Tracking British Jihadis in Iraq and Syria by Monitoring Their Twitter and Facebook Postings

Mark Townsend 

January 18, 2015 

A Facebook posting by Collin Gordon, one of the 700 or so western fighters for Isis in the database at King’s College London. He is thought to have died last month with his brother, Gregory, during fighting in Dabiq. 

Another Briton had died in Syria, and back in London investigators were busy “scraping” through his online peer network for clues about fellow Islamic State (Isis) foot soldiers.

It was little surprise that Rhonan Malik knew two Canadian brothers, Gregory and Collin Gordon. After all, Twitter rumours suggested that all three had been killed in the same December air strike. More intriguing was the prodigious Facebookpresence of Collin Gordon which indicated that, shortly before becoming a jihadist, he had been “quite the party boy”.

On a labyrinthine upper floor of King’s College London is the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), the first global initiative of its type, whose offices are frequently contacted by counter-terrorism officers, hungry for information on the continuing flow of Britons to the ranks of Isis.

At 4.30pm on Thursday the centre’s researchers were assiduously examining social media “accounts of value”, noting the ongoing ripples of jubilation following the Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks. A pseudonymous jihadist from Manchester, Abu QaQa, had said that the shootings had persuaded Isis and al-Qaida supporters to bury their differences.

Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others

OLIMPIA ZAGNOLI 

JANUARY 16, 2015 

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ENDLESS meetings that do little but waste everyone’s time. Dysfunctional committees that take two steps back for every one forward. Project teams that engage in wishful groupthinking rather than honest analysis. Everyone who is part of an organization — a company, a nonprofit, a condo board — has experienced these and other pathologies that can occur when human beings try to work together in groups.

But does teamwork have to be a lost cause? Psychologists have been working on the problem for a long time. And for good reason: Nowadays, though we may still idolize the charismatic leader or creative genius, almost every decision of consequence is made by a group. When Facebook’s board of directors establishes a privacy policy, when the C.I.A.’s operatives strike a suspected terrorist hide-out or when a jury decides whether to convict a defendant, what matters is not just the intelligence and wisdom of the individual actors involved. Groups of smart people can make horrible decisions — or great ones.

Psychologists have known for a century that individuals vary in their cognitive ability. But are some groups, like some people, reliably smarter than others?

Working with several colleagues and students, we set out to answer that question. In our first two studies, which we published with Alex Pentland and Nada Hashmi of M.I.T. in 2010 in the journal Science, we grouped 697 volunteer participants into teams of two to five members. Each team worked together to complete a series of short tasks, which were selected to represent the varied kinds of problems that groups are called upon to solve in the real world. One task involved logical analysis, another brainstorming; others emphasized coordination, planning and moral reasoning.

NEEDED: AN INTERNATIONAL CYBER TREATY

By Joseph R DeTrani

January 18, 2015

On August 1, 2013 I was invited to give the keynote address at the annual Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. What I presented 17 months ago, which wasn’t received too warmly, is relevant today, given the latest cyber hacking attack on Sony Pictures and the numerous previous attacks on JP Morgan Chase, Target, Home Depot and other civilian and government entities.

The reality is that in cyberspace there are many actors, from thrill-seeking teenagers to criminal gangs to more than one hundred nation states that have military and intelligence cyber warfare

units. The internet has over two billion users, traveling across a network owned by an array of businesses, with over 5,000 internet service providers that carry data around the world.

Thus cyberspace is a man-made domain of technological commerce and communications, with no operative international protocols and enforcement procedures to ensure that the internet is used for peaceful purposes and not for criminal, terrorist or warfare purposes.

The following is a condensed version of my August 1, 2013 presentation to the Def Con hacking conference, arguing for an international dialogue to establish a cyber treaty:

Cyber is a major national security threat, growing in scope, with direct impact to the economic, domestic and defense interests of the nation. From hacktivists with a politically or socially-motivated agenda, to criminals, to state and non-state actors who view cyber intrusions and attacks as means of economic advancement through theft of intellectual property, or espionage, or – in the most extreme case – as a potential weapon of mass destruction (WMD), the cyber domain now shares some of the same issues I have addressed in my years of working WMD issues.

Army Modernisation Plan Adversely Hit as Budget Cut by Rs. 5,000 crore

ByCol (Dr) P K Vasudeva

18 Jan , 2015

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Modernisation of the Indian Defence Forces is a continuous process based on threat perception, operational challenges, technological changes and available sources. The process is based on a 15 Year Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP), Five Year Services Capital Acquisition Plan (SCAP) and an Annual Acquisition Plan (AAP). Procurement of equipment and weapon systems is carried out as per the AAP in accordance with the Defence Procurement Procedure. The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has cleared a total of 41 proposals since June 2014, said Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in a written statement in Rajya Sabha.

…the Army’s plan to modernise its arsenal with the latest weaponry has taken a beating as the Finance Ministry has recently cut the budget by almost about Rs 5,000 crore, leaving that much less money to make fresh purchases.

Unfortunately, the Army’s plan to modernise its arsenal with the latest weaponry has taken a beating as the Finance Ministry has recently cut the budget by almost about Rs 5,000 crore, leaving that much less money to make fresh purchases.

