Opinion: Iran-backed Lebanese terror group might justify a military conflict with Israel – all in the name of serving Iranian interests – by claiming large gas reserves worth billions of dollars are being exploited by Israelis in Lebanese waters.
ISIS claimed deadly gun attacks in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, on May 12 and 14
The Taliban captured a district center Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 13 government soldiers. The fighting comes as Russia asserted the Taliban is getting stronger and called for increased efforts to reach a negotiated settlement to the 17-year-old war.
Bottom Line Up Front:
-China has created a highly controlled environment in Xinjiang where it monitors ethnic Uighurs, relying on emerging technologies to track and surveil its citizens.
-The Chinese Communist Party cites widespread religious extremism as the reason behind its draconian counterterrorism strategy.
-There is a palpable fear in the West that China could seek to export to other authoritarian regimes its counterterrorism model, utilizing technology to harass and control minority populations.
-China could seek to extend its influence through highly invasive technology incorporated into its BRI initiative, collecting and analyzing data of friends and foes alike.
The question is: who will take the reins in Iran and make sure that the vast country does not morph into yet another "ungoverned territory" in the heart of the Middle East?
I think the question is designed to dodge the issue of confronting a rogue regime that has provoked the current crisis. Iran has an old and well-established bureaucracy, dating back to the 16th century, and capable of operating within a strong culture of governance. Despite the serious damage done to state structures by the mullahs and their acolytes, the reservoir of experience and talent available is vast enough to ensure governance even on autopilot.
The mullahs are playing with fire and, "He who plays with fire risks being burned!"Targeting terrorists and their networks brings only temporary success—but the long-term strategy needs to focus on discrediting the ideologies that attract attackers.
It was a chilly January evening, and Khadija Abd and her family had just finished supper at their farm when the two men with guns burst into the room.
In response to Iran’s increasingly bellicose foreign policy, which extends from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to civil war in Yemen, terrorist attacks on regional American allies to supporting Hamas in dropping 600 rockets on Israel this week, the Trump administration has squeezed the Iranian economy.
On Sunday, May 5, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force had begun to make their way from the Mediterranean Sea toward the coastline of Iran. Iran, Bolton said, had made “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.” He was, characteristically, not specific. It was enough that Bolton—who has a history of making hazardous statements—had made these comments from the perch of the White House in Washington, D.C. “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime,” he said rather incredulously. After all, what is the arrival of a massive war fleet on the coastline of a country but a declaration of war?
More than 250 people were killed in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in churches and hotels in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 20 April during Easter Sunday. Local Islamic orgasnisations NJT and JMI are held responsible for the attack. Islamic State has also claimed responsibility. Sri Lanka has had a long history of majoritarian Buddhist and state violence against religious and ethnic minorities. During the civil war, the Tamil group LTTE too had attacked Muslims in its Eastern province. However, there have been no cases of inter-ethnic clashes between Muslims and Christians in the island nation. Motivation for these attacks apparently came from what is seen as persecution of Muslims in other countries.Multi religious and multi-ethnic countries of South Asia are especially in danger of being sucked into global terror spawned by imitations of the Islamic State and its virulent ideology. Before Colombo, there was the Dhaka attack on a café in which 29 people were killed. Signs from Pakistan and Afghanistan are not propitious where IS inspired terror groups have deeper base. Like Sri Lanka, India toois not immune from this kind of terror.