As envoy Suresh K Reddy readies to leave for Baghdad, distinguished diplomat Chinmaya Gharekha says India will have to tread carefully in the strife-torn nation.
The US has being trying to stop such private donors in the Gulf oil states sending funds to the ISIS
With two Pakistani groups pledging support to the ISIS, the danger is pretty close to India. Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com reports
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.
Any attempt to defang Islamic State must first cut off its main sources of funding, especially its revenue from oil sales, extortion and crime, ransom payments, and support from foreign donors. This will also be need to be backed up by efficient forces on the ground.
Punjab government on Friday said that the Centre was making all efforts to locate the whereabouts of the 39 Indian youths who had been held hostage for nearly a year by ISIS militants.
The 39 are being held hostage by Islamic militant outfit Islamic State.
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.
Muslim groups and leaders from across the world, including those from the United States, have strongly condemned the barbarism unleashed by the Islamic State, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, describing the extremist outfit's behaviour as "un-Islamic".
Militants from groups affiliated with once feared Al Qaeda network are abandoning their outfits to join the dreaded Islamist State that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and been targeted in American airstrikes, according to a report.
Al-Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which has carved out a large fiefdom along the Iraqi-Syrian border, poses a "legitimate threat" to the capital city of Baghdad, a top Pentagon official has said.
India has evacuated 17 more of its nationals from the conflict zone of Iraq with the help of local authorities taking the total number of those rescued so far to 34 and also advised its citizens to leave on voluntary basis by commercial means in view of the "fragile" security situation.
Several hundred Indian nationals may be stranded in the Najaf province of Iraq, unable to return home because their employer refuses to return their passports, Amnesty International said on Saturday.
The ground situation in Iraq is so bad that there is no scope for any non-conventional action or any kind of bravery. Patience, slow movement, and full backing to Indian negotiators would help in a big way, says Sheela Bhatt.
Iraq is on the verge of collapsing and foreign military intervention is inevitable. But for those who follow the developments in Iraq and the Middle-East will understand the current situation is nothing but a culmination of US and western policies toward the region, says Dr Waiel Awwad
The United States has offered rewards amounting to USD 20 million (around Rs 127 crore) for tips on whereabouts of four top leaders of the Islamic State, a day after the terror group claimed responsibility for its first attack on American soil.
An IB report says some 25,000 preachers of the extreme Wahhabi form of Islam came to India last year as visitors, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
The Islamic State rakes in over US $1 million (Rs 6.4 crore) per day in extortion and taxation and the dreaded terror group has enough assets to cover its expenses despite falling oil prices, according to a media report.
Although Lesima JeroseMonisha is relieved that her worst days are over after she alongwith her 45 colleagues returned to India from warn-torn Iraq, she has no idea whether she'll ever get her four-and-half-months' salary that the Iraqi government owes her. Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar reports.
'That the Indian nationals have been sighted, they are unharmed, they are in captivity, and we know their captors. This is the sort of information I think everybody has the right to know and we would share it. Information beyond that we feel would be detrimental to the safety of those who are in captivity and it is not at all in the interest of our countrymen to share that information,' says MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.
It is time to throw an outer ring around India's national security by proactively engaging in areas immediately outside our neighbourhood. Such a ring will not only insulate India from emerging threats, but also create new leverage in securing our own neighbourhood, says Nitin Pai.
Are we creating videos that can flick on the jihadi switch, asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
The United States has deployed an additional 300 military personnel to violence-hit Iraq to augment the security of American embassy in Baghdad, its support facilities and the Baghdad International Airport.
ISIS' advances in Iraq and Syria are not just tactical but strategic victories -- born of US errors and confusion
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.
The United States has discussed with Iran the need to refrain from pressing a "sectarian agenda" in Iraq as the two rivals met on the sidelines of talks on Tehran's nuclear programme in Vienna.
The no-confidence motion against the government could not be introduced amid the din in the Lok Sabha.
Both the separatists in the Valley and the Indian establishment have failed to fathom that the world's alignments have changed, writes Col Dr Anil Athale (retired).
'They are not affected by ISIS' sentiment of avenging the suffering of the global ummah.' 'They have a huge ummah of their own in India, a huge Muslim population.' 'And because of that, they have to take into consideration the political and social conditions of Muslims in India.' 'They have to express themselves in a more political way and not through terrorism.'
The kidnapping of 40 Indian workers from Mosul town of strife-torn Iraq should be a lesson to those who rely on fraudulent agents to find them jobs in the Gulf countries, says Vicky Nanjappa
Slated to be in India on December 8, Carter would travel to Japan, Bahrain, Israel, Italy and Great Britain before returning to the US on December 16. This is for the first time that an outgoing American Defence Secretary has included India in his itinerary for the final overseas trip.
The fate of the UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra seems to be tragically sealed as the Islamic State militia gained control of the Syrian city.
The advance of the Al-Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and its allies towards Baghdad appears to have been "stalled" but the "grave" situation in Iraq needs to be dealt with militarily as well as politically, a top UN official has said.
The opposition battled it out with the Centre over farmer issues, the suspension of 6 MPs and the privileges of MPs.
A chilling video of beheading of another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, was on Tuesday posted on social media by Syria and Iraq-based terrorist group, Islamic State.
With 2016 officially behind us, let's look forward and speculate about the events, people and issues that will shape 2017.
Several relatives of the killed workers said they were not officially informed about their loved ones by any government authority.
A Ganesh Nadar meets the family of Lesima Jerose Monisha, one of the Indian nurses stranded in Iraq's Tikrit, in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu. "The nurses are well-fed but they haven't received a single rupee as salary in four months, hope India will make the Iraqi government pay them," says Edwija, her mother.
FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein has criticised soccer's world governing body FIFA for banning Iraq from hosting home internationals and called upon the organisation to do more for supporters in the Middle East.
The readouts by the Indian and Chinese sides on the meeting on Monday between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow bring out that divergences are crowding into the centrestage of their relationship, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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