The 1964 Crash of a B-52 Bomber Carrying 2 Live Nuclear Weapons

Tom Demerly

January 17, 2015

0138 (Local) Romeo Time Zone (UTC-5:00). 13 January, 1964. USAF B-52D Stratofortress Callsign “Buzz 14”, Flight Level 295 over Savage Mountain, Maryland.

Major Tom McCormick, USAF, can barely see.

Whiteout conditions and buffeting winds at 29,500 feet are so bad he radios Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZOB) for clearance to change altitude to flight level 330, or 33,000 feet. He is trying to get his B-52 bomber above the freak winter blizzard.

“Cleveland Control, this is Air Force Buzz one-four, request climb to level three-three-zero. Weather, over…”

“Roger Buzz one-four, this is Cleveland Control. Ahhh… Please stand by.”

As with the tragic crash of the AirAsia Airbus A320 flight QZ8501 over the Java Sea two weeks ago McCormick’s big bomber must find clean, stable air or risk breaking up, stalling and falling out of the sky. But unlike an airliner over turbulent seas McCormick’s two passengers are far more crucial. And deadly.

Buzz 14 is carrying two live, 9 mega-ton B53 thermonuclear bombs. They are among the largest nuclear bombs in the U.S. arsenal. This warhead also rides atop the giant Titan II ICBM, a ballistic missile designed for smashing secret Soviet underground installations and wiping out Russian cities. And Buzz 14 is carrying them over the eastern United States.

Why Ukrainian Troops Are Calling the Donetsk Airport Siege ‘Stalingrad’

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN

There’s been a violent escalation in the battle for Donetsk International Airport in Eastern Ukraine. The fighting is terrible and carried out in close quarters—and it’s not clear who’s in control.

Russian-backed separatists have besieged Ukrainian troops inside the airport for months. On Jan. 16, the separatists claimed to have driven most of the remaining Ukrainians out of its vast terminal building. The iconic control tower—ridden with holes from artillery fire—collapsed during the recent fighting.

According to The New York Times, the separatists raised their flag over the terminal, and appeared to have largely won the battle. Only a few isolated pockets of “cyborgs”—a slang term for the Ukrainian defenders—remained inside.

But on Jan. 18, the Ukrainian army claimed it retook the lost territory up to a previously-agreed ceasefire line—although this ceasefire is hardly respected by either side.

Iran’s Air Defense Drones Probably Aren’t Very Good at Air Defense

 ADAM RAWNSLEY

Iran’s military is assigning a new and unorthodox mission to its fast-expanding fleet of aerial drones—air defense. That is, engaging enemy planes from the air.

Now, whether Tehran’s robots can actually do that job is an open question. The world’s other military drone operators have been reluctant to assign such a difficult task to unmanned aircraft.

Indeed, it’s likely Iran’s air-defense drones are mostly targets … or merely propaganda.

Iran’s armed forces have been using drones since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Tehran’s Air Defense Force, however, is a relative newcomer to unmanned technologies.

The Air Defense Force stood up in 2009 to help defend a handful of strategic sites from foreign air power—a nod to the growing tension over Iran’s nuclear program and the looming threat of Western air strikes.

Officially, the Air Defense Force didn’t announce its move into unmanned technologies until three years later, when Brig. Gen. Farzad Esmaili—the ADF commander—told reporters covering the 2012 National Day of Air Defense that he planned to integrate drones into his force.

The Hazem drone, announced in October 2012, became the first public symbol of that move. Although Esmaili insisted that the Hazem drone was meant “for specific and strategic goals,” the aircraft is actually a modest tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

How the U.S. Army Plans to Defeat the Unthinkable: Drone Swarms

Michael Peck

January 18, 2015 

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Drones were great for a while, as long as it was only the U.S. military that used them. Now the Pentagon is waking up to the possibility that potential enemies like China, Iran and North Korea might use them against America.

But it's not just drones that are the threat. It's swarms of drones, perhaps tens or dozens or hundreds, spying or striking at U.S. troops. A poor man's form of asymmetric warfare capitalizing on the simple fact that you can strap a camera or a bomb to a $300 flying robot that a 10-year-old can operate.

China and Russia have drones. Iran claims to have developed a whole family of them, including an alleged stealth drone and a "kamikaze" drone. Iran also loves swarm tactics. It plans to swarm U.S. Navy warships with floating waves of armed speedboats or overwhelm American tanks withhordes of anti-tank motorcycles.

For U.S. forces spoiled by 70 years of unchallenged superiority, it will come as a rude shock that the skies are not friendly. Hence the U.S. Army is asking for ways to detect and destroy drones.

Creeping Fascism in the (un?)American Air Force?

by Tony Carr 

January 17, 2015 

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Last week, a 2-star Air Force general reportedly accused some of his own people of treason. Not because they were cowardly in the face of adversaries or gave aid and comfort to the enemy, but because they dared to speak to their own congressional representatives about the direction of the defense budget. The comments, delivered in the midst of a failed, flawed, but relentless effort by the service to retire the A-10 against the best advice of many of its own people, raises an important question: does the Air Force see itself as an extension of a free society or an extremist and intolerant world apart?

Before we explore one possible answer to that question, a few propositions as to why this general’s actions are much more important and distressing than the Air Force’s languid response would indicate.

