A culture of militancy
From the bustling, congested markets of Karachi, where violence is endemic in all its myriad forms, to Peshawar and Quetta, videos and audio messages of ‘martyrs’, and sermons and statements…
The enemy within
The change in the military’s stance on who represents the biggest threat to our nation is hugely significant. Under the altered doctrine decided on by army leaders at a key…
An ally’s blow
So Mullah Nazir is dead, killed in a US drone strike on January 2, in the region of Angoor Adda, South Waziristan. And although the Foreign Office can’t confirm his…
For Pakistan to change, army must change
The army and its strategic adventures have brought Pakistan to its present pass. The footprints of the terrorism now haunting the country go back to the first Afghan ‘jihad’, the…
Patterns of response
Counting a few major attacks claimed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) during the last three months in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata delineate three clear tactical patterns. (It must be noted…
The Punjabi Taliban
Punjabi Taliban who comprise members of various communal and jihadi networks possess significant potential to carry on their activities for a long time while they also suffer from a number…
Militancy and technology
The almost two-year-old merger of Saudi and Yemeni jihadists into a Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) seems to have been a success. Certainly, that is what the…
After Rabbani
Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani is the first of the seven leaders who represented the face of the Afghan jihad against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s to be assassinated. He…
Of delusions and narratives
Going through the various available material on the jihadis’ role in Kashmir and Afghanistan since the 1990s, some of it in verbatim interviews, one ends up with the feeling that…
Living in the Respectorate
Truly, we live in strange times. Of late, a spate of odd, purportedly Islamic injunctions have landed in my inbox. Let me start with the oddest: in Somalia, the group…
