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India and the US wanted Jaish-e-Mohammed deputy chief Abdul Rauf Azhar to be designated as a ‘global terrorist’ A month after Beijing shielded Pakistan-based deputy leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Abdul Rehman Makki, an international terrorist, it has done an encore. It has vetoed a similar joint proposal at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), again by India and the US, to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) deputy chief Abdul Rauf Azhar as a “global terrorist.” He is the younger brother of JeM founder Maulana Masood Azhar, another murderous jihadist. India was understandably incensed at China, castigating it for its “double speak” and...

KABUL. July 27 (Interfax) - United States officials met with a delegation of the Taliban at an international conference on Afghanistan in Tashkent, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Thomas West said on social media. "Today, Rina Amiri (U.S. Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls & Human Rights) and I joined a range of Afghanistan envoys for a conference in Tashkent to discuss the way ahead at a difficult moment for millions of Afghans," West said. A senior U.S. inter-agency team will continue "pragmatic engagement" with the Taliban on Wednesday, he said. The U.S. Department of State said earlier that...

When Maqbool Fida Husain was busy making nude paintings of Hindu goddesses in the 1990s, he got unprecedented liberal support within and outside the country. He became an icon for everything progressive and modern, battling obscurantist, reactionary and medievalistic forces. The liberal grandstanding, however, was hollow, for they were the ones who competed with each other to get Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses banned, ironically even before the theocratic Iran and Islamist Pakistan could do so. Rushdie’s fate was sealed in India much before people here could get hold of the book. Hearsay was enough to get him ostracised! History...

In his recent visit to the Ladakh sector, Army chief Gen Manoj Pande reviewed the security situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in view of the Chinese threat for which the Indian Army has shifted six Divisions which were earlier deployed in counter-terrorism roles and after taking care of Pakistan front. The military standoff with China has been going on for over two years now when the Chinese side attempted to change the status quo unilaterally by moving troops in large numbers against Indian positions. The Indian Army has been doing rebalancing and realignment of its forces which...

Afghanistan’s National Resistance Front, an opposition group, is claiming this evening to be on the verge of victories over the Taliban in several districts in the country’s Northeastern provinces. The NRF, which describes itself as “the last force fighting for the restoration of democracy in Afghanistan,” expressed hopes that these victories were the first steps in an effort to liberate the country from Taliban rule. It noted, though, that it was working without foreign aid that could bolster its efforts. Security analysts, meanwhile, expressed skepticism over whether the NRF could topple the new regime in Kabul, though noting the Taliban...

At least 50 killed after suicide bomber targets last Friday prayers of the month Eyewitnesses describe 'dead bodies everywhere' after 'deafening blast' in Kabul Hundreds were inside the mosque at the time of the attack, survivors claim Today's Zikr remembrance prayers seen as heretical by hardliner Sunni Muslims Whitehall adviser says death toll could be 200 as Taliban insist only ten dead A suicide bomb blast killed at least 50 worshippers during Friday prayers at a mosque in Afghanistan today. Hundreds were gathered inside the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in western Kabul when the huge explosion took place. It's thought hundreds...

India’s Ministry of External Affairs blasted far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar’s visit to Pakistan this week, calling her trip to the disputed region of Kashmir “condemnable.” “We have noted that she has visited a part of Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir that is currently illegally occupied by Pakistan,” ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said of the Minnesota Democrat during a Wednesday press conference. “Let me just say that if such a politician wishes to practice her narrow-minded politics at home … that may be her business.” “But violating our territorial integrity and sovereignty in its pursuit makes it ours,” he...

A monk known for his incendiary anti-Muslim rhetoric leads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party into elections in India's most populous state Thursday, where a strong win could put him in pole position to succeed Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Yogi Adityanath, 49, has stirred controversy since his surprise appointment in 2017 as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India home to over 200 million people -- more than the entire population of Brazil. Office has done nothing to temper his views, and as he seeks a second term he is exhorting Hindu voters to back the BJP...

Gere's What You Need to Remember: Ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things India won’t buy from the United States or Europe, leaving Russia as their sole source of weapons. Like a lot of countries, India wants the best weapons it can afford. But ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things it won’t buy from the United States or Europe. That pretty much leaves, well, Russia. India has been a big buyer of Russian weapons for 50 years. Those haven’t been easy years for New Delhi. India’s defense contracts with Russia have...

Discourteous remarks about Afghanistan made by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan at the recent Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting were an insult to the Afghan nation reeling from the Taliban takeover. In his remarks, Khan described the non-monolithic Taliban group as a predominately ethnic Pashtun movement, implicitly casting millions of Pashtuns as the Taliban’s adherents.... But perceptions matter.... ...To be sure, it is difficult to determine whether the Taliban will ever be able to run a non-ideological Afghan state. But by casting it as a Pashtun movement, Pakistan risks sparking Pashtun nationalism in more than 40 million Pashtuns who...

