![](/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/region-south-asia.jpg)
Latest Articles about South Asia
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Putin-and-Modi-sept-2023-640x360.jpg)
India Expands Maritime Trade Corridors With Russia
Since Russia began its “special military operation” (SVO) against Ukraine in February 2022, its stalled offensive has been accompanied by increasingly punitive Western sanctions. This trend has increased the value of those partners still willing to trade with Moscow. China tops that list, with India... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Pak-640x468.jpg)
ISKP Attacks Pakistan’s Religious Political Parties for Participating in Elections
On July 31, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the convention of Islamic political party Jamiat Uema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) in Khar, Bajaur District. The suicide bombing was later claimed by Islamic State’s (IS) Amaq News Agency on behalf of Islamic State in Khorasan Province... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Multimodal-transit-sept-2023-640x433.jpg)
Iran Hopes to Play Spoiler With Planned EU-India Corridor
On September 9, at the G20 summit in New Delhi, United States President Joe Biden signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with India and a number of Middle Eastern countries and European Union member states. The agreement aims to create a new trade corridor linking... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/G20-summit-2023-640x427.jpeg)
Russia’s Diminished Global Status Exposed in India
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s absence at the G20 summit in New Delhi on September 9 and 10 was not all that surprising and seemed hardly registered by any of the two dozen world leaders who attended. Putin also missed the previous summit in Bali, Indonesia,... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Picture1-640x394.jpg)
Coalitions of the Week: BRICS, ASEAN, the G20
Supreme leader Xi Jinping’s failure to attend the G20 summit in New Delhi this weekend (September 9-10) — thus nullifying the possibility of a meeting with top Western leaders including American counterpart President Joe Biden — is symptomatic of the isolation that China is facing... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Pak-640x427.png)
Two Years on, State of Pakistani Security Continues to Deteriorate After Taliban Seizure of Afghanistan
The Baloch separatist insurgency in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province has been taking on more dangerous features since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Separatist violence has dramatically increased, with women carrying out suicide bombings (see TM, May 20, 2022; MLM, August 5, 2022) as the... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Qari-Fasihuddin-Fitrat-640x384.jpg)
Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat: The Afghan Taliban’s Tajik “Commander of the North”
Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat is the military commander of the armed forces of the Taliban-led Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). An ethnic Tajik, Fitrat is currently leading the war on Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP). In June, Fitrat announced that the perpetrators of ISKP bombings... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Putin-paranoid-Sept-2023-640x395.jpg)
Putin Grows More Paranoid of Potential Threats to Power
Until June 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin was apparently quite confident in his power and the lack of any true challenge to it. Anti-Putin activists were successfully squeezed out of the country, the most vociferous were imprisoned or killed. The more measured dissatisfied voices largely... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/TJP.png)
TJP: A Front Group for the Pakistani Taliban?
On July 12, nine Pakistani army soldiers and five militants were killed after security forces retaliated for a “dastardly attack” on Zhob garrison in the northern part of Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan (Dawn, July 12). The Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), a relatively new militant group,... MORE
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Umar-Media.png)
Pakistani Taliban Broaden Support Among Baloch, Merge With Separatist Groups
On February 24, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, also known as the “Pakistani Taliban”) called on the disillusioned Baloch people in southern Balochistan province to launch an anti-state jihadist war to free themselves of Pakistani atrocities and end the government’s military oppression of the region (Umar... MORE