
Latest Articles about South Asia

Government Offensive Triggers Taliban Reprisal Attacks in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency
The ongoing anti-Taliban offensive in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency has triggered a humanitarian emergency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as well as the prompting of Taliban militants to carry out revenge attacks against security forces beyond the zone of operations. Thousands of civilians have... MORE

India’s Relations With Tajikistan: Beyond the Airbase
India’s pursuit of a stronger global role and its competition with Pakistan for influence in Afghanistan has over the past two decades pushed New Delhi towards closer engagement with Central Asia. Tajikistan has become India’s main point of entry into the region, mainly due to... MORE

TAPI and CASA-1,000: Energy Geopolitics on Whose Terms?
As Central Asia opened up to the rest of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union opportunities have emerged for the regional countries to build links with Europe, South-East Asia, and the Middle East. This has proved to be significant in the development... MORE

Fresh Violence Threatens to Make Karachi the New Mogadishu
Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city and its commercial capital, is yet again in the throes of violence. With Karachi generating 68% of the government’s revenue and 25% of the country’s gross domestic product, the implications for Pakistan are serious. The first three weeks of 2011... MORE
A Profile of Maulana Sadiq Noor: A Central Player in the North Waziristan Taliban
While Hafiz Gul Bahadur Wazir occupies the central leadership position of the Taliban in North Waziristan, Maulana Sadiq Noor is credited for building the North Waziristan Taliban and instigating the group to wage jihad against the Pakistani security forces prior to the September 2006 North... MORE

Tajikistan and Pakistan at a Crossroads: Energy, Trade and Transport Across Central and South Asia
Pakistan and Tajikistan have actively advanced their partnership in the energy, trade and transport spheres in recent months. The three pillars of cooperation are crucial components of the national strategies of these countries in bilateral and multilateral formats as they seek to break their relative... MORE

Defeating the “Forces of Paganism”: Former Military Intelligence Chief Hamid Gul Blends Pakistani Nationalism and Islamic Revolution
The retired former chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, is one of the most controversial political figures in Pakistan. Despite his once extremely close ties with the American Central Intelligence Agency during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Gul has since... MORE

Moscow Airport Attack: Carried Out by Nogai Militants Trained in Pakistan?
No individual or group has yet claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on January 24, which killed 35 people and wounded at least 125. However, the Russian media has been full of the theories and rumors about who may have been... MORE

Russia Prepares to Re-Enter Afghanistan
Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, received the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, on January 21-23 for an official visit. It was the first Russian-Afghan presidential-level meeting since a freshly installed Karzai had met the then President Putin in 2002. Russia is now... MORE

TAPI: The Audacity of Pipeline Hope
On December 11 in Ashgabat, the top officials of four participant countries signed agreements on a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, favored on and off (currently on again) by the US government. Presidents Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, and Pakistan’s Asif Ali Zardari,... MORE