Afghanistan

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Marvin G. Weinbaum, Charles Lister, Hassan Mneimneh, and Paul Scham provide analysis on recent events including the killing of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, deadly blasts targeting regime-held territory in Syria, Iraq’s intra-Shiite feud, and Avigdor Lieberman’s appointment as Israel’s Defense Minister.

U.S. Army General John Campbell, the outgoing commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, estimates the number of ISIS militants in Afghanistan to range from 1,000 to 3,000 and warns that “they have the ability to recruit quite well, not only around the world, but inside Afghanistan.”

This article was first published on RealClearWorld, and is part of the MEI series titled: “The Middle East and the 2016 Presidential Elections.”

This article was published on February 5, 2016 on Foreign Policy’s South Asia Channel.

Saudi Arabia is back, knocking on Pakistan’s door. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud’s son and deputy crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, arrived separately in the early days of the new year to persuade Islamabad to join hands with Riyadh in confronting regional security threats. That is, the Saudis want Pakistan’s support against Iran. 

This article first appeared on Huffington Post.

This article first appeared on NPR’s Parallels blog.

U.S. troops in Afghanistan lowered the flag and boxed up their gear at the end of last year as President Obama declared the formal end to 13 years of U.S. combat operations.

This article was first published on Foreign Policy’s South Asia Channel.

This article was first published on Foreign Policy‘s South Asia Channel.

Soon after Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah formed a unity government in Afghanistan in September 2014, there were signs of rapprochement between Kabul and Islamabad. When President Ghani visited Pakistan in November, he went to the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi and laid a wreath at the monument to the country’s fallen soldiers—an indication that the Kabul government had come to an understanding with the Pakistani army, which controls the country’s Afghan policy.

This article was first published on Foreign Policy‘s South Asia Channel.

April 23, 2015 – Marvin Weinbaum, director of the Center for Pakistan Studies at The Middle East Institute, explains Pakistan’s decision not to provide military aid for Saudi Arabia’s operation in Yemen, and how Prime Minister Sharif is working to repair relations with Riyadh.