Islamist Stronghold in Pakistan Linked to Mumbai | Newsweek International

Drone On
Anita Kirpalani 7/8/2009 12:00:00 AM
The Obama administration's much-heralded new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak, as the portfolio has been called) is to pour in piles of cash to develop the countries being rent by militias like the Taliban. But the plan is much more equivocal about the tactics for combating those groups. Under Gen. David McKiernan, the previous U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Predator drones were a primary tool for engagment, but since the man who replaced him, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has announced a mandate to limit civilian deaths, experts thought drone attacks would abate. Not so far, according to this week's news.
INTERVIEW
Worst Job in the World
Lally Weymouth 2/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
Pakistan's Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, leads a fractious Parliament that is facing at once a major economic crisis, a spreading border insurgency and still-tense relations with his country's powerful military. He spoke to NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Excerpts:
INTERNATIONAL
A Turnaround Strategy
Fareed Zakaria 1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM
In May 2006 a unit of American soldiers in Afghanistan's Uruzgan valley were engulfed in a ferocious fire fight with the Taliban. Only after six hours, and supporting airstrikes, could they extricate themselves from the valley. But what was most revealing about the battle was the fact that many local farmers spontaneously joined in, rushing home to get their weapons. Asked later why they'd done so, the villagers claimed they didn't support the Taliban's ideological agenda, nor were they particularly hostile toward the Americans. But this battle was the most momentous thing that had happened in their valley for years. If as virile young men they had stood by and just watched, they would have been dishonored in their communities. And, of course, if they were going to fight, they could not fight alongside the foreigners.
ASIA
The Revenge Of The Near
Sunil Khilnani 1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM
Urban Indians love the idea of a global, borderless world, where flows of trade and services trace virtual geographies. Who can blame them? Colonial mapmaking left India broken and flanked by two unviable, antagonistic states: Pakistan and Bangladesh. Also in the neighborhood are despotic Burma, precarious Afghanistan and war-torn Sri Lanka. It's enough to make anyone search for an escape.
WORLD XTRA
India’s Deft Diplomacy
Sumit Ganguly 1/16/2009 12:00:00 AM
On Dec. 13, 2001, a group of terrorists later found to be members of the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, both Pakistan terrorist organizations, attacked the Indian parliament. In the ensuing battle all of them were killed along with a small handful of security personnel. In the aftermath of this attack, the right–of-center Bharatiya Janata Party-led government embarked upon a massive military mobilization along the Indo-Pakistani border designed to coerce Pakistan to comply to a set of Indian demands including the handover of at least 20 people accused of carrying out acts of terror on Indian soil. This military mobilization lasted several months and mostly yielded pious promises of compliance from Pakistan. Not a single person was handed over to the Indian authorities and the relevant terrorist groups were allowed to flourish within Pakistan with impunity, albeit under new names. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, for instance, became the Jammat-ud-Dawa.
INTERVIEW
Zardari: 'I Am a Victim Here'
Lally Weymouth 12/13/2008 12:00:00 AM
President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan is in the hot seat. Under pressure from the international community, he ordered police last week to crack down on Jamaat-ul-Dawa, a charity thought to be the public front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani terrorist group that India blames for the Thanksgiving attacks in Mumbai. President Zardari spoke with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth just before the Jamaat arrests. Excerpts: