Economically dependent on the foreign presence, Afghanistan will need to work hard to succeed on its own. NATO forces led by the U.S. completed their combat mission in Afghanistan on December 31, 2014 as planned. The new role for the U.S. will involve support and training within the framework of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Realizing the significance of BSA for his government, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was quick to ink the BSA and SOFA, doing so on his second day in office. Last year was both a difficult and eventful one for Afghanistan. Successful security and political transitions were the major developments. The country had started receiving economic shocks well before 2014, partly because of the uncertainty surrounding the political dynamics and partly due to the very real impacts of the dwindling financial resources resulting from the drawdown of international forces. According to the World Bank annual GDP growth dropped from around 12 percent in 2012 to around 3 percent in 2013, remaining at about that level in 2014. With a new government in place, and a recently announced cabinet set to be endorsed by the Parliament, there is a growing sense of optimism that the economy will gradually improve. Unemployment across the country has been held down by the large number of Afghans engaged in international aid operations. With foreign troops and aid workers leaving the country, an economic impact in inevitable. Yet the repercussions of the NATO pull-out are not all negative. It also means Afghan ownership of the development process and a first step towards efforts for self-reliance, provided that the new National Unity Government is able to fulfill expectations. For the past 12 years, Afghan economy has been virtually dependent on foreign aid. According to the Ministry of Finance, almost 100 percent of its development budget and 45 percent of its operating budget is externally financed, with the U.S. being...

ISLAMABAD: Civilian forces and intelligence agencies engaged in enrolling over 6,550 unregistered madrassas in Punjab are facing stiff resistance from hundreds of clerics who have refused to reveal their sources of funding. A senior officer, who is also a member of the committee overseeing the implementation of National Action Plan against terrorism in Punjab, says that the actual resistance is from politicians who don’t want to lose their vote bank by exposing the clerics receiving funds from abroad. “Unregistered Islamic seminaries are unwilling to register under the new form issued by the interior ministry, as they are bound to reveal their source of funding,” the official told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity. These madrassas are located in Jhang, Chiniot, Attock, Gujranwala, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan, Khushab, Rajanpur, Layyah, Dera Ghazi Khan and other districts of the province, he added. “Our initial surveillance suggested that in Punjab, more than 170 madrassas are directly funded by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.” Home Minister Punjab Col (retd) Shuja Khanzada admitted that madrassas were receiving funds from abroad. “Yes, there are some seminaries in Punjab are funded by brotherly Muslim countries. Identifying all such madrassa looks like a test case for us,” he told The Express Tribune. Khanzada’s confirmation came a week after the Punjab police informed the Senate that no madrassa in the province was receiving funds from abroad. The provincial government does not want any confrontation with representatives of around 14,768 registered madrasas, said the home minister, adding that the process of registering 6,550 unregistered seminaries would go ahead without any hurdle. “We have also arrested over 350 foreigners, including Afghans, mostly studying in madrasas,” he said. During surveillance over 10,000 illegal weapons were recovered from over 9,000 suspected militants, who were also booked by the law-enforcement agencies...

The entire colony is infested with trash. A dirty pool from water-logging has expanded all along the street, up to the open space. There are ‘thappiyas’ (cow dung cakes) on the walls, pasted firmly, with the fingerprints clearly visible, indicating a job done by bare hands, an old practice noticeable across all of Punjab. Upon reaching the location of the incident, at Dargahi Christian colony, Rana Town, Sheikhupura, I am unable to find the family. I am informed by some neighbors that Alishba and her family have relocated to Lahore, fearing for their safety, in the wake of threats and pressures to drop charges against those who attacked her. There are about 35 Christian and 10 Muslims homes in the locality of Rana Town, Dargahi. Alishba is not the only Pakistani Christian who happens to have been accused of committing blasphemy, and as such facing a sword dangling above her head in the form of the Blasphemy law that has come to characterize the woes and grief of virtually all minorities in Pakistan. According to the annual ranking of Peoples under Threat produced by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), Pakistan has consistently been one of the top 10 countries where ‘large-scale violence’ is the greatest. "She is sitting with her four children on a charpoy, weeping, deeply shaken and fearing for her and her family’s safety" When I finally manage to locate her she is found sitting with her four children on a charpoy, weeping, deeply shaken and fearing for her and her family’s safety, as she narrates the details of the incident to me. The experience has left Alishba profoundly traumatized and there is very little that she can do about it. Her haplessness is disturbing. “I lived in the Dargahi Christian Colony and worked as a domestic help in several houses, also doing beautician work on a regular basis. Like any other day, on the afternoon of 19th November 2014, I was on my way home after picking up my children from school when I heard Mahjabeen and Rani Begum...

