By Kathy Gannon, AP: “As Pakistan navigates its troubled relationship with the United States and scrambles to avoid being blacklisted for doing too little, too late to stop terror funding, regional alliances are shifting and analysts ponder whether a cozier relationship with countries like Russia will complicate efforts to move toward peace in neighboring Afghanistan.”
(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) First, a Russian military delegation made a rare visit to Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. Then Russian-language signposts were erected on roads in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Now, Moscow has appointed an honorary consul in the city of Peshawar.
Saudi Arabia backed down under pressure from the U.S. and allowed Pakistan to be placed on an international terror-financing watch list, officials from countries involved in the decision said Friday, dealing a blow to the South Asian country’s struggling economy. - Wall Street Journal
India and Pakistan have exchanged artillery fire in the disputed Kashmir region forcing hundreds of people to flee, police in Indian Kashmir said, raising fresh doubts about a 15-year-old ceasefire between the nuclear-armed rivals in the area. - Reuters
(Asia Times) The inauguration of TAPI – the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline – signals Kabul is on-board with the grand project of Eurasian integration
(Task & Purpose) According to an in-depth investigation conducted by BBC News reporters in late 2017, the Taliban fully control four percent of Afghanistan’s districts and “have an active and open physical presence” in 66 percent of the remaining ones. They found that roughly half of the Afghan people “are living in areas that are either controlled by the Taliban or where the Taliban are openly present and regularly mount attacks.”