Pakistan

January 5 2008, marks 60  years that the people of Kashmir have been waiting for the UN to make good on its resolution promising their right to self-determination.  Since the time of partition, Kashmir has been split and under the governance of India and Pakistan. Neither ex-colonial power, ironically,  has been necessarily as gentle [...]

A philosophical legal question may be at the heart of any potential military conflict between the two nuclear powers of India and Pakistan. The question resolves around extradition, but is a symbolic issue that calls into question each others trust of their respective government and legal system. India has today handed over to Pakistan [...]

One has to wonder what is going on at the US State Department. Having earlier called for Pakistan suspects connected with the Mumbai attacks to be extradited to India for trial, now they have reversed their course, and say they should be tried in Pakistan instead. Was this because they failed to realize there [...]

As dangerous a man as Ahmadinejad is, and as troublesome the regime he represents appears, one has to have a sneaking admiration for the sheer chutzpah of the man.  After earlier claiming US complicity in the Mumbai terror attacks as part of its objective to destabilize the Indian economy, Ahmadinejad has put himself  forward as [...]

  When a crowd of over 10,000 Pakistanis take to the streets chanting  “Down with America” and “Jihad is the only solution of America”, the West had better sit up and take notice. These particular demonstrators were venting their anger at the US unmanned air drone attacks and that Pakistan is being used as a [...]

The recent murder of Major-General Faisal Alavi, the former head of the Pakistani Special Forces, is yet another death in the mysterious sequence of events surrounding the alleged involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI,  with the Taliban. Prior to his death, Alavi supposedly sent a letter naming two Pakistani Generals that he said he [...]

  NATO has been struggling with the logistics of resupply in Afghanistan. its supply route from Pakistan through the Khyber Pass has shown itself vulnerable to attack. Several shipments have been ambushed by Taliban fighters resulting in the loss of vital supplies, including weaponry, ammunition and light armored vehicles. In addition storage depots in Pakistan [...]

We seem to graduating a generation of defense and state leaders, analysts and advisers that are missing key elements of the skill sets necessary to do their jobs effectively. They have been given technical skills, historical lessons grudgingly heard, but they lack the cultural insight necessary. This has been evidenced glaringly in Iraq, and [...]

There are fundamental misconceptions at the heart of US policy on the war on terror that effect its efficient implementation. Firstly, it seems to be assumed that the terrorists are somewhere ‘over there’, and if we fight them there, then we won’t have to fight them here.  Secondly, there is a tacit political agreement that [...]

  White House spokesperson, Dana Perino, made an interesting statement today that implies the US may have  forward intelligence on further terrorist attacks in India. An alternative explanation is that the statement was just intended to keep Pakistan off balance and ensure their continued cooperation.  At a press conference following the most recent arrests over the [...]

  The world applauded when 111 nations came together and signed a treaty to prohibit the use of cluster bombs. However, it is the countries that didn’t sign that is the real story. These countries include a who’s who of the major cluster bomb producers, users and stockpilers of these awful weapons of war, that [...]

If, as many analysts are now predicting, the US-Afghanistan war ends in disaster, it will be due to a large extent to a lack of understanding of the Pashtun factor. The seeds for the US difficulties in Afghanistan were sown in 2003. At this point in the conflict, the US had the upper hand. [...]

  There is an increasing buzz on intelligence channels about Bangladesh - it is the newest country to feature on the radar of concern. A Bangladeshi has been linked as one of the facilitators in the recent terror attacks in Mumbai. A brief history - Bangladesh was created in 1947 by its partition from India. [...]

  Often rumors are false, especially when coming from ‘unnamed sources’, but if the latest one from India proves true, then the dangerous game of brinkmanship between Pakistan and India may have just been raised in stakes. Express India has just reported that India has ‘proof’ that the Pakistan Intelligence Service (ISI) was involved in [...]

  According to an Associated Press wire, a Taliban warlord made an offer today to stop fighting against Pakistan, and instead fight with them in a war against India. The offer came in the form of a video recording by deputy chief of the faction Tehrik-e-Taliban, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad. He is quoted as saying, “If India [...]