On February 22, India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale issued a directive calling on leaders and government officials to stay away from events planned by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA)—the Tibetan government-in-exile—to mark the 60th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s exile to India. In his note,... MORE

After almost five years of fits and starts on the question, Moscow is set to open a second military base in Kyrgyzstan. With this strengthened military presence, Russia will be in a better position to respond to any militant or terrorist threats potentially spilling over... MORE

Once an infamous militant leader who unleashed a reign of terror in India’s Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil looks poised for an image makeover. Recently, Khalil has launched a political front in Pakistan, and he has worked in assisting... MORE

Libya: Haftar’s Brief Absence Exposes LNA Divisions Khalifa Haftar, the Libyan National Army (LNA) chief, has returned home, ending rumors that he had been incapacitated by ill health and was dying in a Paris hospital. Since returning to Libya, he has redoubled his campaign against... MORE

In his very first interview after taking office in February 2018, new Nepali Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli said his government would seek to revive a US$2.5 billion Sino-Nepali hydropower project on the Budhi Gandaki River (South China Morning Post, February 19). The project’s fate... MORE

Afghanistan is no stranger to brutal terrorist attacks, but this year began with a series of particularly vicious deadly attacks in Kabul, the only secured and highly fortified city in the country. Even more worryingly, most of these attacks were claimed by the local franchise... MORE

Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow visited the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait in mid-March as part of a campaign to revive a long-stalled natural gas pipeline from his country to Pakistan and India (Neftegaz.ru, March 16). The visit occurred three weeks after a February 23 groundbreaking... MORE

Of late, al-Qaeda's South Asia branch has been proactive and forceful in its campaign against India and its neighbors. A “code of conduct,” released by the group in June 2017, signaled an expanded geographical scope by including Afghanistan and Myanmar into its supposed domain of... MORE

In mid-August 2015, the voice of Hamza Bin Laden, the so-called crown prince of jihad, reached al-Qaeda’s foot soldiers and sympathizers worldwide for the first time through an audio message. In that message, Hamza, a son of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was introduced and strongly endorsed... MORE