Arsla leads Control Risks’ analysis of political, operational and security risks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She contributes daily updates to our online risk monitoring platform and provides bespoke political risk consulting and threat assessments to clients across sectors. Arsla works closely with Control Risks’ security consultants to deliver market entry assessments and analyses of political developments as well as security, corruption and market-exit risks.
Recent tasks that Arsla has worked on include:
Before joining Control Risks, Arsla served as a senior political officer for the British High Commission in Islamabad, where she led counter-extremism and counterterrorism policy and research. She has worked with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate on violent extremism and security issues, particularly in Iraq and Syria. She has conducted research in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region to assess youth vulnerability to militancy. Arsla worked with the US Institute of Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Peace Institute, providing political and security analysis on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Her analysis and research have appeared in Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.
Arsla graduated with a master’s degree in international affairs with a focus on international security from Columbia University (US) and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Boston University (US). She has worked and lived in the US and Pakistan and speaks Urdu.