India’s fundamental maritime security objective is to deter conflict and coercion from the sea. Recent developments in its regional security environment have created new complications in this pursuit. The conflict in West Asia has extended into the Arabian Sea, affecting freedom of navigation and generating strategic risks to India’s maritime security. Cause: Conflict Extension into Indian Ocean Israel’s war in […]

Does Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed represent the epitome of a volte-face in the region’s politics. Perhaps! His recent actions and words are not vastly different from those of Charles De Gaulle in 1967 or so it seems. He made a bomb-shell kind of an MoU with a region of Somalia, much like De Gaulle did when he pronounced “Vive le […]

On January 27, 2024, a cadre of the Biswa Mohan Debbarma faction of National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT-BM), identified as Chhanaklu Debbarma, surrendered before the Border Security Force (BSF) in the Dyke village of Dhalai District of Tripura. Chhanaklu Debbarma had joined the outfit in October 2022. On January 14, 2024, five insurgents of the Parimal Debbarma faction of […]

In our globally interconnected world, roads are the arteries of economic progress. Thus, recent incidents, such as attacks by the Yemeni Houthis on cargo ships in the Suez Canal, emphasize the critical importance of secure transportation routes. As global attention pivots, the spotlight now converges on the Central Asian region—an important nexus able to interlink diverse corners of the world. […]

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to use Beijing’s influence on Iran to push it to stop the Houthis in Yemen from attacking Red Sea trade routes. The appeal came during two days of meetings in Bangkok between the pair, according to a senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity […]

On 15 January 2024, the Indian army chief said that militancy in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) was under control. Before that, the home minister indicated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre had been successful in controlling terror in J&K. Both these statements are at best directed at boosting the morale of security force personnel and script […]

Maldives recorded no terrorism-linked fatality in 2023, as in the preceding five years. The abduction and killing of blogger Yameen Rasheed by a local affiliate of Al-Qaeda on April 23, 2017, was the last terrorism related killing in the country. There have, however, been at least nine terrorist attacks since the Rasheed killing, including three in 2019, four in 2020 […]

Data Cutoff: January 26, 2024, at 9 a.m. Key Takeaway: The US secretary of state met with key US partners in West Africa as Russia and Iran are bolstering their ties with authoritarian regimes in the region. Russia and Iran have capitalized on the rise of a bloc of anti-Western Sahelian juntas that overthrew Western partner states to advance their […]

Fasihuddin Fitrah, Afghan army chief of staff, called the recent remarks of his Pakistani counterpart, Asim Munir, over security as “insulting”, saying it suggests desperation of Pakistani government officials. Munir recently said that the life of a single Pakistani is more important than the entire Afghanistan. Enayatullah Khwarazmi, the spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, said on X on Saturday […]

Acting Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs Noorullah Noori while visiting the Torkham crossing said that Afghanistan does not have an “official border” with Pakistan. The ministry released a video where Noori said that Kabul and Islamabad have a “hypothetical line” and the border between these two countries is still not clear. “We have a hypothetical line with Pakistan, we […]