Category: South East Asia

Grenade attack at bus station in Pakistan kills 1, wounds 2

Assailants threw a hand grenade at a bus station in volatile southwest Pakistan on Tuesday, killing a passerby and wounding two others, police said, in a sign of increasing violence in the region. The attack happened in Dera Murad Jamali, a town in Baluchistan province, said Aziz Baloch, an area police official. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. It […]

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Five Pakistani soldiers killed in attack ‘launched’ from Afghanistan

Militants firing from inside Afghanistan killed at least five Pakistani soldiers at a border post in northwestern Kurram district on Sunday, the Pakistan military said, the second such attack since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) came into power in August. The Pakistan army said it retaliated, causing heavy casualties, but independent confirmation was not immediately possible because the districts […]

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Former UK defence chief urges the West to ‘recognise’ the IEA

The former head of the UK’s armed forces, General Sir David Richards, has called on Western countries to formally recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Richards, the UK Chief of Defence Staff from 2010 to 2013, said it was time to accept that the war in Afghanistan had been lost and work with the IEA, BBC reported on Monday. […]

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Pakistan’s Theatrics On Kashmir – OpEd

As Pakistan observes what it refers to as ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ yet once again, some hard questions stare you in the face. The first one is that if Islamabad’s so confident of its Kashmir narrative being as sound as insists it is, then why is it merely posturing instead of asserting itself in seeking a permanent resolution of this seven-and-a-half-decade […]

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Pakistan Army’s Strategic Calculus 2022: China Versus United States – Analysis

China stands firmly embedded in 2022 in Pakistan’ Army’s strategic calculus despite unfolding geopolitical environment heavily stacked against China and thereby devaluing Pakistan Army’s strategic- asset worth to United States. In 2022, the United States should not be misled into the belief that Pakistan Army’s strategic- asset value can be retrieved to serve United States security interests again. Pakistan in […]

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Pakistan’s Hard Policy Choices in Afghanistan

Islamabad must tread carefully with its long-time Taliban allies back in power in Kabul. Pitfalls lie ahead for Pakistan’s domestic security and its foreign relations. The Pakistani government should encourage Afghanistan’s new authorities down the path of compromise with international demands regarding rights and counter-terrorism. What’s new? Pakistan faces difficult challenges in shaping policy toward Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Though Pakistan continues to […]

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Twin attacks in Pakistan kill 7 troops, 13 separatists

Twin attacks by separatists on Pakistani military posts in the volatile southwestern Baluchistan province triggered intense firefights that lasted hours and killed seven soldiers and 13 assailants, Pakistan’s interior minister and the military said Thursday. A recently formed separatist group, the Baluchistan Nationalist Army, had claimed responsibility for the attacks late Wednesday in a post on Twitter. In one of […]

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IEA bans armed forces from entering amusement parks

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) Council of Ministers has issued a decree banning military personnel from entering amusement parks when in uniform, and carrying weapons. A spokesman for the IEA, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter: “Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are not allowed to enter amusement parks with weapons, military uniforms and vehicles.” “The Mujahideen are obliged to abide […]

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Russia considers TAPI pipeline idea ‘politically attractive’

Moscow views the idea of Russia’s participation in the TAPI (Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Pakistan – India) gas pipeline project as “politically attractive,” special envoy of the Russian President Zamir Kabulov told TASS in an interview. “Such perspective appears politically attractive. The matters of supporting security for this project earlier considered to be the most challenging have lost their acuteness […]

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Michael Brecher, India And International Relations (IR)

Walking down the corridors of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) library in the 1980s, one could barely escape meeting scholars with intellectual acumen moving around. As a novice in foreign affairs, I too had unintended encounters with many of them. The Sapru House (ICWA building) in New Delhi was already known as an international affairs public sphere, with […]

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