Beijing [China], December 17 (ANI): The US administration is concerned over China's increasing military capability near its border with India as it tries to expand its strategic alliance in the region, according to a report. The US Defense Department is newly concerned about China's further military build-up near the demarcation line across its Himalayan border with India after Beijing deployed long-range strategic bombers to the area last month in another apparent warning to New Delhi, according to Foreign Policy magazine. Further, the build-up along the Indian border fits the pattern of Chinese regional aggression witnessed in other parts of the...

PESHAWAR – Pakistan gave the US-sponsored virtual “Summit for Democracy” a miss after remaining ambivalent for days about joining the event in official fear of annoying its all-weather strategic ally China and thereby potentially jeopardizing over US$60 billion worth of Chinese investment in the country. Pakistan’s foreign office did not explicitly announce that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s elected government turned down the US invitation but media reports indicate that’s what happened, likely under Beijing’s pressure. China reportedly contacted Pakistani authorities in the two weeks before the summit to lobby them against participating. Days after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi...

Chinese state-run media says 'PLA will heavily attack US troops who come to Taiwan's rescue' China's state-run media on Thursday (Dec. 9) warned that Chinese forces would attack U.S. troops if they attempted to come to Taiwan's aid when the "reunification force" invades. On Tuesday (Dec. 7), U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that his country would "take every action" to ensure that a scenario in which Russia and China simultaneously invade Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, "never happens." In an editorial posted on Thursday, China's state-owned Global Times attempted to cast doubt about America's willingness to defend Taiwan in...

Sources told @aamajnews24 that the Iranian side is using heavy weapons (as you can see towards the end of the clip), and the Taliban have deployed the American Humvees in the fight against the Iranians. There are no details yet on why these clashes have broken out.

Iran is hosting a meeting of... the foreign ministers of Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Russia holding talks in the Iranian capital Tehran on Afghanistan's political future and the formation of a new government...Iran's population is majority Shiite but Sunni minorities live predominantly in the areas near the border with Afghanistan. The Sunnis have long complained about discrimination by Iranian authorities.Due to dilapidated infrastructure and a lack of health and educational facilities, the areas near the Afghan border are the poorest and least developed in Iran...But Fatemeh Aman, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute (MEI),...

ISLAMABAD (CNN) -- A tribal leader accused of harboring Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan's western border region was killed Thursday night in a targeted missile strike, according to Pakistan intelligence sources. The Associated Press quoted an army spokesman Friday as identifying the tribal leader as Nek Mohammed, a former Taliban fighter. He was killed late Thursday at the home of another tribal chief, the spokesman said. "We were tracking him down and he was killed last night by our hand," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press.

India's leaders are anxiously watching the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, fearing that it will benefit their bitter rival Pakistan and feed a long-simmering insurgency in the disputed region of Kashmir, where militants already have a foothold. Lt. Gen. Deependra Singh Hooda, former military commander for northern India between 2014-2016, said militant groups based across the border in Pakistan would "certainly try and push men" into Kashmir, following the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Hooda added it was too early to predict if any influx of fighters into Kashmir would be "in numbers that destabilize the security situation" and push the region...

The world will witness a Chinese-anointed Afghan Government led by the 'New Taliban' -- a manufactured and packaged product of China Kabul has fallen to Taliban all over again. The 20 years of effort in importing democracy from the United States of America has failed, as expected. None can be blamed for Afghanistan to be in this situation today, except its own incumbent government, political leaders and trained armed forces, who were not sincere in delivering their assigned roles for the nation. The Afghan military and political leadership have given up without a fight. It highlights the nature of the...

J&K former DGP, SP Vaidya, said it is the failure of America's policies and the policies of NATO countries that the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan. As the Taliban nearly took over entire Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troops, J&K former DGP SP Vaidya spoke to Republic TV on the failure of US policy and the impact of the Taliban on South Asian countries. On Monday, August 16, a State Department official announced that the American flag was no longer flying at the US Embassy in Kabul amid evacuations from Afghanistan's capital. SP Vaidya said, "It is a seizer...

Top Biden Economic Policy Adviser Linked to Kashmiri Extremists By J. M. Phelps Islamist Watch meforum.org and American Spectator https://spectator.org/sameera-fazili-biden-adviser-kashmir-extremists/ March 5, 2021 [Caption] On February 24, Sameera Fazili, deputy director of the National Economic Council, became the first Muslim American woman to hold a White House press briefing. Promising to put together one of the most diverse cabinets in American history, President Joe Biden has appointed at least 20 Indian-Americans to various positions within his administration, including the first two women of Kashmiri descent. Alarmingly, one of his latest picks to the National Economic Council (NEC) has a history...