ISLAMABAD: Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), led by commander Asim Umar, has launched the women’s wing of the international terrorist outfit led by Afinda Binte Ayesha who will seek guidance from Umaima Hassan Ahmed Muhammad Hassan, one of the wives of al-Qaeda chief, Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri. Named as the “Al-Qaeda Shaheen Force”, the women’s wing of the terror outfit would operate from the Pak-Afghan tribal belt and organise a squad of female suicide bombers on the pattern of Nigerian militant group, Boko Haram, which has created havoc in the country by using female suicide bombers to target military installations and security forces. The women wing of the AQIS plans to carry out terrorist activities in Pakistan by using its veiled female suicide bombers who [by taking advantage of their gender] may try to target some sensitive installations, including airports. The Pakistani Taliban had also used female suicide bombers several times in the past to eliminate their targets, including the late Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmed. He had a narrow escape on November 19, 2012 when a female bomber exploded herself as his convoy passed through the Haleemzai Tehsil in Mohmand Agency in a failed bid to kill the Jamaat Ameer who had invited the wrath of the Taliban because of his April 2012 interview wherein he described the Afghan Taliban’s resistance against the Allied Forces in Afghanistan as “true Jihad” and that of the Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan as “un-Islamic” because they were killing innocent civilians. The female suicide bomber was identified as Umme Usman, an Uzbek national belonging to the TTP and al-Qaeda linked terrorist group — the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) — which used to operate from North Waziristan. Lal Masjid prayer leader Maulana Abdul Aziz had also warned on February 10, 2014 that Pakistani Taliban had 500 female suicide bombers in Waziristan and other tribal areas who were ready to act. As things stand, hardly a week has...

A Case Study for Understanding the Structure, Tactics and Modus Operandi of Urban-Based Al-Qaeda Cells Abstract The article provides a case study of an urban terrorist cell in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad that successfully carried out a wave of assassination and bombings of “high-value” targets and individuals from 2007 to 2013. This cell effectively formed a means for Core al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to pressure the Pakistani government from their headquarters in the tribal territories of northwest Pakistan.  The “success” of the cell relied on a number of factors and practices, including the careful selection of members based on the usefulness of their family connections, the middle-class background of its operatives, intimate knowledge of its urban surroundings and its reliance on specially trained suicide bombers brought in from the tribal regions rather than local individuals. Of particular interest is the role of family members (including those in senior roles in the security services) in aiding and abetting “second-generation” jihadists. Introduction Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad endured a six-year wave of terrorist activity between 2007 and 2013 whose momentum was only recently reversed by the apprehension of members of the al-Qaeda/Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Islamabad cell by local law enforcement agencies. A post-mortem review of the Islamabad cell’s structure, activities, tactics, ideology, objectives and membership criteria will allow researchers to examine this particular case study to gain greater understanding of urban area terrorist cells, their recruitment patterns, the role of family members in aiding and abetting terrorist activity and the operational modi operandi of such cells. The Islamabad cell case study provides law enforcement officers, academics, terrorism analysts and policy makers an opportunity to analyze and elucidate the group dynamics of such cells. Origins On July 18, 2014, the Islamabad...

India sent Vice President Hamid Ansari to Riyadh to pay respects. In addition, the government announced a day of mourning on January 24 for the “close ally and friend” of the country. Saudi Arabia’s sixth king, Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, passed away late last week after a short illness. He was 90. The monarch’s death prompted a wave of condolences from leaders around the world. US President Barack Obama is cutting short his India trip to go to Riyadh, the British flag flew at half-mast at Westminster, and the International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde stunning called him a “strong advocate for women”. For its part, India sent Vice President Hamid Ansari to Riyadh to pay respects. In addition, the government announced a day of mourning on January 24 for the “close ally and friend” of the country. To many in India, the announcement was a rude surprise. On social media, many people labelled the Saudi state as regressive and archaic, while underlining its human rights violations and its alleged role in fomenting extremism. The question they collectively appeared to ask was: why should the Indian government give this much importance to a country that has such a poor human rights record, a country that allows public beheadings, forbids dissent, and disallows women from driving? Energising economy The answers to those questions lie in mainly four places: the politics of oil, the 2.5 million-strong Indian community in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh’s influence on Sunni Muslims (who make up the majority of India’s Muslim population), and it being the home of Mecca and Medina. Largely, however, Indo-Saudi relations and goodwill rest on New Delhi’s need to buy great quantities of oil and Riyadh’s concurrent need to sell great quantities of oil. In 2006, when King Abdullah visited India as the chief guest at the Republic Day parade, the trip was hailed as a milestone. The first visit by a Saudi king to India in 51 years, it saw the signing of the “Delhi Declaration” forging a...