Latest Articles about South Asia
Despite Setbacks, JMB Remains Resilient in Bangladesh
The arrests of three Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives on March 14 in Rangpur and their subsequent interrogations revealed the organization's plan to conduct new terrorist attacks in Bangladesh. The attacks were timed to take place before the executions of six JMB kingpins—including Abdur Rahman... MORE
Uzbek Fighters in Pakistan Reportedly Return to Afghanistan
Since the fighting between local militants and foreign guerrillas began in South Waziristan's capital of Wana and its suburban areas on March 18, more than 160 people have been killed in the violence (Pakistan Times, March 24). The action may well have been generated by... MORE
Khalid Sheikh Muhammad: Waging Jihad from Prison
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have long made clear to their lieutenants that the road to paradise can be found in the enemies' prisons as well as on the battlefield. From prison, they argue, a captured al-Qaeda leader can mislead his interrogators, provide accurate... MORE
GIMF Releases New Doctrinal Lessons for Mujahideen
The latest in a year-long series on proper beliefs and doctrine of the mujahid was released on March 14 by the Global Islamic Media Front. The series, entitled "Lessons in Doctrine (Prepared for the Mujahideen)" is a program prepared specifically for the mujahideen of Iraq... MORE
Troop Defections Threaten Pakistan’s Operations in Tribal Regions
At the end of February, Vice President Dick Cheney visited Pakistan to pressure Pervez Musharraf's government to crack down on insurgent activity on the border with Afghanistan. Cheney's visit has highlighted how Pakistan's will and power to fight Taliban militants in the country's northwestern highlands... MORE
Afghanistan: Forgetting the Lessons of History
Afghanistan is again being lost to the West. The insurgency may drag on for many months or several years, but the tide has turned. Like Alexander's Greeks, the British and the Soviets before the U.S.-led coalition, inferior Afghan insurgents have forced far superior Western military... MORE
Cheney Attack Reveals Taliban Suicide Bombing Patterns
The information for this article came from a five-month study of suicide bombings from 2001 to 2007 in Afghanistan. No suicide bombing was listed in the study unless it was corroborated by numerous sources. Sources varied from coalition countries' press releases, open media, al-Qaeda/Taliban websites,... MORE
Al-Suri’s Doctrines for Decentralized Jihadi Training – Part 1
The evolution toward smaller, more autonomous and decentralized organizational structures has been identified as a key trend in jihadi terrorism during the past few years [1]. Confronting amorphous structures and networks, which lack clearly identifiable organizational linkages and command structures and in which self-radicalization and... MORE
Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Airbase: A Key Asset in the War on Terrorism
The collapse of communism in the USSR in 1991 and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States a decade later offered the Pentagon basing possibilities impossible even to conceive of during the Cold War. The chief beneficiaries were Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which were... MORE
Iranian Involvement in Afghanistan
The Afghan media has published an increasing number of critical reports about Iran's secret contacts with insurgent groups in Afghanistan, specifically those groups fighting against the U.S. presence in the country. On September 5, for instance, the Pashto-language newspaper Weesa referred to unidentified local officials... MORE