Emily Schneider is a program associate in the International Security Program at New America. She is also an assistant editor of the South Asia channel.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (R) speaks during a press conference while Pakistani Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif (L) looks on at the Presidential palace in Kabul on May 12, 2015. AFP PHOTO / SHAH Marai (Photo credit should read SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images)
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a ceremony marking the 23rd Victory Anniversary of Mujahideen against Soviet forces, at the presidential palace in Kabul on May 2, 2015. On April 28, 1992, the Afghan mujahideen defeated the last communist-backed government of Najibullah Ahmadzai. AFP PHOTO / Wakil Kohsar (Photo credit should read WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images)
NATO soldiers and Afghan security forces inspect the scene of a suicide car bomb attack that targeted foreign military vehicles in Kabul on June 30, 2015. A powerful blast hit downtown Kabul on June 30 as a suicide car bomber targeted foreign military vehicles, officials said, with casualties feared. The blast came on the main road to the airport, around 500 meters (550 yards) from the US embassy and near a base for foreign troops."It was a suicide car bomber targeting a convoy of foreign forces in Kabul," interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediq said. AFP PHOTO / Wakil Kohsar (Photo credit should read WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 09: President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena arrives at the Observance for Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey on March 9, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
Indian commuters make their way along a water-logged road after a monsoon rainshower in Jalandhar on June 23, 2015. Monsoon rains are vital for Indian crops and a particularly dry season can reduce farm output, raising food prices which can be crippling for the tens of millions of India's poor. AFP PHOTO/SHAMMI MEHRA (Photo credit should read SHAMMI MEHRA/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 24: U.S. President Barack Obama announces changes to the government's hostage policy in the Roosevelt Room at the White House June 24, 2015 in Washington, DC. Families of hostages taken and killed by ISIS and other terrorism groups have described the government's interaction with them as unresponsive and uncaring. Obama said that would change but added that the policy of refusing to pay ransom would remain. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Pakistanis receive ice outside a hospital during heatwave in Karachi on June 24, 2015. Nearly 700 people have died in a severe three-day heatwave in Pakistan, officials said with medics battling to treat patients as a state of emergency was declared in hospitals. AFP PHOTO / RIZWAN TABASSUM (Photo credit should read RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty Images)
Afghan security personnel run at the scene of a suicide attack by Taliban militants on the Afghan parliament building in Kabul on June 22, 2015. Taliban militants attacked the Afghan parliament on June 22, with gunfire and explosions rocking the building, sending lawmakers running for cover in chaotic scenes relayed live on television.The insurgents tried to storm the complex after triggering a car bomb but were repelled and have taken position in a partially-constructed building nearby, officials said about the ongoing attack. All MPs were safely evacuated after the attack, which came as the Afghan president's nominee for the crucial post of defence minister was to be introduced in parliament. AFP PHOTO / Wakil Kohsar (Photo credit should read WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images)
Afghan security personnel stand at the scene of a suicide attack by Taliban militants on the Afghan parliament building in Kabul on June 22, 2015.Taliban militants attacked the Afghan parliament on June 22, with gunfire and explosions rocking the building, sending lawmakers running for cover in chaotic scenes relayed live on television.The insurgents tried to storm the complex after triggering a car bomb but were repelled and have taken position in a partially-constructed building nearby, officials said about the ongoing attack. All MPs were safely evacuated after the attack, which came as the Afghan president's nominee for the crucial post of defence minister was to be introduced in parliament. AFP PHOTO / Wakil Kohsar (Photo credit should read WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images)
SIERRA VISTA, AZ - MARCH 07: A Predator drone operated by U.S. Office of Air and Marine (OAM), awaits a surveillance flight near the Mexican border on March 7, 2013 from Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The OAM, which is part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, flies the unmanned - and unarmed - MQ-9 Predator B aircraft an average of 12 hours per day at around 19,000 feet. The drones, piloted from the ground, search for drug smugglers and immigrants crossing illegally from Mexico into the United States. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Members of the media wait outside the Supreme Court for news of the verdict over a law criminalising gay sex in New Delhi on December 11 2013. India's Supreme Court on December 11 upheld a colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality in a landmark judgment that crushes activists' hopes for guarantees on sexual freedom in the world's biggest democracy. AFP PHOTO / Prakash SINGH (Photo credit should read PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images)
This photo taken on June 7, 2015 shows the projected image of a Buddha statue in Bamiyan that had been destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. The initiative to visually restore the destroyed antiquities was dreamt up by Chinese couple Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong, who are travelling through countries on the historic Silk Road route. AFP PHOTO / Kamran Shafayee (Photo credit should read KAMRAN SHAFAYEE/AFP/Getty Images)
(L-clockwise) World Bank Group President Jim Kim, Chair of the Commission of the African Union Dlamini Zuma, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, US President Barack Obama, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, French President Francois Hollande, Senegal's President Macky Sall, Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, OECD secretary general Jose Angel Gurria, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, British Prime Minister David Cameron, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker attend the so called 'outreach meeting' on the second day of the G7 summit at the Elmau Castle near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on June 8, 2015. AFP PHOTO / POOL / SVEN HOPPE (Photo credit should read SVEN HOPPE/AFP/Getty Images)
Indian army soldiers patrol along a roadside amongst heavy fog outside a polling station in Sangam, some 42kms south of Srinagar on April 24, 2014. Indian Kashmir's Anantnag constituency goes for voting in the country's ongoing elections on April 24, the first in the restive Himalayan valley of Kashmir where a separatist movement against Indian rule is centred. AFP PHOTO / Tauseef MUSTAFA (Photo credit should read TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images)
UN humanitarian coordinator, Mark Bowden prepares to leave following his visit to the landslide-affected area in Badakhshan province on May 5, 2014. Afghan officials said they plan to build new houses for hundreds of families made homeless by a landslide that entombed a northeastern village and killed at least 300 people. AFP PHOTO/WAKIL KOHSAR (Photo credit should read WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images)
