India's most powerful prime minister in five decades gets publicly admonished -- if gently -- by the US vice-president. The question is, would this make him reflect on how and why, or which ones of his government and party's missteps exposed his flank like this? asks Shekhar Gupta.
A former director-general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has said that United States President Barack Obama will pull out American troops from Afghanistan for economic reasons rather than for strategic ones because his administration would find the ongoing surge unsustainable.
A new video, released by Maulana Asim Umar -- a senior leader of Al Qaeda's Pakistan cell -- urging Kashmiris to follow the footsteps of their "brothers" in Iraq and Syria and launch a jihad against India, has rung alarm bells in New Delhi.
Richard Holbrooke, who passed away on Monday, was probably inching toward his complete lifetime achievement -- as the architect of peace in Afghanistan and in South Asia, says M K Bhadrakumar.
Snooping is one of the oldest peccadilloes of man, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
US Congressman Joe Crowley, who spearheaded the campaign for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create a new separate hate crimes category in the agency's uniform crime reporting programme to track bigoted attacks against Sikh Americans, has now set his sights on fully integrating Sikh Americans in the US Armed Forces
Facing a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, the Barack Obama administration seems to believe in a 'buyout' formula, which involves paying the militants to leave the outfit and reintegrate into mainstream society. President Barack Obama signed a $680 billion defence appropriations bill, which will pay for military operations in the 2010 fiscal year. The bill includes a Taliban reintegration provision under the Commander's Emergency Response Programme.
In the wake of mounting reports about Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism despite American military and economic largesse and credible intelligence of Islamabad's perfidy in maintaining links with militant groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani argued that the number of Pakistani soldiers killed in fighting militants should silence these critics.
In his first of the two election speeches on the eve of the November 3 elections, Biden asserted that he has a plan to successfully fight against COVD-19 if voted to power.
The United States is not taking at face value Pakistan's actions against terrorists outfits.
United States along with other European countries are ignoring India's role in Afghanistan in their effort to appease Pakistan, a prominent American foreign policy magazine has said.
Al Qaeda has started feeling the heat as a result of the intensification of American efforts against it in the Af-Pak region, a top Obama Administration official has said.
"We want to make certain that no terrorist organisation can find a haven anywhere, and, with a border adjoining Afghanistan, that makes Pakistan a priority," Mattis said.
United States President Barack Obama's Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, who is currently on a three-day visit to Pakistan, is expected to make a short visit to New Delhi on Friday.
We understand the electoral compulsions, the desperate need for the BJP to have at least 50 per cent of the Hindus vote for them in Uttar Pradesh in a few months. For that, you need polarisation, put your own Muslim compatriots on the 'other' side. This is how your domestic politics runs contrary to your national, strategic interest, warns Shekhar Gupta.
A commando who deserted from the Pakistan Army has emerged as a suspect in the abduction of an American aid expert in Punjab's provincial capital, police officials said on Sunday.
'The best thing that Modi can hope for in this visit is that he is able to mobilise Indians in America to vote Republican and try and help Trump return to power,' argues Aakar Patel.
'We are very grateful that the US takes the trouble to keep us informed and to consult with us as this situation is being managed by them,' Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Pakistani Taliban elements can be broadly divided into two groups, the 'good Taliban' and the 'bad Taliban'.'Good Taliban' are those who never target Pakistani armies and their focus remains on Afghanistan, while the 'bad Taliban' mainly attack Pakistani government installations and often seek refuge across the border.
In understanding Obama's strategy, we must begin with an obvious but unstated point: The extra forces that will be deployed to Afghanistan are not expected to defeat the Taliban. Instead, their mission is to reverse the momentum of previous years and to create the circumstances under which an Afghan force can take over the mission.
Pakistan's security forces and its intelligence agency have facilitated the rise of the Taliban, with whom they have an "ambiguous" relationship, a former top American army official, now headed to become the country's representative to Afghanistan has said.
Dissatisfied with the inadequate efforts from Pakistan to root out militants from inside its territory, the United States is pushing for an expanded campaign of ground raids across the border inside the country.
American Senator John F Kerry, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who just returned from a trip to Afghanistan after twisting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's arm to acquiesce to hold a run-off election after charges of massive fraud and corruption were uncovered in the recent election, has warned that Pakistan could become the epicenter of terrorism in the world, since it is now the headquarters of the Al Qaeda.
In the first major military confrontation since US President Barack Obama ordered the deployment of an additional 30,000 US troops late last year attack, thousands of American, Afghan and British troops are battling the Taliban in Helmand province of Afghanistan.
While Wikileaks did not say in its message what the third instalment of their release would cover. However, a Reuters despatch from Washington DC said that classified US diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against foreign governments and leaders are expected to feature in the official documents that Wikileaks plans to release.
A US spy plane fired missiles on the houses of three civilians, Islamists claimed.
The conditions are related to Pakistan's support to terrorists and terror outfits.
The suicide bomber, who killed as many as seven Central Intelligence Agency officials and injured six others last week in Afghanistan was a Jordanian informant, who lured the American spy agency into a trap in the name of providing them with actionable intelligence against top Al Qaeda leaders, media reports said.
The US were ready to mount an operation inside Pakistan, similar to the covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The BJP chief and former chief minister of UP, who is on a five-day visit to the United States, reiterated his resolve on Tuesday at a major Afghan policy speech at Capitol Hill, jointly organised by the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies; US India Political Action Committee and American Foreign Policy Council
Pak seeks US help to ease tensions with India.
Pak can only access the money if it does more to crack down on internal terror networks launching attacks on neighbouring Afghanistan.
The issues that figured prominently in these discussions included terrorism, Afghanistan and the situation in the Asia Pacific region.
'Afghanistan cannot be at peace until the Pashtuns regain their pre-eminent role in the country's governance,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'I think the most important force in Pakistan is the army. We would like democracy to succeed and flourish in Pakistan. But we have to recognise that the power today rests virtually with the army,' PM Dr Singh says in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria
India can stay relevant in Afghanistan not by being a bystander but by actively bolstering anti-Taliban forces monetarily, militarily and politically, say Lt Gen R K Sawhney and Sushant Sareen
'Steve was the foremost strategic analyst on South Asia,' remembers Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
He will call for 'an end to the politics of resistance and retribution', a senior aide said.
Describing India's concerns as legitimate, a top United States official has said that there is no immediate danger of foreign fighters from Afghanistan moving towards the Indian border after 2014, when American troops leave the country.
Al Qaeda remains "very capable" and focused on attacking the United States, a top American military official said on Sunday, adding the situation in Afghanistan is "serious" and "deteriorating" as the militants have found a "safe haven in Pakistan."
