Taliban have absorbed former fighters from various terrorist groups into their local security forces to draw on their combat experience, a United Nations sanctions monitoring report says, warning that the practice raises concerns about infiltration and ideological alignment within their ranks. In its latest comprehensive report covering developments through Dec. 8, 2025, the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said […]

The resumption of direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi in December 2025 is more than a matter of convenience. It symbolizes a broader recalibration in South Asian geopolitics following Bangladesh’s student-led uprising of 2024, which toppled Sheikh Hasina’s long-standing regime and ushered Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus into interim leadership. Against this backdrop, Dhaka’s foreign policy is shifting away from its […]

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Wednesday that Mohammad Reza Bahrami, Director General for South Asia at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has invited the Islamic Emirate’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to visit Tehran. According to the ministry, the invitation was extended during Bahrami’s official visit to Kabul, where he met with Muttaqi. During the meeting, Bahrami briefed […]

In early November, Sajid Akram, 50, and his bricklayer son Naveed, 24, travelled from Australia to the Philippines. Their destination was Davao, a city in Mindanao, the second-largest of the Philippines’ many thousands of islands — and a region in which the notorious terror organisation Islamic State is regrouping. Here, the Akrams spent four weeks receiving military-style training. When they […]

On 10 December 2025, U.S. forces seized the oil tanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela, carrying over a million barrels of crude. “Well, we keep [the oil],” President Trump told reporters. Venezuela’s foreign ministry called it “blatant theft and an act of international piracy,” adding: “The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed. It […]