Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
When two foreign policy crises converge: Iran and Afghanistan
Last week's suicide bombing of a mosque in Zahedan, capital of the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan, is another reminder of how far two of the United States' main foreign policy challenges - its row with Iran over its nuclear programme, and its policies towards Afghanistan and Pakistan - are intertwined.
A senior commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that the United States would face "fall out" from the bomb attack which it blamed on the Jundollah Sunni Muslim rebel group - a militant group which Iran says is backed by Washington and operates from Baluchistan province in neighbouring Pakistan. Massoud Jazayeri, deputy head of the dominant ideological wing of Iran's armed forces, did not specify what he meant by fall-out from the bombing, which killed 28 people and which the United States has condemned.
But his comments nonetheless raised tensions at a time when the United States is at loggerheads with Tehran over its nuclear programme, and when its top diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are visiting Pakistan and Afghanistan to try to press U.S. interests there.
The intertwining of these two foreign policy challenges runs far deeper than a coincidence of timing or geography.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Is Baluchistan more strategically significant than Afghanistan?
Baluchistan, Pakistan's biggest province, rarely gets much attention from the international media, and what little it does is dwarfed by that showered on Afghanistan. So it is with a certain amount of deliberate provocation that I ask the question posed in the headline: Is Baluchistan more strategically significant than Afghanistan?
Before everyone answers with a resounding "no", do pause to consider that China - renowned for its long-term planning - has invested heavily in Baluchistan, including building a deep water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea to give it access to Gulf oil supplies. The region is rich in gas and minerals; attracting strong international interest in spite of a low-level insurgency by Baluch separatists.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan, from Swat to Baluchistan via Waziristan
The Pakistan Army is engaged in what appears to be a very nasty little war in the Swat valley against heavily armed Taliban militants. With journalists having left Swat, there have been no independent reports of what is going on there, though the scale of the operation can be partly measured by the huge numbers of refugees - nearly 1.7 million - who fled to escape the military offensive.
Dawn newspaper carried an interview with a wounded soldier saying the Taliban had buried mines and planted IEDs every 50 metres. ‘They positioned snipers in holes made out of the walls of houses. They used civilians as human shields. They used to attack from houses and roofs," it quoted him as saying. ‘They are well equipped, they have mortars. They have rockets, sniper rifles and every type of sophisticated weapons."
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
How will Obama tackle militants in Pakistan?
Read President Barack Obama's speech on his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan and compare it to what he said a year ago and it's hard to see how much further forward we are in understanding exactly how he intends to uproot Islamist militants inside Pakistan.
Last year, Obama said that "If we have actionable intelligence about high-level al Qaeda targets in Pakistan's border region, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot." Last week, he said that, "Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders. And we will insist that action be taken -- one way or another -- when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets."
