Abdul Sayed is an independent researcher on jihadism and the politics and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Sayed has a master’s degree in political science from Lund University, Sweden.
The United States needs to center cooperation, coherence, and compassion in a narrower strategy for handling the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The recent killing of the deputy chief of al Qaeda’s Pakistani cadre, Muhammad Hanif (aka Zarar), whom the Afghan Taliban had sheltered, shows that even within al Qaeda, Taliban-allied Pakistani jihadists have kept supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. This assistance began before 9/11, but it now includes al Qaeda’s broader agenda.