The United States Air Force cannot thrive if it doesn’t reflect the nation it serves. It can’t just be a badass warfighting service. That’s not enough and has never been enough. It must also uphold the values it fights to vindicate. Why? Because otherwise, we end up with war unmoored from the moral foundations that gave rise to it being fought in the first place. We know from our own history how slippery war’s moral slope can be. How easily we can slide into oblivion after having begun with a righteous cause.

But there’s an even more important reason: the Air Force is not a moral or ethical island, but a public agency of the United States, subject to its laws, and peopled by Americans. To expect that it could advance American interests without conforming to American traditions is to beg absurdity.

Tools of the Trade A Lieutenant’s Life Lessons in Leadership, Part II

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“There I was, no shit… “

There’s an old adage that all good war stories begin with those five words. This story is no different. It begins on a summer day in 1989, in a maintenance shop on the far side of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where I was busy combing through a deadline report when a line of warrant officers filed by the shop counter, bound for the exit.

“Where are you guys headed?” I asked.

“WOLT,” the CW4 leading the group responded, moving on by as if this was an everyday occurrence.

As they passed through the exit and down the stairs into the hot morning sun, I looked over to my maintenance control sergeant, a newly-promoted master sergeant who until recently had been my platoon sergeant.

“WOLT?” I asked. “What the hell is ‘WOLT’?”

“Warrant Officer Lunch Time,” he replied flatly.

“It’s only 1100,” I answered. “Isn't that a little early?”

“They're warrant officers, L-T, what do you expect?” Good point.

U.S. worried about ‘Make in India’ rule

Suhasini Haidar

January 19, 2015 

Kerry had raised the issue at Vibrant Gujarat Summit

A co-operation agreement between India and the U.S. on “clean” or renewable energy, set to be one of the highlights of President Barack Obama’s forthcoming visit to India, has run into U.S. concerns over the government’s ‘Make in India’ plan.

According to officials, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, during his visit to the Vibrant Gujarat summit, brought up the worries over the government’s push for use of indigenous technology, calling it the new “make in India law”.

In particular, sources told The Hindu, the U.S. administration is irked over the government’s announcement of a series of 1,000MW “grid-connected solar PV power projects” that has a “mandatory condition that all PV cells and modules used in solar plants set up under this scheme will be made in India.

The announcement, made on December 18 last year, came amid the ongoing dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO DISPUTE DS456), where the U.S. has complained against India over the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission’s ‘domestic content requirement’ (DCR) for solar cells and solar modules in projects that it awards.

India maintains that U.S. subsidies on solar products threaten Indian manufacturers, and the domestic solar industry has accused the U.S. of “dumping cheap outdated technology” on India.

The WTO composed its panel in September 2014, but even as the matter over the UPA government’s ‘domestic content requirements’ was being decided, the NDA’s emphasis on “Make in India” has raised new questions from the U.S. administration.

India-US strategic partnership

Gurmeet Kanwal

Jan 19 2015 

President Barack Obama's forthcoming visit as the chief guest on Republic Day is likely to give a fresh impetus to the Indo-US strategic partnership. While the relationship is substantive and broad based, the impressive achievements of the strategic partnership are to a large extent attributable to the successful implementation of the 10-year Defence Framework Agreement signed in June 2005. The renewal of this agreement will be a major item on the bilateral agenda during the summit meeting.

During the Obama-Narendra Modi meeting in September 2014, the two leaders had stated their intention to expand defence cooperation to bolster national, regional, and global security. It was agreed that the two countries would build an enduring partnership in which both sides treat each other at the same level as their closest partners, including defence technology transfers, trade, research, co-production, and co-development. 

Prime Minister Modi and President Obama welcomed the first meeting under the framework of the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative in September 2014 and endorsed the decision to establish a task force to expeditiously evaluate and decide on unique projects and technologies which would have a transformative impact on bilateral defence relations and enhance India’s defence industry and military capabilities.

For several decades, India's procurement of weapons platforms and other defence equipment had remained mired in disadvantageous buyer-seller, patron-client relationships like that with the erstwhile Soviet Union and Russia. While India has been manufacturing Russian fighter aircraft and tanks under licence, the Russians never actually transferred weapons technology to India. 

Need to climb faster on technology ladder

Sheel Kant Sharma

Jan 19 2015 

Part-6

Excerpts from the presentations at the Roundtable on National Security Key Challenges Ahead organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs See also, www.tribuneindia.com

Half a century of the India-China war prompted exhaustive reviews in 2012 that the war exposed the utter lack of capacity, not only in regard to defence, but also at the societal scale. Former US diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith mentions in his memoirs that even a reliable coaxial telephone line between Delhi and Calcutta was lacking at the time of the Chinese threat to Assam.

India made a determined push after the experience of 1962. As a result, in areas like space, nuclear technology and higher education, its powers grew steadily and culminated, for example, in the success of the Mangalyaan, or the IT miracle around the turn of the century.

The success in space and nuclear fields has been due to advances in specific domains facilitated by the interconnected niche development of science and industry. Imitation of such a trajectory in other areas, say in ICT and biotechnology, has been tried out with a mixed record of success. But the real broad-based science and technology structure has languished in the twilight of assurance and despair. Such a structure rests on a knowledge society, which has been created in niche areas in the country, including select academic institutions and industries. But the unevenness and lack of it is reflective of the overall picture of human resource and technology planning. The enormous size and population of India warrants a far more intensive and coherent march towards technology.

Rear view: Lost in Lanka

Inder Malhotra

January 19, 2015 

By the middle of 1987, Rajiv Gandhi was besieged by many domestic problems of extreme gravity. Yet he decided to mediate in the catastrophic ethnic strife in neighbouring Sri Lanka between the ruling Sinhala majority and the highly aggrieved Tamil minority concentrated in the northern and eastern regions of the island republic. The problem had begun long ago, when the Sinhala-dominated government imposed Sinhala as the only language of the country, and it escalated so fast as to become nearly intractable. India’s policy on Sri Lanka, which Rajiv inherited from his mother, was as complex as the situation in the island.

Indira Gandhi did not like the efforts of Sri Lanka’s veteran and wily executive president, J.R. Jayewardene, to draw in the United States, some west European countries and Israel, to help out with his difficulties. She wanted the problem of Sri Lanka to be resolved with Indian assistance without any “any foreign intrusion”. So she had seen to it that her foreign policy advisor, G. Parthasarathy, and a nominee of Jayewardene worked out an arrangement for devolution of power to the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka that would be acceptable to the Sinhala majority also. The effort remained a work in progress. At the same time, she was keen to ensure that Sri Lankan Tamils did not feel let down by India. There was so much sympathy and support for them in Tamil Nadu that they could use the Indian state as a safe haven and also a training field, with the Central government benignly looking away.

The silence of corpses

Praveen Swami

January 19, 2015 

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In the year 1192, al-Hakim Yusuf al-Sabti watched as an angry mob burned down the library of a great doctor from Cordoba, who had been accused of atheism by the clerics of Baghdad. He saw in the hands of Sheikh Ibn al-Maristaniya, the leader of the mob, a rare copy of the Tadhkirah fi’Ilm al-Haya’a, a masterwork by the great medieval scientist Abu Ali ibn al-Haytham that contained proofs that the earth was round. Al-Sabti recorded: “The sheikh exclaimed: ‘here is a huge disaster’, and as he said that he ripped up the book and threw it into the fire.” The heirs of the medieval Islamic rulers who had been al-Haytham’s patrons did not resist the tide: with no challenge to their power then in sight, science was a small sacrifice to appease increasingly powerful clerics.

In the centuries that followed, the Middle East’s intellectuals plunged into what the Germans call kadavergehorsamkeit: the silence of corpses. The historian Abdur Rahman ibn Khaldun could even assert that ilm al-kalam, or intensive logical reasoning, was no longer “necessary in this era for the student of knowledge, since apostasy and heresy have become extinct”.

Al-Haytham’s work was rediscovered in Renaissance Europe, though; his breakthroughs on astronomy, mathematics, optics and, above all, the scientific method, helped lay the foundations for the continent’s long ascendancy.

Al Qaeda in India: Why We Should Pay Attention

By Sunil Dasgupta

15 January 2015

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In September 2014, al-Qaeda announced that it was launching a branch in the Indian subcontinent. The move was widely seen as an effort by al-Qaeda as an organization to remain relevant in a world where the Islamic State (IS) was taking over the mantle it had held for more than a decade. CNN’s terrorism expert, Peter Bergen, described the issue this way, “It’s al-Zawahiri’s obvious way of getting some of the limelight back.” 

Despite the nonchalance and occasional derision that greeted Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘boring’ 55-minute video announcing the formation of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (or AQIS, as it has become known in the terrorism literature), this is more than simply inside-the-jihad competition. Why should a terrorist group, which has long maintained a substantial presence in the region, feel the need to announce a formal structure dedicated to its activities there? The answer may be an alarming one. The move may be part of a broader strategy to enlist elements of India’s disenchanted Muslim underclass in the service of the group’s global agenda. 

Pakistan: From home-grown to global terrorism 

Pakistan has been described as part of the epicenter of terrorism in the world. It is where U.S. Navy Seals found and killed Osama bin Laden, and it is where al-Zawahiri is believed to be hiding. In recent years, the country has seen a significant increase in religious extremist violence from a mélange of terrorist groups. The Taliban movement it had supported in Afghanistan in the 1990s has now come home in the form of the Pakistani Taliban that is ravaging parts of the country. 

Pakistan’s New Leaf?

Brahma Chellaney

December 29, 2014

As U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton bluntly told Pakistan in 2011 that “you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.” But her warning (“eventually those snakes are going to turn on” their keeper), like those of other American officials over the years, including presidents and CIA chiefs, went unheeded.

The snake-keeper’s deepening troubles were exemplified by the recent massacre of 132 schoolchildren in Peshawar by militants no longer under the control of Pakistan’s generals. Such horror is the direct result of the systematic manner in which the Pakistani military establishment has reared jihadist militants since the 1980s as an instrument of state policy against India and Afghanistan. By continuing to nurture terrorist proxies, the Pakistani military has enabled other militants to become entrenched in the country, making the culture of jihad pervasive.

The Peshawar massacre was not the first time that the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism became a terror victim. But the attack has underscored how the contradiction between battling one set of terror groups while shielding others for cross-border undertakings has hobbled the Pakistani state.

As a result, the question many are asking is whether, in the wake of the Peshawar killings, the Pakistani military, including its rogue Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, will be willing to break its ties with militant groups and dismantle the state-run terrorist infrastructure. Unfortunately, developments in recent months, including in the aftermath of the Peshawar attack, offer little hope.

On the contrary, with the military back in de facto control, the civilian government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is in no position to shape developments. And, despite the increasing blowback from state-aided militancy, the generals remain too wedded to sponsoring terrorist groups that are under United Nations sanctions – including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and the Haqqani network – to reverse course.

Reliance on jihadist terror has become part of the generals’ DNA. Who can forget their repeated denial that they knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden before he was killed by US naval commandos in a 2011 raid on his safe house in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad? Recently, in an apparent slip, a senior civilian official – Sharif’s national security adviser, Sartaj Aziz – said that Pakistan should do nothing to stop militants who do not intend to harm Pakistan.

The nexus among military officers, jihadists, and hardline nationalists has created a nuclear-armed “Terroristan” that will most likely continue to threaten regional and global security. State-reared terror groups and their splinter cells, some now operating autonomously, have morphed into a hydra. Indeed, as the country’s civilian political institutions corrode, its nuclear arsenal, ominously, is becoming increasingly unsafe.

ISIS Recruiting Disaffected Extremists in Both Afghanistan and Pakistan

January 17, 2015

Islamic State group reaches for Afghanistan and Pakistan

CAMP SHORABAK, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan and Pakistan, home to al-Qaida and Taliban militants and the focus of the longest war in U.S. history, face a new, emerging threat from the Islamic State group, officials have told The Associated Press.

Disenchanted extremists from the Taliban and other organizations, impressed by the Islamic State group’s territorial gains and slick online propaganda, have begun raising its black flag in extremist-dominated areas of both countries.

In Pakistan, an online video purportedly shows militants beheading a man while pledging their allegiance to the IS. In Afghanistan, there have even been reports of militant rivalries, with clashes erupting between Taliban fighters and Islamic State militants.

Analysts and officials say the number of IS supporters in the Afghan-Pakistan region remains small and that the group faces resistance from militants with strong tribal links. However, the rise of even a small Islamic State affiliate could further destabilize the region and complicate U.S. and NATO efforts to end the 13-year Afghan war.

The Taliban remain the region’s pre-eminent insurgency, with nearly 20 years of experience battling Afghan warlords and international troops. But the Taliban are “not a particularly sexy ideology or military force, and the risk lies in the Taliban looking increasingly out of date,” said a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

"It could be that young Afghans look to the more extreme tactics and the great glitzy publicity of IS," the diplomat said. "They might find it attractive, or the Taliban might feel the need to compete and therefore become a bit more extreme and start carrying out horrific acts the way you see IS doing."

The Islamic State group controls a third of both Syria and Iraq, where it declared a caliphate governed by a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, and demanded the allegiance of the world’s Muslims. The Taliban, by contrast, are focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and some leaders have even responded to past peace overtures.

Smaller militant groups in Libya, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere have pledged allegiance to the IS group’s leader and self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, with some referring to themselves as “provinces.”

In Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, residents say a former Taliban commander named Mullah Abdul Rauf has begun recruiting fighters for the Islamic State group.

"People are saying that he has raised black flags and even has tried to bring down white Taliban flags in some areas," said Saifullah Sanginwal, a tribal leader in Sangin district. "There are reports that 19 or 20 people have been killed" in fighting between the Taliban and the IS, he added.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in November there was no Islamic State group presence, only militants using its name. However, a government letter written a month earlier and later obtained by the AP warns local officials that the Islamic State group has begun courting area militants and that the extremists claim the support of up to “12,000 followers” in northwest Pakistan.

Whither Pakistan?

By Samir Tata

19 December 2014

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Pakistan is a failing state on a trajectory to becoming a failed state. It is roiled by violence unleashed by armed Islamic fundamentalist and separatist groups. The country is the product of two bloody vivisections: the 1947 partition of British India[i], and the 1971 civil war that dismembered its two wings into Pakistan and Bangladesh.[ii] Except for a turbulent first decade of parliamentary democracy, Pakistan has been under military rule directly or indirectly since 1958. Pakistan’s military has developed two distinct asymmetric capabilities: armed Islamic fundamentalist auxiliary groups[iii], and a nuclear weapons arsenal.[iv] Not surprisingly, the specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue Islamic fundamentalists has put Pakistan in the crosshairs of the United States.[v] And, reflecting its myriad problems over the span of six decades, Pakistan has been unable to break the grip of economic malaise. 

A turnaround strategy for Pakistan will require a decade-long effort involving three prongs: (1) reshaping Islamabad’s relations with its neighbors and allies; (2) modernizing and rebalancing Pakistan’s military capabilities while dismantling irregular paramilitary groups; and (3) restructuring domestic political arrangements to foster devolution, democracy and economic development. 

Reshaping Islamabad’s external relations 

Islamabad and Beijing have had close relations for a half century rooted in a mutual interest in counterbalancing India. Now Pakistan has an opportunity to transform its relationship with China based on a new bargain: energy security for China and military and economic security in return. Beijing may not need Pakistan to counterbalance India, but Pakistan is indispensable for ensuring China’s energy security. 

Tackling Nuclear Terrorism In South Asia

By Feroz Hassan Khan and Emily Burke

7 January 2015

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Since India and Pakistan conducted their nuclear tests in 1998, every danger associated with nuclear weapons – proliferation, instability, and terrorism – has been linked to the region. And despite nuclear deterrence and the modernization of nuclear forces, South Asia is a far cry from achieving stability. Indeed, the security situation in South Asia has deteriorated and violent extremism has surged to unprecedentedly high levels. In the past decades, both states have operationalized their nuclear deterrent forces, increased production of fissile material and nuclear delivery means, and developed plans to field a nuclear capable triad. Concurrently, both countries are expanding civilian nuclear facilities in their quests for a cleaner source of energy to combat current and future energy shortages. As tensions and violence in the region have increased, both states blame the other’s policy choices for the scourge of terrorism that has seized the region. New leadership in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan however, creates an opening to tackle the immediate scourge of violent extremist organizations and unresolved historic conflicts. Ironically the traditional stabilizing force in the region – the United States – is drawing down in Afghanistan and shifting its focus to the Asia-Pacific region and to Russia where new tensions have erupted. Within this security context, India and Pakistan will be left on their own to devise mechanisms to mitigate and eliminate the regional risk of terrorism.

As the South Asian threat matrix becomes more complex and with concomitant progress in the nuclear field, these developments provide the basis for the spectacular terror attacks in New Delhi, Mumbai, Karachi, and Islamabad-Rawalpindi. As states possessing nuclear weapons, both India and Pakistan must find a common objective and mechanisms to deal with the metastasizing menace of terrorism. It is imperative that both states acquire the highest standard of nuclear security best practices and learn to live as peaceful nuclear neighbors. Individually, as well as collaboratively, India and Pakistan should direct their efforts to creating a cooperative relationship in the region and developing a nuclear security regime that encapsulates the nuclear security visions set by the three global nuclear security summits.[1]

Social, religious and political change in Pakistan

MATTHEW NELSON

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TYPICALLY, those with an interest in the politics of Pakistan focus on macro-level trends at the level of high politics. Occasionally, some attention is paid to regional, ethnic and sectarian politics. In what follows, I turn to grassroots trends rooted in sociological changes based on rural to urban migration. I argue that a deeper understanding of the social, religious and political trends growing out of these grassroots changes is particularly helpful for those with an interest in mapping patterns of political change, and conflict, today.

My comments focus on broad structural trends in three domains, each of which moves away from points of emphasis commonly associated with Pakistan’s political landscape during the first four decades after 1947. The first concerns rather dramatic changes in the country’s social and economic landscape; the second involves changes in the country’s religious and sectarian landscape; the third turns to changes in Pakistan’s underlying political landscape.

For several decades after 1947, Pakistan’s political landscape was characterized by pitched battles involving rival landowners focused on the preservation of traditional rural norms. In this paper, I focus on the rise of Pakistan’s ‘petty bourgeoisie’ instead. Second, Pakistan’s early landowning elites struggled to contain the influence of prominent religious leaders – for example, prominent clerics (ulema) and the leadership of Pakistan’s Jama’at-e-Islami – most of whom focused their energy on the preservation of what they considered to be traditional religious norms. I turn away from Pakistan’s most prominent religious leaders to examine the sectarian politics of Pakistan’s ‘petty mullahs’ instead. And, finally, I turn away from an account of Pakistan’s senior statesmen, who concentrated on shaping (and reshaping) the country’s laws to suit their political (and military) interests. In what follows, I examine the rise of what I call ‘petty parliamentarians’ instead. These petty parliamentarians do not focus on drafting new laws; instead they look for new ways to provide their political supporters with official access to impunity.

Across these three areas of economic activity, religious authority and political behaviour, I situate key changes within relatively slow-moving patterns of rural to urban migration and informal wage labour in Pakistan’s small towns and cities. In effect, recalling the focus of Olivier Roy’s well known book, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, I concentrate on the dislocation of the landowning malik and his jirga; the shifting orientation of local mullahs and their madrasas; and the weakness of the state, paying particular attention to the failures of its easily manipulated courts.1

The rise of sectarianism

CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT

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WHILE Sunnis have always dominated South Asian Islam, Shias too have traditionally played an important role, with the two main branches of the Muslim religion long maintaining peaceful relations.1 The first Mughal Emperor gave the following advice to his son in his will: ‘Overlook the difference between the Sunnis and the Shias, otherwise the decrepitude of Islam would inevitably follow.’2 Humayun went even further: after fleeing to Iran once defeated by the Afghan invader Sher Shah Suri, he became a Shia.3 But, ‘Mughal tolerance of the Shia became more pronounced under Emperor Jalaluddin Akbar (1542-1605)’, whose son, Jehangir married ‘Nur Jahan, an Iranian lady who actually spread the Shia custom among the masses…’4

Even under Aurangzeb – a Mughal Emperor known for his militant Sunnism – almost one third of the aristocracy and more than half of its senior-most functionaries were nevertheless Shias.5 At the societal level, popular Islam scarcely differentiated between Shiism and Sunnism. The Barelwis of Punjab and Sindh, for instance, used to take part in Moharram ceremonies (but did not practice flagellation and other extreme ritual procedures).6 One of the most prestigious Sufi orders of South Asia, the Chistis, did not at all discriminate against the Shias.

During the British Raj, the only place where relations between Shias and Sunnis were strained was in Lucknow, the capital of the former kingdom of Awadh.7 Tensions developed there in the 19th century due to competition facing the former Shia ruling dynasty and the aristocracy that remained faithful to it from a rising Sunni bourgeoisie. In 1906, the Sunnis took to criticizing Shia rituals, saying that they were heterodox innovations, and began to practice Madhe Sahaba (a procession conducted on the occasion of the Prophet’s birthday) as a show of strength.8 Rioting ensued, such that the Shias created the Shia Conference, an organization that was renamed Shia Political Conference in 1909.

The Pakistan military: searching for state and society

AYESHA SIDDIQA

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31 October 2014 was the beginning of a three-day Young Pakistanis Leadership Conference organized by the Pakistan Student Union at Oxford. This is an event hosted annually since 2011 to bring together Pakistani students from Oxford and other prominent universities in the UK to discuss and debate their country. For me, this year’s event showcased the power of the military and its ability to intervene in the process of mental development of the Pakistani youth or anyone else interested in the country. 

The Union, which is technically speaking an independent body, was ‘forced’ not to invite Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who had accused the army of organizing an attack which almost killed him. Instead, it was ‘persuaded’ to invite two journalists better known for their association with Pakistan’s military. In fact, the ticket of at least one journalist was paid by the army attache. The changes were managed through one of the many donor outfits run by Pakistani expatriates with deep links to the Pakistan High Commission in London. Furthermore, some of the sessions were chaired by the army attaché. The event ultimately served as a useful window to understand the current contours of the civil-military balance. 

In Pakistan, this is an age of military hegemony where the army is no longer just a political power but also exercises economic clout and intellectual control of the society. The story of civil-military relations, hence, extends beyond the issue of who orders the military or controls it constitutionally. The manner in which the armed forces have expanded their influence (the above incident is indicative of this power) is a truer depiction of the military’s continued power. 

To many Pakistanis and foreign observers of its politics, civil-military relations in the country in recent times seem to have taken a turn for the better. 2013 was the first time in its history that a civilian government completed its term and was voted rather then booted out. Some of the retired generals turned political commentators stress the fact that an army chief tolerated an incompetent Pakistan People’s Party government indicates that the junta is in no mood for direct intervention. This, it is naturally assumed, is in the best interest of the state. A similar argument was advanced during the recent crisis between certain segments of the military and the civilian government of the Pakistan Muslim League. According to a popular Reuters story, the new Army Chief, Raheel Sharif did not listen to the advice of some of his generals asking him to intervene and remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.1 The popular myth is that the army chief encouraged the political players to find a solution among themselves.2

Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan post-2014

TALAT MASOOD

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THE planned withdrawal of US and NATO forces and the emergence of a new leadership in Afghanistan after the 2014 elections presents a fresh opportunity for Pakistan to establish stable and enduring relations with its western neighbour. Geography, history, religion, ethnicity and culture bind these two countries in an inextricable bond.1

In its short history of 67 years, relations between the two have had their highs and lows. The high point of the relationship was experienced when Pakistan fully supported the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and was a host to millions of refugees who still continue to reside in Pakistan. Problems arose when Pakistan was perceived to be siding with the Taliban, which was spearheading an insurgency against the Afghan government. Clearly, Pakistan’s military and government support to the Taliban in the past has been a major source of friction and cause of distrust between the two countries.2Although it was not Pakistan that had assisted in the creation of Taliban, but its emergence at that time as a strong political and military force left no option than to cultivate a cooperative relationship.

Border security and troubled relations with India was also a factor. Besides, the Taliban recruited members from among the jihadi groups who were previously fighting the Soviets. Since the emergence of its own Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in December 2007, and responding to a changed regional and global scenario, Islamabad has gradually withdrawn its support to the Afghan Taliban, but nevertheless retains enough influence that could allow it to play a positive role in the reconciliation process and prevent any possible backlash. 

There exists an erroneous impression among Pakistan’s detractors that the civilian leadership wants to maintain close ties with Kabul, whereas the military pursues ‘hedging strategies’. This may well have been true in the past, as explained earlier, but Nawaz Sharif and the new military high command under General Raheel Sharif want to establish close, wide-ranging relations with Kabul because both fully comprehend that Pakistan’s own security is closely intertwined with a stable and peaceful Afghanistan. 

The future of China-Pakistan relations

JAYADEVA RANADE

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THE dropping of Pakistan from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s travel itinerary for South Asia in mid-September 2014 prompted speculation in some quarters that it was indicative of a dilution in China’s ‘all weather’ relationship with Pakistan, described by leaders of both countries as ‘higher than the highest mountain, deeper than the deepest ocean and sweeter than honey.’ While there are undoubtedly some difficulties in the Sino-Pakistan bilateral relationship, such speculation is presently unrealistic. A scenario depicting rapid deterioration in Pakistan’s political stability and security, where Islamist extremists acquire increased salience could, however, cause Beijing to pause and rethink its policy toward Pakistan and South Asia. 

