KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants stormed Afghan government offices in Kabul on Monday after setting off a car bomb, and officials said at least 43 people were killed. The attack lasted at least five hours and shattered a period of relative calm in the Afghan capital, which over the years has been subjected to deadly and audacious assaults by militants opposed… Read more »
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — After the Chinese Consulate in a major Pakistani city was attacked by a squad of suicide bombers last month, Pakistani officials pointed fingers at the commander of a separatist group waging an insurgency in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed that commander, Aslam Baluch, along with five associates in an upscale neighborhood of Kandahar, in southern… Read more »
MAZAR I SHARIF, Afghanistan — Violence in northern Afghanistan has intensified in recent days, with both Afghan security forces and the Taliban suffering heavy casualties, but the heavy fighting has failed to shift the battle lines in the 17-year-old war. While many previous winters brought a relative lull to the war, as low temperatures and snow set in, this year… Read more »
KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 12 people were killed on the outskirts of Kabul on Tuesday when explosives in a vehicle detonated near a convoy of security forces, Afghan officials said, and at least 12 others were wounded. It was the deadliest of several violent attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday that left a total of more than 30 dead, most… Read more »
KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the boldest efforts to date to stabilize Afghanistan through economic development began on Friday with a ceremonial start to construction on a $22.5 billion natural gas pipeline crossing the country’s war-ravaged south. The pipeline, known as TAPI for its route through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, taking in some of the world’s most contested land,… Read more »
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani Christian woman who was cleared last week of blasphemy charges after spending eight years on death row has been released from prison but remains under government protection because of threats to her life, officials said Thursday. The woman, Asia Bibi, was released from a prison in central Pakistan and flown to the capital, Islamabad, late… Read more »
KIEV, Ukraine — The terrorist attack in New York on Tuesday was carried out by a young man from Central Asia, a former backyard of the Soviet Union known for poverty, isolation and repressive governments — all elements in breeding some of the most militant Islamist activity in the world. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Islamist insurgencies have erupted throughout… Read more »
The United Nations doesn’t want it to happen. Dozens of rights groups say they are shocked. Even the people who will be affected the most, Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, are upset that their future, once again, is being decided without their input. On Thursday, a few of the more than 720,000 Rohingya who fled slaughter, rape and village burnings in their… Read more »
The recent killing of an American missionary who tried to contact an isolated tribe on a remote Indian island has revived a debate within the evangelical movement over the extreme lengths that some missionaries are willing to go to in hopes of spreading their faith. In the time leading up to his fatal mission last month, John Allen Chau was… Read more »
One day at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year in the rural Rishi Valley region of Andhra Pradesh, India, two dozen children in Grades 1 through 5 gathered quietly around four tables on colorful mats on the floor of their one-room school, working with books and worn laminated materials. Few looked up when I walked in. Their school has… Read more »