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Showing posts from February, 2026

Stories that bounced: The nine lives of 4 most-wanted men

  Ever wonder how some terrorists keep dying and resurfacing? As we watched the Afghan Taliban return to power in Afghanistan, we began to slowly realize in the newsroom that our reporting on them would be completely different from now on. They had overnight gone from “international terrorists” to heads of government. This was, of course, the story of  that  Afghan Taliban, who were extremely difficult to cover from Pakistani newsrooms. Similarly fraught was the reportage on the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the country. Their intertwined networks and shadowy connections were every reporter’s and editor’s nightmare. The dangers of covering terrorism were not just physical for journalists. And as Imran Khan’s CNN Haqqani Network flub revealed Wednesday, keeping track of “terrorist” outfits is a full-time job. The worst part of it has been keeping tabs on their connections with each other, verifying the attacks they have claimed and, oddly enough, their deaths....