Category: South East Asia

Taliban Adding Suicide Bombers to Army Ranks to Bolster Defenses

The Taliban will officially recruit suicide bombers to become part of the army as the militant group tries to contain its biggest security threat from rival Islamic State since forming government in Afghanistan four months ago. Before sweeping into power last year, the Taliban used suicide bombers as a key weapon to attack and defeat U.S. and Afghan troops in […]

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Troops, protesters clash on Almaty main square in Kazakhstan; shots heard

Several armoured personnel carriers and dozens of troops moving on foot entered the main square of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, on Thursday morning where hundreds of people were protesting against the government for the third day, Reuters correspondents reported from the scene. Gunshots were heard as troops approached the crowd, according to Reuters witnesses. State television reported on Thursday that […]

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Russia sends paratroopers to Kazakhstan to quell deadly unrest

Russia has sent paratroopers into Kazakhstan as part of an international peacekeeping force to quell deadly unrest in the central Asian country, a military alliance of former Soviet states said on Thursday. Earlier, Kazakh police said forces had “eliminated” tens of rioters in the largest city of Almaty as the unrest sparked by rising fuel prices boiled over into the […]

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Pakistan completes 94% of border fence, despite ‘isolated’ incidents

The Pakistani military has said the fencing project along the Durand Line with Afghanistan will continue despite issues raised in recent weeks. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar said on Wednesday that 94% of the border fence has been completed and that work on the remaining section continues. “We are totally focused, and under the western […]

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Why The Taliban’s Biggest Headache Is The Political Elite Of Pakistan

Reports of the recent period are indicative of tensions between the Taliban forces and the Pakistani military deployed on their border. On December 22, the Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman disclosed that the Taliban forces had stopped the Pakistani military from erecting an “illegal” border fence along the eastern Nangarhar province. A video circulating in the social media showed that Taliban […]

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Indra’s Lanza 3D Radar Passes NATO’s Tactical Ballistic Missile Detection And Tracking Tests

The Lanza 3D Deployable Air Defence Radar (DADR) developed by Indra, a leading global technology and consulting company, has successfully passed NATO’s tests, certifying the sensor’s tactical ballistic missile detection and tracking capabilities. The radar, initially developed with the support of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, demonstrated its capacity to detect and track […]

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Pakistan Vows to Continue Fencing Afghan Border, Downplays Taliban Disruptive Acts

Pakistan said Monday it was engaging with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers through diplomatic channels to resolve “some confusions” stemming from the installation of a security fence on the porous border separating the two countries. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad that his country was determined to protect its “interests” and continue unilateral fencing Pakistan’s nearly 2,600-kilometer […]

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Pakistan FM concedes discord exists with IEA over border fence

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Monday Islamabad would continue fencing the border with Afghanistan while hoping that contentious issues would be resolved with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) authorities through diplomatic channels. Addressing a press conference on Monday, Qureshi said: “We have erected the fence and we will continue to fence the border.” Dawn News reported […]

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Reality Check: Extremism In Pakistan Is ‘Home Grown’

While addressing a consultative conference on terrorism in Islamabad last month, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting [I&B] Fawad Chaudhary said, “We don’t have any potential threat from India… We face no danger from America… We face no danger from Europe. The biggest danger we face is [extremism] from within.” For a country that has consistently remained in a […]

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Chinese Aid Strategy Hinders Goals On North Korea – Analysis

The 2018–2021 period can be seen as an important turning point in Korean history. In the space of a few years, the US–China confrontation has changed everything in Northeast Asia — and this change is likely to last for a long time. The ‘new Cold War’, as this confrontation is sometimes known, has not altered China’s strategic goals in Northeast […]

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