NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 23, 2026

Q: Pakistan announced a five-day pause in its attacks against neighboring Afghanistan as hundreds of Afghans killed in an airstrike on that nation's capital were buried last week. Where are Pakistan and Afghanistan on Iran’s eastern border?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The Afghan Taliban government said 400 people were killed and 265 wounded when bombs struck a drug rehabilitation center in the capital – the deadliest single attack in a more than three-week war. What is the capital of Afghanistan?

A. Islamabad

B. Kabul

C. Kandahar

D. Karachi

B. Kabul is the capital and largest city in Afghanistan, and Kandahar is its second-largest city. Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan, and Karachi is its largest city. Pakistan said it was targeting military sites in the former U.S. military base where the rehabilitation center was located.

Q: Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring Pakistani Taliban militants who have relentlessly attacked targets in Pakistan, including a suicide bombing in Islamabad last November. The Taliban was formed in Kandahar in 1994 with help from which neighboring nation?

A. China

B. Iran

C. Pakistan

D. Uzbekistan

C. Pakistan was heavily involved in creating the Taliban, which it saw as a way to secure trade routes to Central Asia and establish a friendly Islamic government. Pakistan provided the Taliban with cash, weapons, fuel, military officers, and guerrilla leaders. For a time, it was the Afghan Taliban’s only ally.

Q: Afghanistan is 99.7% Muslim and ruled by the Taliban under harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law. Which nation has the largest population of Muslims?

A. Bangladesh

B. India

C. Indonesia

D. Pakistan

C. In 2020, Indonesia had an estimated 249.7 million Muslims, followed by Pakistan with 241.5 million, India with 200 million, and Bangladesh with 150.8 million. Afghanistan had about 37 million Muslims in 2020.

Q: The vast majority of Afghans and Pakistanis belong to which major branch of Islam?

A. Shia

B. Sunni

B. About 90% of the world’s 1.9 billion Muslims are Sunni, and about 10% are Shia. From 90% to 95% of Iran’s 92 million people are Shia. In the war with the United States and Israel, Iran struck targets in the only other Shia-majority nations, its neighbors, Iraq and Azerbaijan. The Sunni-Shia schism dates back to the death of Islam’s founding Prophet Muhammad.