ASC Management

Imtiaz Gul – Executive Director, Afghan Studies Center

Imtiaz Gul is the founder of Afghan Studies Center and the Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) – the parent organization of the Afghan Studies Center project. He founded the Center for Research and Security Studies in December 2007 with the support of Germany’s Heinrich Boell Stiftung. The Center is a research and advocacy outfit, focused primarily on security, radicalization and governance. He has been contributing to international and National print media; Foreign Policy, USA, Wall Street Journal, The Friday Times  (weekly), Islamabad, Daily Express Tribune, on issues such as militancy, border regions, Afghanistan, and Indo-Pak relations.

Besides offering advice as consultant to foreign diplomatic missions and development sector organizations, Gul regularly appears as an analyst/expert on  Pakistani TV channels as well as the Doha-based Al-Jazeera English/Arabic satellite TV channel for his expertise in areas such as Afghanistan/Tribal Areas/and the Kashmir militancy.

Gul has presented papers and given talks at universities and international security and counter-terror conferences in Brussels, Tokyo, Berlin, New Delhi, Kabul, New York, Washington, the Hague, Riyadh, Italy, Oslo, Stockholm, Beijing, and has authored following books.

  • Pakistan: Before and After Osama bin Laden (Roli Books, India, September, 2012)
  • The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan Lawless Frontier (Penguin US/UK June, 2010)
  • Al-Qaeda Connection: Taliban and Terror in Tribal Areas (Penguin-Viking India, August 20, 2009)
  • The Unholy Nexus: Pak-Afghan relations under the Taliban (Vanguard Books, Pakistan, July 2002)
  • Pakistan: Pivot of Hizbut Tahrir’s Global Caliphate? (2014)

Gul has also been part of an international group, put together by the New York based Century Foundation, that authored the report “Jago Pakistan” (Wake Up Pakistan). He is a member of the Bellagio Forum, Milan, initiative for the establishment of a UN University for Peace and Social Studies, and also participated in a 2-month Asia Leaders Fellowship Program by International House of Japan and Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange Dept. the Japan Foundation Japan (beginning Sept 2011). Gul is a visiting scholar to the National Police Academy, National Institute of Management, COMSATS University, and others.