Another South Asia Cross-Border Crisis: Afghan and Pakistani Forces Clash
Hold Your Fire!18 Okt 2025

Another South Asia Cross-Border Crisis: Afghan and Pakistani Forces Clash

In this episode of Hold Your Fire!, Richard speaks with Crisis Group’s Afghanistan expert Ibraheem Bahiss and South Asia director Samina Ahmed about clashes this week between Afghan and Pakistani forces. Richard first speaks with Ibraheem about what triggered the latest confrontation, including reported Pakistani strikes on Pakistani militants, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in Kabul and in border regions. They trace the strained relations between Kabul and Islamabad and why the Taliban authorities struggle to address Pakistan’s concerns – with Islamabad accusing the Kabul authorities of sheltering the TTP and allowing cross-border attacks – even as they have reined in other foreign militants. Richard then turns to Samina to discuss the spike in militant violence in Pakistan’s western regions, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, how Islamabad views possible rapprochement between the Taliban and India, Islamabad’s broader foreign relations – including a defence pact with Saudi Arabia and warmer ties to Washington – and the risk of further clashes.


Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.


For more, check out our Afghanistan and Pakistan country pages.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episoder(224)

What Makes Peace? Colombia’s Ex-President Santos Says It’s Harder than War

What Makes Peace? Colombia’s Ex-President Santos Says It’s Harder than War

This week on Hold Your Fire!, former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos takes Rob and Naz behind the scenes of the negotiations with the FARC guerrillas that achieved a peace deal and won him the ...

22 Okt 202038min

Turkey Flexes Its Foreign Policy Muscles

Turkey Flexes Its Foreign Policy Muscles

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob and Naz talk with Nigar Göksel, Crisis Group’s Turkey director, about how Turkey is flexing its muscles in its near abroad — Syria, Iraq, the eastern Mediterranean, a...

15 Okt 202040min

What’s Behind the Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh

What’s Behind the Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob and Naz question the efficacy of international sanctions, as the European Union wields this overused tool against Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. They are the...

8 Okt 202034min

President Trump’s Off-the-Rails Foreign Policy

President Trump’s Off-the-Rails Foreign Policy

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob reminisces about his recent trip to Azerbaijan, where he saw warning signs of a “frozen conflict” ready to thaw. Naz explains why the U.S. might regret trying to desi...

1 Okt 202034min

Libya's Proxy War

Libya's Proxy War

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob pays a very personal homage to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and confides about what keeps him up at night. Naz explains the convoluted legal argumen...

24 Sep 202038min

Ethiopia's Political Crisis

Ethiopia's Political Crisis

Naz and Rob reflect on U.S. support for the Yemen war and the conspicuous absence of the Palestinian issue from the normalisation agreement among Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. Crisis Group's senior ana...

17 Sep 202034min

Afghan Peace Talks: Dealing with the Taliban

Afghan Peace Talks: Dealing with the Taliban

Naz and Rob discuss French President Emmanuel Macron's dive into the murky waters of Lebanese politics and the Trump administration's stunning decision to impose sanctions on the staff of the Internat...

10 Sep 202035min

Israel, the UAE, and Normalisation

Israel, the UAE, and Normalisation

In this first episode of Hold Your Fire, Naz and Rob talk about the role foreign policy played, or didn’t, at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and explain why the U.S. attempt to sn...

3 Sep 202034min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
forklart
stopp-verden
popradet
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
det-store-bildet
nokon-ma-ga
rss-gukild-johaug
fotballpodden-2
dine-penger-pengeradet
aftenbla-bla
rss-ness
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
hanna-de-heldige
rss-dannet-uten-piano
e24-podden
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk