Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pashto: خیبر پښتونخوا [xaiˈbər pəxtunˈxwɑ]; Urdu: خیبر پختونخوا [ˈxɛːbər pəxˈtuːnxwaː]), locally called Pukhtunkhwa, and formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country. It borders Afghanistan to the north-west, Gilgit–Baltistan to the north-east, Azad Kashmir to the east, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to the west and south, Balochistan to the south and Punjab and the Islamabad Capital Territory to the south-east. The main ethnic group in the province is the Pashtuns; other smaller ethnic groups include most notably the Hindkowanss, Gujjar's and Chitralis. The principal languages are Pashto (locally referred to as Pukhto) The provincial capital is Peshawar.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sits primarily on the Iranian plateau and comprises the junction where the slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains on the Eurasian plate give way to the Indus-watered hills approaching South Asia. This situation has led to seismic activity in the past. The famous Khyber Pass links the province to Afghanistan, while the Kohalla Bridge in Circle Bakote Abbottabad is a major crossing point over the Jhelum River in the east.

Mohammad Ismail Khan (born 1946) is a politician and former mujahideen commander from Afghanistan. Born in the western Afghan city of Herat, he rose to become a powerful rebel commander during in the Soviet War in Afghanistan, and then a key member of the Northern Alliance until finally becoming the Governor of Herat Province. He is currently the Minister of Water and Energy, a post he held since 2005. He is a key member of the political party Jamiat-e Islami and the new party United National Front.

Khan was born in Herat, Afghanistan. His family origin is from Shindand District in the Shindand Town Chahar-Mahal neighbourhood. Although he is an ethnic Tajik by origin, he was widely respected beyond sectarian lines. Even after he was arrested and put under house arrest by the Taleban authorities immediately after Herat's fall in 1995, he was allowed a degree of autonomy because the Taleban respected him because they shared similar fundamentalist ideologies. In early 1979 Ismail Khan was a Captain in the Afghan National Army based in the western city of Herat. In early March, there was a protest in front of the Communist governor's palace against the arrests and assassinations being carried out in the countryside. The governor's troops opened fire on the demonstrators, who proceeded to storm the palace and hunt down Soviet advisers. The Herat garrison mutinied and joined the revolt, with Ismail Khan and other officers distributing all available weapons to the insurgents. The communist government led by Nur Mohammed Taraki responded, pulverizing the city using Soviet supplied bombers and killing an estimated 24,000 citizens in less than a week. This event marked the opening salvo of the rebellion which led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Ismail Khan escaped to the countryside where he started to assemble a local mujahideen army, which was widely supported by the population of Herat.

Farhan Ali Qadri (Urdu:فرحان علی قادری) was born on October 1, 1995 in Jacobabad, Pakistan. He gained recognition as a Naat Khawan of Pakistan and recited naats in various languages such as Urdu, Sindhi, Saraiki and Punjabi; he even recited naats in Bengali and English.

Farhan grew up in Jacobabad. He belongs to a Baloch family; his father is Fazal Muhammad. Farhan Ali started reciting naats at the age of five; he used to recite naats in his school, Milad. He achieved widespread recognition for his recital of the nasheed “Noor wala aaia hay”.

He has toured extensively in Pakistan, and performed in other countries including Kuwait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Mauritius.

He released several albums, and performed live on various Pakistani television channels.

Farhan Ali Qadri has won various awards at national, provincial and district levels. He generally performs 3-6 live concerts (mehfils) every week.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Urdu: ذوالفقار علی بھٹو, Sindhi: ذوالفقار علي ڀُٽو, IPA: [zʊlfɪqɑːɾ ɑli bʱʊʈːoː]) (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that, 4th President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and served as its chairman until his execution in 1979. His elder daughter, Benazir Bhutto, later also served as Prime Minister, while his son Murtaza Bhutto served as member of Parliament of Pakistan.

Educated at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley in the United States and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Bhutto was noted for his progressive economic initiatives, industrialisation, education, and foreign policy, and his intellectualism. In addition to national security issues, Bhutto promoted his policies on nationalisation, health care, and social reforms. Under his premiership, Pakistan's Parliament gave approval and passed unanimously the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan, a supreme law that provides a parliamentary system to Pakistan, strengthened Sino-Pakistani and Saudi-Pakistani relations, recognised East-Pakistan as Bangladesh, and hosted the second Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1974 where he delegated and invited leaders from the Muslim world to Lahore, Punjab Province of Pakistan. In July 1972, Bhutto successfully proceeded the Shimla treaty, signed with Indira Gandhi of India, brought 93,000 Prisoners of War back to Pakistan, and secured 5,000 sq mi (13,000 km²) held by India. In 20 January 1972, weeks after the Indo-Pakistani 1971 winter war, Bhutto orchestrated, authorised, and administrated the scientific research on nuclear weapons; for this, he is colloquially known in the world as "Father of the Pakistan's nuclear deterrent programme".

Syed Zaiduzzaman Hamid, better known as Zaid Hamid, is a Pakistani security consultant and political commentator. His byline in newspaper articles has been Zaid Zaman.

Zaid was born in Karachi, in 1964. His father, Col. Zaman Hamid (Retd), served in the Pakistan Army. Zaid spent his early life in Karachi. He received a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in Computer Systems Engineering from NED University, Karachi in 1980's.

Through his TV programmes, Hamid has claimed that a nexus between India's RAW, the CIA and is responsible for the destabilization of Pakistan. He also claims that the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, were part of a plan hatched by "Hindu Zionists"", and that it was an attempt by the Indians to stage an attack just like the Americans executed the September 11 attacks.

A number of noted Pakistani journalists, writers and Islamic scholars have criticized Hamid and have described his views on politics and security as conspiracy theories.