Dr Fawad Kaiser

What has happened in the last few days in Islamabad may look like a revolution but it is really a cycle. In just one week, Imran has leapt from the precipice of political war to an all-out victory from the political opposition. Appearances, though, can be misleading. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek […]

We can hardly avoid asking ourselves to what extent Muslim intellectuals and leaders bear responsibility for not selflessly taking on the savage Israel assault on a largely helpless population in Gaza, another atrocity that Muslims all over the world still see as a “blood stained chapter of world history”. But as for those of us […]

A total of 570 terrorists and 34 security forces personnel have been killed since Operation Zarb-e-Azb began. Around one million internally displaced persons (IDPs), belonging to 90,750 families, have been registered since the beginning of the operation. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif has said, “Now that their command and communication infrastructure has […]

Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu’s psychiatrist MosheYatom was found dead at his home in Tel Aviv from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. A suicide note at his side said that PM Netanyahu had been his patient for the last nine years and he had “sucked the life right out of me”. Yatom became depressed […]

I recently read the news “Eid rush! Tailors warn no more new orders for stitching please.” That was when I thought about writing a piece on fashion this week and not because I have grown tired of thinking and writing about terrorism. And it is certainly not because I no longer think violence and terrorism […]

Civil conflict appears to be contagious and analysts have shown that it makes followers more likely to rebel when incited by leaders. However, conflict occurs when both rebels and the state engage in conflict. How do state authorities respond to the potential for civil conflict to spread? I argue that elites will anticipate the incentive […]

Retired Major General Athar Abbas’s remarks in a BBC interview suggest that, despite the success of population-security measures and the development of a counterinsurgency doctrine, the military’s top leader in Pakistan resisted the implementation of a true population-centric counterinsurgency strategy, opting instead to focus on a ‘transition’ exit strategy. It was not until after the […]

Can the government’s military operation in North Waziristan incite Taliban attacks? To date, most existing theories and empirical studies conclude that such a counter-reaction is highly likely because it creates new grievances while forcing militants to seek security, if not safety, in rebel tactics. Commonly cited methods for militant retaliation include the lethality and destructiveness […]

Zarb-e-Azb is looking at a military operation in the context of counterterrorism. A military operation links terrorist actions to accountability without the need for charge, prosecution or conviction. A counterterrorism framework incorporates and combines elements of criminal justice and national security, giving rise to a number of tensions. One key tension is between the ideal […]

The question is why the Taliban choose to target the civilian population during a civil war. In recent years, different insurgent groups around the world have been responsible for the lion’s share of violence against civilians. This is puzzling, since the majority of these groups target the very people they allegedly represent, and whose support […]