Latest Articles about South Asia
Pakistani Responses to the CIA’s Predator Drone Campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda
Conventional wisdom in the West seems to have coalesced around the notion that the CIA’s airborne assassination campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s remote FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) is driving Pakistanis to new levels of anti-Americanism. Western news sources report routinely on... MORE
Bajaur Agency: The New Landscape of Insurgency in FATA
Amid conflicting reports that Pakistani Taliban Chief Hakimullah Mahsud has succumbed to his injuries after being targeted in a U.S. drone attack last month, there is also news that the deputy chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, has resigned from his position... MORE
Jihad and Islamism in the Maldive Islands
Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed admitted in October, 2009 that hundreds of Maldivian Muslims had been recruited by Pakistan-based terrorist groups and are presently fighting against government forces in Pakistan. [1] The revelation by Nasheed was substantiated by video footage circulated by al-Qaeda’s media wing in... MORE
Moscow Remembers the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
In late December 2009, the Russian press carried numerous articles reflecting on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its impact on the fate of the Soviet Union. On December 25, the State Duma adopted a statement on the intervention, which recalled the sacrifices of those... MORE
A Guide to Militant Groups in Kashmir
After a few years of relative calm, militancy is slowly but surely resurfacing in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a smaller-scale repeat of Mumbai, two terrorists occupied the Punjab Hotel in downtown Srinagar on January 6. They remained held up there... MORE
Pakistan’s Military Examines its Options in North Waziristan
The United States has been pressuring Pakistan for several months to extend its counterinsurgency operations to North Waziristan. The U.S. perspective is that strong militant entities, especially the Haqqani group, the Hizb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmaytar and Taliban forces under Hafiz Gul Bahadur are using... MORE
South Asia’s Architect of Jihad: A Profile of Commander Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri
As the sun set on February 25, 2000, a group of Indian army commandoes allegedly crossed the tense Line of Control (LoC) that divides the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir into the Pakistani-controlled portion of territory known as Azad (“Free”) Jammu and Kashmir... MORE
Abdul Basit Usman: Waziristan’s Filipino Connection
Abdul Basit Usman, a leading Filipino Muslim militant trained in bomb making, was reported killed, along with 11 other militants in a Predator drone strike along the North and South Waziristan border on January 14, 2010 (The News International [Karachi], January 22). Usman, who was said... MORE
January 2010 Briefs
TOP RANKING MILITANT SURRENDERS TO ETHIOPIAN GOVERNMENT: A PROFILE OF LICHO BUKHURA Licho Bukhura (a.k.a. Lucho Burbura), a senior militant leader of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), has surrendered to central government authorities in Addis Ababa along with some 100 other OLF fighters. Bukhura spoke... MORE
Hafiz Gul Bahadur: A Profile of the Leader of the North Waziristan Taliban
Perhaps no one has greater stature or importance in the Pakistani Taliban leadership than Hafiz Gul Bahadur, supreme commander of the North Waziristani Taliban. A direct descendant of Mirza Ali Khan, a legendary Waziristani freedom fighter who fought against the British Indian government and later... MORE