Seeing missile attacks as a common threat, US-led NATO military alliance has offered India cooperation and sharing of technology in the field of missile defence.
US-led NATO forces are facing a tough time in Afghanistan after Pakistan blockaded the main supply route and the Taliban stepped up attacks on vehicles and oil-tankers carrying essentials with nearly 60 trucks being destroyed in last three days.
Hours after Afghan forces repulsed major suicide attacks by Taliban on Kabul, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai blamed "intelligence failures" for the assault, particularly on the part of US-led NATO alliance.
As US President Joe Biden launched a new trade deal with 12 Indo-Pacific nations, including India, to enhance trade, economic and investment opportunities, China, which sees the pact as a threat to its dominance in the region, went on the offensive against it, promising more opening up, while the official media here termed it as "economic Nato".
India and the US have collaborated through the past one month on launching a powerful satellite; are commencing joint production of GE Aerospace's F414 jet engines in India; India is participating in a massive three week-long military exercise in the Western Pacific, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Whether it liked it or not, the Ukraine crisis forced India to choose between the aggressor Russia and the US-led free world, a decision it hated to make, Virendra Kapoor points out. In the end, it abstained from the vote in the Security Council.
Three Taliban militants have been given a death sentence by a Pakistani court for attacking trucks carrying critical supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan in 2010.
Led by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, the United States has apologised to the people of Afghanistan on the "inappropriate treatment" of the holy Quran by American soldiers at the Bagram Airbase in a central Afghan province.
The Pashtu-language message, posted on the taliban website alemara.com, states that the US allegations are merely propaganda through which Washington wants to show that the Taliban are disintegrating and send out the message that the mujahideen are not indigenous but the product of Pakistani secret agencies.
Twenty tankers which were destroyed were on their way to Afghanistan, and were attacked on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, early on Wednesday morning,a group of gunmen opened fire at nearly 40 tankers parked at Akhtarabad along the main highway between Quetta and the border town of Chaman, a witness said.
"For more than a year, General Allen has served with distinction as the Commander of US Forces and NATO International Security Assistances Forces in Afghanistan, seeing us through a critical period in our military efforts and in Afghanistan's transition," Obama said.
"We have from time to time reminded all stakeholders about the red lines that was drawn by the world community and certainly by the participants should not be touched, should not be erased and should not be violated," External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told media persons.
Wesley Clark will seek a democratic ticket to challenge President George Bush.
Pakistan is refusing to participate in the United States-led probe into North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombing that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead along the Afghanistan border last week, the Pentagon 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.
'If the US or UK were to seek additional time to continue evacuations -- the answer is no'
Biden stressed over "not fighting a third World War in Ukraine" but avowed sending an "unmistakable message that we will defend every inch of NATO territory".
Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar has left for the US on his maiden visit to hold talks with top American officials on regional security, counter terrorism and intelligence issues.
Britain on Thursday warned that there was a 'very credible' report of an 'imminent' terrorist attack by the Islamic State terrorists targeting those gathering at Kabul airport in an attempt to flee war-torn Afghanistan.
Referring to how unified Washington Allies have been in isolating President Putin, Biden stated, "...The Quad is, with the possible exception of India being somewhat shaky on some of this, but Japan has been extremely strong -- so has Australia -- in terms of dealing with Putin's aggression."
Putin justified his decision in a speech blaming NATO for the current crisis and calling the US-led alliance an existential threat to Russia.
About 100 vehicles destined for the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan were set ablaze on Monday by heavily armed pro-Taliban militants in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, in the second such attack in as many days.
Putin said the purpose of the West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy Russia.
Russia and China have a broad consensus today on almost all core issues related to global strategic stability, which is unprecedented in modern history, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Remember the US withdrawal agreement was signed in February 2020. In the intervening period, a proper evacuation plan ought to have been in place. It was not. Consequently, tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked as interpreters, drivers, suppliers of goods and services, etc, face brutal retribution from the Taliban, Virendra Kapoor points out.
A United States general was killed in an attack at a British-run army training centre in Kabul on Tuesday -- the highest-ranking American casualty since the 9/11 attacks.
The US-led forces fighting the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan might soon encounter 'gun-totting' monkeys, trained for 'jihad', if a rumour doing the rounds in the Chinese media is to be believed.
The Americans have expended a lot of diplomatic energy to coax India into toeing their line but India has refused to buckle under pressure. As Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, India has not taken anyone's side but its own side, points out Virendra Kapoor.
China, the Ukraine crisis and Quad will dominate the discussions, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
The statement, reported in the New York Times, came a day after Pakistan's Ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman said Pakistan has provided to American and NATO commanders in Afghanistan on 52 different occasions in the last eight the locations from which the militants were attacking but the information exchange has been to no avail.
Dismissing the remarks by the Pakistani military on the November 26 deadly NATO cross border strike, the United States on Monday said it stands by its own investigation that it was not an unprovoked firing by the US-led forces.
The US has hailed a power-sharing deal between rival Afghan presidential candidates as a "moment of extraordinary statesmanship" that ended a prolonged dispute threatening to plunge the war-torn nation into further political turmoil and complicate the NATO troops withdrawal.
'Washington must retain control over any peace process until the Taliban gets worn out,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Let's see some glimpses of the Afghan war over the decade in PHOTOS.
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
The Modi government has been put on notice.'Will it buckle under such pressure? These are times when the moral fibre of the leadership makes all the difference, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Western powers appear to regard Delhi as the most logical destination in the region in these extraordinary times -- as a counterpoint to the ascendance of political Islam and a rising red star over Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan on Friday announced it will release former Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Saturday, meeting a long-standing demand of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to advance peace efforts in the war-ravaged country.
The blast, which could be heard several kilometers away, sent burning debris showering down over an area a few hundred meters from the Justice and Interior Ministries, a top courthouse, and the former office of the prime minister.
