Pakistan | GlobalPost

Taliban leaders report progress in secret talks with the US and Afghanistan

C.M. SennottJune 17, 2009 14:40Updated May 30, 2010 12:58

KABUL — Moderate leaders of the Taliban say they have quietly and steadily made progress in third-party talks between the active Taliban insurgency and representatives of the Afghan and U.S. governments. Two Taliban leaders — who held high-ranking positions in the now-deposed Taliban government and who are directly involved in the talks — say they’ve recently established a framework of an agreement through the shuttle negotiations. They say the process has included contact with the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Nancy Dupree's love affair with Kabul

C.M. SennottJune 15, 2009 19:17Updated May 30, 2010 12:58

KABUL — Enter the steel gates that lead to the courtyard and well-tended gardens of a faded, but still elegant, manse where Nancy Hatch Dupree greets us on the steps. For a moment, you feel what it must have been like to live here in the early 1960s.

Counterterrorism takes center stage

Teri SchultzJune 17, 2009 06:38Updated May 30, 2010 12:58

BRUSSELS — When the European Union's counterterrorism chief traveled to Pakistan a few years ago, all anyone wanted to talk about was free trade. Now, with a high-level Pakistani delegation in Brussels, those priorities may have changed.

Full Frame: When peace deals break down

Edwin KooJune 12, 2009 17:22Updated May 30, 2010 12:58

Full Frame features photo essays and conversations with photographers in the field. Fighting between the Taliban and Pakistani army in the Swat Valley has created the largest exodus of refugees that Pakistan has seen since the partition with India in 1947. Many who have fled have found themselves in refugee camps, others have moved in with families, seeking safety in cities and slums alike. Photographer Edwin Koo documented their plight.

For refugees, reluctant acceptance of a new life

Shahan MuftiJune 12, 2009 16:26Updated May 30, 2010 12:58

NOWSHERA, Pakistan — Ibrahim Bahadur Ali began living the life of an “Internally Displaced Person” three weeks ago, when his family was forced to flee from the war raging between the Pakistan military and Taliban. But bored with the drudgery of life for an 8-year-old boy in a refugee camp, Ibrahim decided to start something fresh: He borrowed 2,000 rupees ($30) from his grandmother and opened his own shop in the camp.

Peshawar bombing latest test for a city under strain

Shahan MuftiJune 9, 2009 15:15

A large bomb blast at a five-star Peshawar hotel has killed at least 11 people including foreign nationals, according to local media reports.

The ground truth in Islamabad

C.M. SennottJune 8, 2009 18:19Updated May 30, 2010 12:57

ISLAMABAD — The wounded cop lay in Surgical Ward Three with his head bandaged from the blast that embedded shrapnel in his skull, and he began to tell the story. It’s a story about a relatively small bombing within the horrific spate of violence unfolding here, but one that serves as a kind of modern fable about the fateful struggle in which Pakistan now finds itself — and how it might just be turning a corner in that struggle.

AfPak Journal: A suicide bomb kills 29 outside a crowded mosque in northwest Pakistan.

cmsennott@globalpost.comJune 5, 2009 14:22

AFPAK JOURNAL: GlobalPost executive editor Charles Sennott begins today to write “AfPak Journal,” a chronicle of his reporting trip through Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISLAMABAD — As the Pakistan International Airlines flight touched down here, I noticed that the in-flight screen featured the lush landscape of the Swat Valley with a promotional message: “Pakistan, heaven on earth.” Not exactly.

Obama's speech: The view from Islamabad

Shahan MuftiJune 4, 2009 09:58

"So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace ... ."

Orchestrating peace

William DowellJune 2, 2009 22:59Updated May 30, 2010 12:57

GENEVA — The Center for Humanitarian Dialogue is one of a handful of places to go if you want to kick start a negotiating process with pirates in Somalia or a rebel army in Sudan. It is part of a new trend: outsourcing the mediation of hot conflicts, which often involve unsavory characters. “Others are into peace building,” said Martin Griffiths, a former U.N. assistant secretary general for humanitarian affairs, who has headed the HD Centre since its founding a decade ago. “We are into peace making.”