By Ehsan M. Ahrari, YaleGlobal: “Starting wars is easy, but bringing them to a successful close, ensuring a sustained peace, is not. The war in in Afghanistan is in its 16th year with no end in sight. “The growing presence of the so-called Afghan-Pakistani Daesh franchise – also known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP – is a source of worry, using territory as a base to terrorize Afghanistan and conduct terrorist operations inside Pakistan,” explains author Ehsan M. Ahrari.”
Pakistan has extended by three months the house arrest of Hafiz Saeed, accused by the United States of masterminding the 2008 attacks on the Indian financial capital Mumbai that killed 166 people, a Pakistani official said on Monday. - Reuters
Eli Lake reports: President Donald Trump will soon have to decide what to do about Afghanistan. After weeks of wrangling inside his national security cabinet, top officials on Friday agreed on the broad outlines of a strategy to prosecute America's longest war. The interventionists prevailed. – Bloomberg View
Kashefi is one of several dozen women serving in an elite Afghan police force, the Crisis Response Unit, that increasingly finds itself at the center of the country’s long war with Taliban militants. But Kashefi doesn’t just battle the Taliban. She is also up against Afghan traditions, which relegate women to domestic roles and near-invisibility in the body-length garment known as the burqa. – Los Angeles Times
Plans are in motion to bring residents of the restive region along Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan under the umbrella of the central government by ending the old legal system, offering voting rights and greater government representation, and raising living standards. The inclusive approach, in theory, will end FATA's isolation and help lure locals away from joining the various militant groups that thrive there. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty