India and the Central Asian dawn, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

India and the Central Asian dawn

By M.K. Bhadrakumar

Dec 31, 2009

The point is, the geopolitics of Afghanistan always had two halves. Which, of course, posed a major challenge to U.S. President Barack Obama when he crafted the new Afghan strategy. Equally, for regional powers like India or Uzbekistan, the dichotomy came in the way of creating a common space that would open the vistas of a regional initiative. Viewed from Delhi and Tashkent, the “great game” in the Hindu Kush mountains assumed different shades. Some things do not easily change in life — even for an aspiring regional power. Even today, Indian discourses on Afghanistan run a predictable course. Has the U.S. administration finally woken up to the harsh reality of the Pakistani military’s doublespeak in the fight against terrorism? If so, will it turn the screw on its single most crucial partner in the fight? Period.

From this point, the angst deepens somewhat. Will the U.S. finally abandon the willing suspension of disbelief about the Pakistani military’s passion for its strategic asset, the Taliban, and realise instead that New Delhi is Washington’s sole “natural ally” in the region in the fight against terrorism? And, therefore, will the U.S. allow itself the privilege of India’s cooperation in “stabilising” Pakistan? This range of issues more or less hogs the quaint Indian approach toward the Afghan problem in the seminar circuits in Delhi where one hears the thesis being rolled out ad nauseam like a repeatedly-vulcanised rubber tyre not possessing its original tensile strength any more.

http://newageislam.com/india-and-the-central-asian-dawn/current-affairs/d/2325

The Army of Prophet Mohammad on the Attack, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

The Army of Prophet Mohammad on the Attack

Intelligence experts and Sunday morning talk show guests struggled over the weekend to make sense of the Mumbai terror attacks. The basic facts about the horrific events that riveted the world are now emerging and not so difficult to ascertain. The analytical contortions of national security chiefs, politicians, the mainstream media, and so-called Middle East specialists who all seem desperate to avoid calling this what it is -- Islamic Jihad -- are somewhat less understandable.

The basic facts seem to be these: Muslim commandos belonging to the Pakistani Lashkar-e Toiba terrorist organization, likely in coordination with Hindi-speaking attackers belonging to an off-shoot of the Indian Mujahideen (calling themselves the “Deccan Mujahideen”), launched a wave of terrorist assaults against Mumbai last week that has left some 200 people dead and over 300 injured.

A couple dozen highly trained, intensely motivated terrorists, perhaps with the logistical assistance of a Mumbai organized crime figure named Dawood Ibrahim, paralyzed a modern urban metropolis of nearly 15 million people for 60 hours. They used basic military assault tactics, employing small arms and grenades against carefully selected and meticulously cased soft civilian targets, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels, the city train station, hospitals, and a Jewish cultural center.

http://newageislam.com/the-army-of-prophet-mohammad-on-the-attack-/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1040