Trump said that the US will defeat its enemies with the full force of American might.
"Those who wish America harm, we will hunt you down and you will pay the ultimate price," the US President said
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Lashkar poses a huge threat to India and its nexus with the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq is worrying, warn intelligence sources. Vicky Nanjappa reports
'India is a major target for ISIS and Al Qaeda because it has a very large Muslim Diaspora, regular conflicts with a Muslim country and experiences violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims on a regular basis.' 'This provides for a very stable breeding ground for jihadist radicalisation and recruitment.'
'Should the new ISIS leadership opt for a consolidation, the Afghan-Pakistan border would be an attractive place,' warns Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'But India, increasingly, is not that far behind, which is a story I never expected to tell.'
India failed to extract the 'price' from Pakistan for its Kargil misadventure.
The price could have been military in terms of loss of territory/soldiers/equipment or destruction of terrorist training infrastructure. Giving a 'face saving' option to Pakistan proved disastrous for the future, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
As the United States leads a sustained campaign against the dreaded terror outfit Islamic State, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said success against global terror is within reach if countries adopt a common strategy.
Amid Russia's escalating military activities in Syria, the White House has warned it not to interfere in the United States-led international efforts to destroy the Islamic State in the strife-torn region.
Jammu and Kashmir Police on Thursday claimed that terrorists involved in Wednesday's Udhampur attack on a BSF convoy were trained 'fidayeens' and backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.
'If ISIS was popular, they don't need to use violence.' 'The strategy of violence is a false interpretation of Islam.' 'The main victims of ISIS violence are Muslims.'
The strategy for the next week's US visit of Islam was finalised during a high-power meeting co-chaired on Wednesday by President Asif Ali Zardari and Premier Raja Pervez Ashraf, and attended by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen Khalid Wynne, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the naval and air force chiefs.
'The ISI has given a stunning display of its capacity to do with impunity what it likes within Kabul. Incensed over the triumphalism of the hardliners in Kabul, the ISI has hit out; it is a typical ISI reflex action that Indians are familiar with,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In an ominous development, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has roped in separatist leaders and their sympathisers to make inroads in Naxal ranks in its anti-India strategies after making a failed attempt to enlist the support of the Maoist rebels.
'Islamist terror groups have never been challenged ideologically. As long as their ideology survives, like cancer, these groups will sprout somewhere else, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The hour-long meeting, also attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and senior home ministry officials, apprised the Muslim clerics about activities of the West Asian terrorist group and its efforts to attract Indian youth to its fold.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who just couldn't stop praising Pakistani Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani , told Congress Thursday that Kayani has purged the so-called 'rogue' elements from the ISI who are in cahoots with the Taliban.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir has cleverly avoided any intense global scrutiny while spreading its ideology and support base in nearly 50 countries
'It is folly to think that religious-identity-based politics and a flourishing economy can co-exist in a diverse society.' 'We can fight and kill each other, or fight together and kill poverty. We cannot do both,' says Dasarathi G V.
'This is something the ISI would have wanted to prevent. There was no direct ISI involvement whatsoever,' claims American national security expert Harlan Ullman, who has close links with the Pakistani government and military.
Humor and silly puns are being used as the latest weapons in the fight against extreme militants who now control large swathes of Iraqi territories. Playing on the words Kalifa (Caliphate) and Kurafa (myths or superstitions), the new Iraqi comedy show 'Dawlat al-Khurafa' (State of Myths), began airing on Iraqi state television early this month.
Indian agencies have been engaged in countering Pakistani cyber-attacks on social media platforms for a very long time. But just like the fight against the coronavirus, only through the active participation of ordinary citizens that this war on fake news can be won, suggets Colonel S Dinny (retd).
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday pitched for a coherent regional strategy to deal with terrorism
Secret documents obtained from freedom of information requests have revealed that the United States army predicted the rise of the Islamic State militant group even before it started making headlines around the globe.
"Just a handful of Indian youth have joined the ISIS. Some have also returned after being persuaded by their families," asserted the home minister.
The Al-Qaeda and its patrons seems to have outsourced, for the time being, the achieving of that larger, civilisationally retrograde goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle-East, to the ISIS. The symptoms are all similar; the difference lies only in the expressions, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
The Islamic State, the dreaded terrorist group that has gained control over a large part of Iraq and Syria, has up to 31,500 fighters - three times as many as previously feared, according to a latest Central Intelligence Agency estimate.
These are obviously not 'organic' desertions but brought about under intense military pressure, post the 9/5 arrests. It seemed as if the party was being dismantled the same way it was brought into power!, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W, India's external intelligence agency.
The Centre and state governments have shied away from highlighting the ISI's attempts to displace Hindus and create corridors of sympathetic demography to further their designs especially along the communication arteries from Jammu to the Kashmir Valley.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday attached 17 properties of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmed Shah Watali in a terror funding case, the agency said.
'Pakistan may have moved back from this devilish plot in 2007, but there is no guarantee it won't be on the drawing boards again,' warns Rajeev Sharma.
'It's scary to know that those arrested passed on sketches of warships etc to the ISI.' 'Who are the people behind the masks? Are they hiding in our various defence units?'
'Hamas is going to be prepared. There will be booby traps and tunnels; it's going to be door to door fighting.'
Through its early days to the 1980s, Pakistan sought to expand its sphere of Islamic influence through Afghanistan to Central Asia and got Pakistani citizens recruited in the Afghan government institutions in the 1990s when the Taliban were power. Now, it is looking eastward through India to Bangladesh and Myanmar to establish an imaginary caliphate.
'The ISI doesn't trust the Kashmiris. They hate them...' 'We can never take Kashmir for granted, so there is that element of unpredictability. Anything can happen anytime.' 'The next chief minister will still be from the Valley. Even if a BJP chief minister or a BJP chosen candidate comes, he will be from the Valley. And he will be a Muslim.' A S Dulat, the former R&AW chief, on why he is perplexed by the BJP's Mission 44 plan for the J&K assembly election.
In a significant development in the war against militant group Islamic State, Iraqi forces have retaken control of Ramadi from the Islamic State with the United States also hailing their victory.
Thinning out of the counter infiltration and counter terrorism grid is fraught with the danger of revival of terrorism in the Poonch-Rajouri area, cautions Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd), the counter-insurgency expert.
"After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America's sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago," US President Joe Biden.
Aijaz Ahmad, presently based in Afghanistan, is one of the chief recruiters of Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir.