Facts are that even a week before Xi Jinping’s visit (17-19 September 2014) was officially announced, the visit to Pakistan had been confirmed and was very much on the agenda. The domestic political scene in Pakistan, however, witnessed dramatic changes and heightened political uncertainty, which raised doubts about the continuance of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the possibility of violence, prompting China to reassess the feasibility of a visit by its President, Xi Jinping. Beijing is usually loathe to alter programmes once they are finalized and, particularly, to give the impression that it does not stand beside a friend going through troubled times. 

A high level delegation of China’s Ministry of State Security (MoSS) headed by its Minister, 63-year old Geng Huichang, therefore, travelled to Islamabad to assess the situation first-hand. The Pakistani authorities, and especially Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was keen on the visit and later expressed disappointment at its cancellation, also offered Lahore and Karachi as alternate venues to China’s MoSS minister, but the Chinese were not satisfied about the security situation at any of these places. The visit was consequently, and rather unusually, deferred reflecting the serious doubts that exist in Beijing about the instability in Pakistan. 

Economic Times Global Business Summit: Need to dream of an India with a $20 trillion economy, says PM Modi

By ET Bureau

17 Jan, 2015

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NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi dared India to dream big as he laid out details of his grand economic and development vision for the country for the first time. Heralding the dawn of a New Age India, he said the country was making the transition from a "winter of subdued achievement" to a "new spring".

"India is a $2-trillion economy today. Can we not dream of an India with a $20-trillion economy?" the prime minister asked at the ET Global Business Summit on Friday in an addr .

Read more at:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/45917600.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Vulnerabilities and Resistance to Islamist Radicalization in India

By Ajai Sahni

JAN 12, 2015 

India has long remained an enigma within the discourse on the Islamist extremism and terrorism that have afflicted widening areas of the world. The emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) and its appeal to significant numbers of radicalized Muslims have highlighted ambiguities surrounding the role of these ideologies in India. Fighters from at least 82 countries are said to have joined ISIS. Western countries with tiny Muslim populations and long-standing programs intended to counter the trends toward radicalization of Muslims[1] have found that scores—even hundreds—of their citizens are involved in the fighting in Iraq and Syria.[2] By comparison, India, with a Muslim population of about 176 million[3] (well over twice the total population of Europe), has seen an estimated 18 radicalized Muslims join ISIS in Iraq-Syria.[4]

At the same time, India has a long tradition of radical Islamism and is the source of some of the most influential ideologies that currently dominate both regional terrorism in South Asia and global jihad.[5] For instance, the Darul Uloom Deoband, a religious seminary located in western Uttar Pradesh in India since 1867, has been widely viewed as the ideological fountainhead of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, and Jaish-e-Muhammad―Pakistan-based terrorist formations operating against India. The ulama of the Darul Uloom Deoband have, however, explicitly repudiated all connection with these groups and their ideologies, declaring that “there is no place for terrorism in Islam” and that it is an “unpardonable sin.”[6]

Similarly, Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the most virulent terrorist groups in South Asia, proclaims adherence to the Ahl-e-Hadith, a relatively small movement that has recently benefited from Saudi support and represents one of the most radicalized elements among Sunni fundamentalist factions in the region.[7] Inspired by Sayyed Ahmed Shaheed of Rae Bareli (in the present Indian State of Uttar Pradesh), who fought the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh from 1826 to 1831 in the Peshawar region, the movement is enormously influential in Pakistan but has no more than a trace presence in India.

Perhaps the most influential Islamist revivalist ideological stream in South Asia is represented by the Jamaat-e-Islami and its founder, Abu Ala Mawdudi, who, with Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, is regarded by many as the ideological precursor of the contemporary movement of global jihad. Mawdudi articulated what Vali Reza Nasr has described as a “binary vision” that divided the world into “Islam and ‘un-Islam.’”[8]

Is China fragile?

16 January 2015

The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is a parable for unanticipated risk: the possibility of 'unknown unknown' events that no-one sees coming.

In a new essay, The Calm Before the Storm, Taleb further posits that perceptions of risk are distorted by 'fragile stability.' Some countries (eg. Saudi Arabia) are inherently more vulnerable to exploding one day in spite of – or likely because of – their continuity, concentration and monolithism. The flip-side of this concept, less intuitively, is that 'anti-fragility' can be borne out of the very experience of crisis. The likes of Italy may be resilient precisely because they continually face chaos and flux.

Taleb's idea isn't a new one – the economist Hyman Minsky noted 'the instability of stability' decades ago – but his anecdotal depth and topical understanding of current affairs makes the essay a riveting read.

Even to the formidable Taleb, though, one country is sui generis and escapes easy identification. At the very end of the essay, he acknowledges 'the China puzzle.'

Another superbrain, historian Niall Ferguson, also concedes that 'China is the country hardest to categorize' as a political-economic risk. China is difficult for Westerners to understand because its singular pursuit of economic development tempts excesses and imbalances. Yet the farther, faster and longer it gallops, when a bust would typically loom more probable, China looks ever more invincible and assured. As Ferguson admits, 'there is unlikely to be a Lehman moment.'

China may end up with something different, however: a prolonged correction.