Latest Articles about South Asia
Briefs
Pakistan: Government Losing Out to the Islamists Pakistan freed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed from house arrest on November 24, one of a number of recent incidents that have shown the government’s increasing weakness when it comes to tackling the country’s Islamists. Saeed, the alleged... MORE
Lapis Lazuli: A New Transit Corridor to Link Asia and Europe via the South Caucasus
Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey signed a new agreement dedicated to launching the Lapis Lazuli transit corridor during a pentalateral meeting at the seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA), held on November 15, in Ashgabat (Azernews, November 15). The finalized document was... MORE
Al-Qaeda Joins the Kashmir Conflict
Militancy in Kashmir took on another complicating dimension on July 26, when al-Qaeda announced its entry into the strife-torn Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a statement issued by the Global Islamic Media Front, al-Qaeda’s propaganda wing, Zakir Rashid Bhat (a.k.a. Zakir Musa) was... MORE
Rohingya Crisis: Will China’s Mediation Succeed?
During his visits to Dhaka, Bangladesh and Naypyitaw, Myanmar on November 18 and 19, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi put forward a three-phase plan to resolve the Rohingya crisis. First, Wang called for a ceasefire in Myanmar’s devastated Rakhine state, which is at the center... MORE
Pakistan’s Tanzeem-e-Islami and Its Troublesome Extremist Links
A number of Pakistan’s Islamist organizations that agitate for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate but profess to be non-violent are finding renewed prominence, a concerning result of the surfacing of Islamic State’s (IS) local chapter, Wilayat-e-Khurasan. Islamist organizations such as Hizb ut Tahrir, Jamaat... MORE
Power Flows Downstream: Sino-Vietnamese Relations and the Lancang-Mekong River
China’s international rivers are becoming a focal point for contests over control of natural resources. China, in its powerful position as headwater nation, continues to actively promote hydropower development domestically and internationally. When downstream nations rely on un-dammed rivers for fisheries and irrigation, this puts... MORE
The Future Leader of the Taliban? A Brief Sketch of Taliban Deputy Chief Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob
The announcement of the death the Taliban movement’s founding leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, in July 2015, almost two years after his actual demise, set off a succession battle within the Taliban’s ranks (Dawn (Karachi), July 29, 2015; Daily Pakistan, August 31, 2015). Despite vehement opposition... MORE
Al-Qaeda’s New Hope on the Run: A Profile of Ansar al-Sharia Pakistan Emir Abdul Karim Saroush Siddiqui
A series of terrorist attacks swept Karachi this summer. At least six terrorist attacks — five in Karachi and one in the remote Mastung district of Baluchistan province — were claimed by Jamaat ul Ansar al-Shariah Pakistan, a new Islamist terrorist entity on Pakistan’s jihadist... MORE
Chinese and Indian Competition in Space Heats Up
On May 5, India began a new diplomatic push in South Asia by launching the “South Asia satellite” into space. Built and launched by the government-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the satellite will provide communications and meteorological data to India’s South Asian neighbors (Economic... MORE
Pakistan’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa Positions Itself for Politics
On August 7, 2017, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the chief of Pakistan’s banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist groups, launched a political party. The Milli Muslim League (MML) has yet to be recognized as a legitimate political party by Pakistan’s election commission, but it already has... MORE