Ibrahim Moiz

Caught in cyclical violence: Why Afghanistan's present mirrors its past

The narrow base from which the Taliban draws its leaders, coupled with the tendency toward oligopoly among its opponents, helps explain why Afghanistan’s leaders have hardly changed over the past two decades.

Daesh in Afghanistan: Challenge and opportunity for the Taliban

The Taliban’s challenge is to root out Daesh's Khorasan wing without sowing the seeds of another long war.

Afghanistan’s Taliban and Daesh: A simmering rivalry

Daesh’s Khorasan wing is primarily rooted in the Pakistani insurgency, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a series of networks quite distinct from Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.

What does the rise of Daesh-K mean for Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation?

Kabul is hesitant to antagonise the “Pakistani Taliban” lest it supports the self-styled caliphate, yet the same group poses a threat to Islamabad.

Taliban’s interim government: Is the past, prologue?

The Taliban’s new cabinet is neither inexperienced nor incompetent, but it comes from a narrow enough pool of candidates that suspicions about its inclusivity will only be put to bed if it actually is an interim, and not a permanent, one.

A tricky path from insurgency to Emirate

The Taliban’s unofficial “shadow government”, which ruled much of the Afghan periphery for some fifteen years, is an entirely different proposition to a coalition at the centre.

The rise of the Taliban’s number two: Mullah Baradar

Taliban co-founder and second-in-command, Abdul Ghani Baradar, led the movement to its latest victory in Afghanistan. This is the story of how he got there.

Wrong-Ed: Muslims, panderers and the ‘war on terror’

Ed Husain’s latest book is another dangerous tirade by a ‘former radical’ that normalises bigoted views and contributes to the rise of the far right.

Al Qaeda: Ten years after Osama bin Laden

The terrorist organisation that changed the trajectory of global politics through its spectacular attack on September 11, 2001 has survived, but just.

Islam, Western historical revisionism and the Shah Massoud exception

In a career filled with complexity and contradiction, Massoud was lionised as the ‘good Muslim’ during the insurgencies of the 1980s and 1990s, an expediency that would reek of Western dissonance post-2001.

Tripoli trapdoor trounces Khalifa Haftar

The Libyan warlord has consistently upped the ante, but only has a losing hand to show for it.

Leverage for a long shot in Afghanistan

There is more to the scuppering of peace talks between the Taliban and the US than just continued fighting between the two sides.