leading to a dramatic and dangerous expansion of detention power in Afghanistan-and a potentially disastrous legacy for the United States. Read More »

good governance

Election 2014: Afghanistan's chance to get it right?

The next Afghan presidential election is currently slated for 2014, an uninspiring prospect given the sky-high levels of corruption, nepotism, and patronage that beleaguers the Afghan political system. To make things worse, President Hamid Karzai has suggested holding the elections in 2013 to avoid an overlap with the planned end of NATO's combat mission. And there is still no functional plan in place for a smooth transfer of political power to a post-Karzai government. Read More »

environment of threat

Pakistan's climate change challenge

Last month, an avalanche on the Siachen glacier in Kashmir killed 124 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians. The tragedy has intensified debate about the logic of stationing Pakistani and Indian troops on such inhospitable terrain. And it has also brought attention to Pakistan's environmental insecurity. Read More »

Economics on the ground

Real talk: Perceptions of India-Pakistan trade

Recent months have seen unprecedented progress on trade relations between India and Pakistan. Last November, Pakistan granted India "most favored nation" (MFN) status, fifteen years after India added Pakistan to its MFN list. On April 13, India announced that it would allow foreign direct investment (FDI) from Pakistan. And on the same day, a historic integrated checkpoint opened at the Attari-Wagah border crossing, which will allow commercial traffic and trade to flow between the two countries. Read More »

Convicted but not evicted

Pakistan's federal felon

On April 26, Pakistan's Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of convicting Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of contempt of court. While the prime minister avoided a jail sentence, the conviction could force him from the premiership, has ramifications on Pakistan's internal political dynamics and could distract from the reconciliation process currently underway with the United States. Read More »

developing better aid strategies

The road to a stable Afghanistan is through...the Pakistani countryside?

Since NATO's Lisbon summit in November 2010, debate has raged over the decision to draw-down troops from Afghanistan by 2014. And in less than a month, NATO is to hold its 25th heads of state summit in Chicago on 20th May. Unsurprisingly, among the summit's major themes will be the seemingly intractable Afghan question, controversy over which has continued with increasingly ferocious attacks by militants - the synchronised 18-hour assault on Kabul on April 16 being an outstanding example - along with persistently strained U.S.-Pakistani relations since NATO airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November. But rather than endlessly debating troop numbers - whose link to stability is at the least exceedingly unclear - NATO allies would be better off focusing on how to maximise the impact of programs which pave the way for long-term stability by dramatically re-shifting the focus of aid funding from security to development. Read More »

Jihad in the West

In short supply: The Britain-Pakistan jihadist trade flow

This year, the United Kingdom hosts the Olympic Games, and security services are on particularly high alert. Magnifying an already tense environment, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and then al-Qaeda released videos in the past few weeks, threatening the United Kingdom if convicted jihadists serving sentences in the U.K. are not treated better. The TTP threatened, "we will show them how we take revenge for the mistreatment of our brothers." Are these just empty threats, or are they, in fact, causes for genuine concern for British security services? Read More »

Parliament takes a stand

Pakistan's new player

The Pakistan parliament has now completed its action on a resolution defining the terms of reference for future Pakistan-U.S. relations, adopting it without formal dissent. Action now passes to the Pakistani cabinet, which must formally initiate discussions with the United States. All eyes will be on how the U.S. and Pakistani governments negotiate the actual working of this troubled relationship. The parliament's central role in this process also tells us about some things that have changed - and some that have not - in the way Pakistan's government institutions work, both internally and with the United States. Both countries should take this opportunity to revise their well-practiced negotiating tactics, which have become a recipe for failure. Read More »

Replenishing the top ranks

New kid on the block: An al-Qaeda leader ascends

The last two years have not been kind to al-Qaeda Central (AQC). U.S. drone strikes over Pakistan's Pashtun tribal regions have decimated its leadership ranks, killing a number of senior operational leaders and ideologues. These killings have eroded the ability of AQC and the transnational Sunni jihadi current to propagate its message.  Despite these losses, however, AQC still has a number of charismatic voices that it is able to, and frequently does, deploy.  One of these is the group's chief juridical voice, Abu Yahya al-Libi. A second is the Kuwaiti preacher Khalid bin ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Husaynan, a much lesser-known ideologue who has played an increasingly prominent role in AQC's media productions since his debut in an often comedic "quiet dialogue." This "dialogue" was actually a rhetorical monologue aimed at U.S. president Barack Obama, released by the group's al-Sahab Media Foundation in August 2009.    Read More »

Pakistan's Energy Woes

Fixing Pakistan's tanking economy

Pakistan warrants concern, and not just because it is sitting on the fifth largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The country is in the throes of a destabilizing and dangerous energy crisis. It faces gas shortages, and electricity outages of up to 20 hours a day. As a result, factories have been forced into closing. There is double-digit inflation. Infrastructure is crumbling for want of resources. And harrowing stories of the newly impoverished setting themselves on fire or resorting to crime have become the new normal. Read More »

Building the future

Bridging Afghanistan's development gap

Afghan labourers take part in the construction of a bridge at Barikowt, in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province on April 3, 2009. Read More »

Beyond victory

Washington's war for Afghanistan's women

As Sunday's spectacular attack in Kabul showed, the war in Afghanistan may be winding down in Washington, but it is heating up on the ground with spring's arrival. Read More »

Latest from the Channel

The Mumbai Model and the threat of urban terrorism
By Adam Elkus

The success of complex attacks on urban centers in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India should also spark worries in the minds of Western counterterrorism officials. Read More »

Justice and the enemy
By Karen Greenberg

A review of William Shawcross' Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Read More »

Peter Bergen

What's behind the furor in Pakistan?

Photo of Peter Bergen

Who is Mansoor Ijaz, the Pakistani-American businessman at the center of this twisted tale?

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