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Showing posts with the label Pakistan Islamic Fundamentalism

Pakistan’s Schools at War ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Kunwar Khuldune Shahid)

Image credits- VOA Source- The Diplomat Author- Kunwar Khuldune Shahid Around 9 a.m. on January 20, four Taliban-affiliated gunmen entered Bacha Khan University, Charsadda in Pakistan’s volatile Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. By around 12:30 p.m., all four of them lay dead in the boys’ hostel. They had been gunned down by local security forces, but not before 21 people, mostly students and staff members, had been killed. This was the second high-profile attack on a Pakistani educational institute in 13 months. On December 16, 2014 the Army Public School in KP’s capital city Peshawar was attacked by militants, killing 144 people, including 132 schoolchildren. The gut-wrenching scenes from the APS attack are believed to be the defining factor behind Pakistan uniting to launch the much touted National Action Plan (NAP) against militancy and extremism. “Had it not been for our security guards everyone would’ve forgotten APS,” the BKU Dean of Sciences Abdus Sattar t

From Kabul to Gurdaspur: Pakistan’s Reliance on Sub-conventional Warfare ( Source- The Diplomat/ Author- Rohan Joshi)

Image credits- Oleg Zabielin Source- The Diplomat Author- Rohan Joshi On August 8, 2015, Kabul witnessed its deadliest day since the 2001 U.S. invasion, when a series of attacks in the city left over 50 dead and hundreds injured. A suicide bomber dressed in police uniform detonated explosives outside the National Police Academy that resulted in almost 30 deaths. Then, a truck laden with explosives was detonated, killing 15 people and injuring over 200. Finally, a commando-style assault on Camp Integrity, a NATO military facility killed 10 people, including a U.S. soldier. The attacks in Kabul come at a time when “peace negotiations” between the Afghan government and the Taliban are in a precarious position. Just a few days prior to the second round of talks between Kabul and the Taliban, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and President Ghani’s office confirmed that Mullah Muhammad Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban, ha

Pakistan's Terrorism Accusations Against India: Bizarre But Calculated ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Rohan Joshi)

Image credits- The Tribune Source- The Diplomat Author- Rohan Joshi The Director-General of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Rizwan Akhtar arrived in Washington, D.C. for talks with intelligence and defense officials on a possible “peace settlement” between the elected government in Afghanistan and the Taliban. The Pakistani Urdu daily Jang also reports that Lt. Gen. Akhtar planned to complain to his hosts about India’s alleged support to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its activities in Afghanistan, which the Pakistani military establishment considers inimical to its interests. In the days and weeks leading up to Lt. Gen. Akhtar’s visit to the U.S., Pakistan’s complaints were reinforced in Pakistan’s English and Urdu dailies. The far-right newspaper Ummat ran an article asserting that Pakistan was planning to present evidence of Indian “terrorism” through diplomatic and global media circles. The newspaper claimed that “evidence”

Islamic State Opens Third Front in Afghanistan ( Source- The Strategic Culture, Author- Nikolai Bobkin)

Taliban in Herat ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons) Source- The Strategic Culture Author- Nikolai Bobkin The leaders of the Islamic State (IS) have announced their intention to spread the group’s activities eastward, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US does not rush to recognize the fact of Islamic State’s presence in Afghanistan, but Kabul does not deny the information that the group’s militants coming from Syria and Iraq are operating in the country.  According to Afghan official sources, the Islamic State is recruiting in Afghanistan with dozens of propagandists sent to spread the group’s ideas among the ranks of young people. «We will either become captors or martyrs», say propaganda messages from the Islamic State published in Fatah, a pamphlet published in local languages and distributed to Afghans. These pamphlets invite citizens of Afghanistan to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of IS, and join the jihad against non-b

PAKISTAN BOAT OPERATION: WAS THERE ANY OTHER OPTION WITH COAST GUARD? – ANALYSIS ( Source- The Eurasia review, Author- The Observer Research Foundation / Vikram Sood)

