South Asia Times (SAT) has released its latest flagship study, Afghanistan Beyond the Headlines – Post-2021 Trajectory, offering one of the most detailed examinations to date of Afghanistan’s evolving political, security and humanitarian landscape since the Taliban takeover of August 2021.
The Study is the culmination of a comprehensive research cycle spanning several months, built on field reporting from border districts, region-wide interviews, verified incident logs, multi-source datasets and digital-ecosystem analysis. The final layer of synthesis took place at the SAT Focus Group convened on 12 November 2025, where experts reviewed ground indicators, reconciled field inputs, and validated the patterns emerging from SAT’s year-long monitoring effort.
Key Findings and Regional Impact
According to the Study, Afghanistan’s current trajectory cannot be understood through episodic news coverage. Instead, the evidence points to a deeply interconnected system of pressures. A highly exclusionary governing structure, internal factional rivalries, expanding militant safe havens, a deteriorating economy and a mounting humanitarian burden have collectively reshaped the country’s internal dynamics and its impact on the wider region.
The research finds that the Emirate’s power structure has fragmented into competing blocs, each influencing policy in contradictory directions. This internal incoherence affects security operations, diplomacy and cross-border behaviour. Militant groups continue to operate across multiple Afghan provinces, with cross-border spillover documented through infiltration patterns and incident mapping carried out between 2021 and 2025. At the same time, the Afghan economy has regressed significantly, with border disruptions since October 2025 freezing trade flows worth billions of dollars and triggering price shocks across Afghan markets.
The Study also highlights Afghanistan’s growing humanitarian load. More than 2.4 million Afghans have returned in 2025 alone from Pakistan, Iran and European states, yet the Emirate has not established a structured reintegration or service-delivery framework. Provinces such as Nangarhar, Kabul, Herat, Laghman and Nimroz face acute pressure, driven less by external decisions and more by internal governance limitations.
SAT’s methodological approach combines verified ground reporting from both sides of the border, cross-referenced CTD and open-source data, UN and World Bank datasets, interviews with traders and community actors, and analysis of the digital information sphere, including GDI-linked influence channels. All findings were further triangulated during the 12 November Focus Group, which served as the final analytical checkpoint in the research chain.
Implications for Pakistan and the Region
The Study concludes that Pakistan now faces a multi-vector challenge shaped by a neighbour that was once viewed as friendly but has since become fractured, unpredictable and crisis-prone. The consequences, however, extend beyond Pakistan, affecting Iran, Central Asia, the Gulf and wider South Asian stability.
The full Study, including detailed maps, factional profiles, operational patterns, economic analysis and forward-looking scenarios for 2026, is now available on the SAT website.