Indian Coast Guard Vessel ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attributes- Around the Globe ) Source- The Eurasia Review Author- Observer Research Foundation    / Vikram Sood These must be tense days for the security forces and intelligence agencies. There is heightened cross-LOC firing, repeated attempts at intrusion as Pakistan desperately looks for a diversion from Peshawar. If the social media is any indication, then their aim is to somehow pin all blame on India for whatever has gone wrong, or will go wrong, in Pakistan. They wish to convince the world that they need continued support from them against an ‘expansionist’ India. The current psywar campaign in Pakistan is more to convince their own people of an imagined eternal threat rather than frighten India, because deep down there is a realisation that the trouble is from within and not from external factors. The forthcoming visit of President Obama for the second time to India, and that, too, without going to

A Wake-Up Call for Pakistanis (Source- The Diplomat, Author- Shairee Malhotra)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Attribution- Al Jazeera Source- The Diplomat Author- Shairee Malhotra Pakistan and the world were shocked by the deadly and heartbreaking attack by the Pakistani Taliban on a school in Peshawar that killed more than 130 children, many the sons of Army personnel. Yet just a few days later, Pakistan’s courts decided to grant Zaikur Rehman Lakhvi, the terrorist mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, bail. The debilitating situation in Pakistan is the natural outcome of a strategic culture that is entirely the creation of the Pakistan Army. A perpetual hostility towards India is a keystone of the ideology of the Army, and by extension, the Pakistani state, given that Pakistan is an army with a country. Its strategic depth theory, whereby Pakistan is undefeated as long as it continues to challenge and resist India’s rise, has seen it resort to asymmetric warfare and encouraged it to solicit the support of dangerous non-state actors.

Who Should Worry About Pakistan’s School Carnage? ( Source- The Diplomat, Author- Malik Siraj Akbar)

Taliban man beating beating women ( Source- Wikimedia Commons/ Author- RAWA) Source- The Diplomat Author- Malik Siraj Akbar Pakistan has a unique relationship with terrorism: It is safe ground for terrorist training and offensives, it is a regular victim of terrorism, and, at the same time, it is a state that is perceived as an apologist and a justifier of terrorism. Pakistan’s complicated struggle with jihadists is no clearer than now in the aftermath of the Taliban school massacre in Peshawar that killed more than 130 children. It is not the right time, some may argue, to point fingers at the Pakistani army and intelligence agencies, which for years have had connections with and even supported the same jihadist elements that carried out the attack. After all, most of the children who were killed in the Peshawar attack by the Taliban were presumably from military families. Some would insist that tragedies like this one should convince the world that the Pakistani army

Is the Peshawar Attack a “Game Changer”? (Source- The International Policy Digest, Author- Saira Banu)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ Author- Open Street Maps Source- The International Policy Digest Author- Saira Banu On December 16, 2014, Pakistan witnessed the worst terrorist attack in its history in which innocent children were brutally targeted. Seven Pakistani Taliban militants stormed the Army Public School in Peshawar and killed 132 children and 9 staffers. The banned Pakistani Taliban terrorist organization, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and called it revenge for Operation Zarb-e-Azab – the Pakistan’s Army offensive in North Waziristan that started in June of 2014. TTP spokesman, Muhammad Umar Khorasani, said, “The army targets our families. We want them to feel our pain.” Following the attack, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced that there will be no distinction between good and bad Taliban and the government described the attack as a “game changer.” Army Chief General Raheel Sharif visite

PAKISTAN: TERRORISM’S MOST DEVASTATING BLOW – ANALYSIS ( SOurce- The Eurasia Review / Institute of South Asia Studies, Author- Shahid Javed Burki)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ United States DOD)  Source- The Eurasia Review / Institute of South Asia Studies Author- Shahid Javed Burki On December 16, 2014, the Taliban attacked an army school in Peshawar and killed 132 children. In all 145 persons died. Seven terrorists – among them three Arabs, two Afghans and one Chechen – dressed in military uniform penetrated the well-guarded perimeter of the school and opened fire on the students and school personnel. By assembling an international force, the Taliban sent a powerful signal that their campaign against the Pakistani state and the country’s military had wide support. According to a statement issued to the press by Muhammad Khorasani, the Taliban spokesman, the attackers were ordered to kill only those children who were from army families. “Our shura decided to target these enemies of Islam right in their homes so they can feel the pain of losing their children.” The Peshawar attack may prove to be a turn