The Deoband Declaration on Terrorism: Why Now?

On February 25, 2008 an “All India Terrorism Conference� was attended by over 10,000 Islamic clerics, scholars, muftis and teachers.

The Naval War College Bomb Blasts

I was about 800 meters away from the bomb blast. The force of the explosion was powerful enough to rattle the windows nearly a mile away.

Monday Morning Blast in Rawalpindi ... An eyewitness account

This morning marked the first day of classes for the current batch of officers chosen from around the country to take the Unit Command Course. Five of them never signed-in today.

Taliban, Pashtoons and Pakistan

The militants have become so bold that they have started to fight pitch battles against the Army instead of employing hit and run tactics that were the hallmark of tribal battle skills.

Child Interrupted

The boy who blew himself in Dera Ismail Khan last Muharram was hardly 17 years old. Still a child, legally speaking, dying a violent death, martyr to some, and terrorist to others.

Why the American War on Terror is Failing Miserably

USA's counter terrorism effort in the Global War against Terror is frankly creating more terrorists than it is stopping.

Pakistan at War

There is little doubt that Pakistan is under attack by the combined forces of Al Qaeda and Taliban. It is equally clear that the war is not going well.

Voice from Waziristan

Today on 28th October, 2007 I woke up to the horror stories of killing and beheading of thirteen people in Swat, Pakistan.

Of Carnage and Triumph

At least 135 innocent lives lost; hundreds of families devastated.

A Silent World

There are bodies strewn as far as the eye can see. Are they amongst these dispersed corpses? No! I quell all such thoughts. To be certain, I now start looking carefully.

Twin Blasts in Rawalpindi leaves 27 dead, 70 injured

A chilling response to Musharraf's military operation in tribal areas

Suicide attacks: Is there an end in sight?

During the first seven months of 2007, nearly 22 suicide attacks were carried out in the country.

As The Drama Unfolds

Mulana Abdul Aziz calls for Jihad one minute and runs for his life the next second.

Liberation of a Monster

The double standards employed by the US to protect its own buddy Posada have shocked the world. By its refusal to either prosecute Posada for his crimes against humanity on its own or refusing to extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela it has clearly violated

Why Have This Train At All?

The complete Samjhauta Express scenario as it operates now, with a full night for the bad guys and their cohorts to create havoc between Delhi and Attari, as well as on the way back, is all about smuggling between India and Pakistan

Terrorists Strike Samjhota Express

Both India and Pakistan have condemned this act which appeas to have been timed to disrupt a high level meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries.

India-Pakistan talks: the endless cycle

The two countries agreed to set up a six-member panel to counter terrorism; A nuclear safety agreement was signed; However, no progress took place on reducing troops in Kashmir and in Siachen.

Hang Guru, if that helps

Right from the day, the death warrants were pronounced Srinagar city is under virtual siege as it has become difficult for the government and forces and keep protesting people off streets.

9/11: DOB of Islamophobia

People all over the world are marking the fifth anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack ever. It’s time they marked five years of the onset of Islamophobia too and searched for its permanent end.

Terrorism is Nobody's Monopoly

There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. And secularists amongst these (anarchists) have been the biggest killers.

Psychology of Suicide ’Bombers’

A ’suicide bomber’ symbolizes a contradiction, vulnerable yet strong. He wants to die and yet also live forever. He is the most rational being in planning his attack and yet acts in the most irrational way by being destructive to himself and o

Let's Kill All The Moslems

The other option is to sit down like civilized people and figure out why is it that these kids like the one's in London most recently and in Canada couples of weeks ago, are trying to resort to violent means to settle the score? Is it frustration? Is it h

Trite Phrase of the 21st Century

Oxford English Dictionary gives one of the definitions of the word terrorism as “government by intimidation”. Surprisingly the meaning has been reversed by the anti-terrorist states as “intimidation of government’. Going deep into

Corporate War on Terrorism

After decades of brutal war, emergence of Islamized violent power group in Afghanistan under the name Taliban was a sign of colossal failure of the idea of society and intellectual bankruptcy.

US QDR Impacts the World Scene

US Quadrennial Defense Review Report-2006 is a document that combines in it the attributes of philosophic prose of realities and phenomenal wishes studded with Mr. Rumsfeld’s impact of steely personality.

When Locals in Locals lost their Lives - July 11, 2006

When you share a compartment in a Mumbai local train, you bond with the others in there.

Terrorism: Do you handle it as a crime or as a war or both?

I would prefer to go down the British School. The reason is that given a strong legal system, it is always better to de-legitimise the political agenda of the terrorists.

Mumbai Rocked by Seven Bomb Blasts

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put India’s major cities on high alert and called an emergency meeting. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for this dastardly act.

The Long War: Rethinking American Options in the War on Terror

As the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attack approaches, the United States political thought still has not crystallized the manner in which it hopes to confront the challenges of the Global War on Terrorism.

Blowing Up People and Property is Not Islam

The arrests, last week in Toronto, of 17 mostly Muslim youths, some barely in their teens, should be a wakeup call for the Muslims of Canada, calling this largely tolerant, and happily multicultural country their home. It’s high time for a reality c

Education isn't the Magic Bullet for Terrorists

What makes an educated person suddenly decide to break all these education and culturally provided societal constraints and go off to murder innocent people? It is just not terrorists, but we see this behaviour in normal society as well.

On death of a Terrorist

I did not know what to feel about the death of the most dreaded murderer and terrorist. I thought I should feel something.

Colours of Terrorism?

The attack on RSS headquarters allegedly by terrorists belonging to LeT preceded by large haul of arms from Aurangabad and Malegaon in Maharashtra has brought into short focus the dangers posed by Jehadi terrorism and its sprawling homegrown network.

Gods of War

With atrocity upon atrocity piling up in the US war against terror, one has to wonder if the world’s most self-righteous nation will ever have the courage to be morally righteous or not.

Images and Symbols -- Deconstructing the Iraq War

The destruction and control of Iraq was essential in shattering the Jihadi spirit and to stop the cycle of revenge. Three years later, Iraq’s destruction is almost complete. The obliteration of the US buildings in the United States has been avenged

Anatomy of a Karachi Bomb Blast

With so many issues whipping the air like a tornado on the national canvas it is impossible to assign responsibility of such terrorism to any single group unless someone claims it and provides a signed affidavit to that effect

Give Us this Day our Tandoori Chicken

Apart from the usual news, there were accounts of the latest breed of terrorists. They need no bombs, they are small and undetectable and they are constantly on the move

Here We Go Again

I have yet to see a lot of Pakistanis marching in protest against these terrible jihadi outfits, like they do, against, say, women marathon runners, or supposed Christian blasphemers?

Bomb Blasts in Delhi

A series of bomb went off in Delhi on Oct 29th, three days before the festival of Diwali.

Terrorism and the Muslim World

Certain extremist outfits in Muslim countries, and the most violent of them so to speak, were erstwhile partners of the West for their own vested interests.

20th Century Versions of Cronus

Ideologies are good and fine for a period, but after some time, all that the people want to do is to live in peace. That is where the control starts slipping and the terrorist groups start devouring themselves.

Muslims and the Road to Perdition

In today’s globalized flat world, Muslims must harmonize themselves with other communities and reap the benefits of a changed world. Like the true deputies of God on earth, let’s make it a better place.

Confronting Terror

A successful confrontation of terror will have to include addressing its deep-rooted psychological and socio-economic origins. This can only be done via a comprehensive economic and political partnership between the Muslim world and the West.

Recent Terror in Egypt

Egypt is where it all started as early as 1928. Indeed it was not as much a reaction to non-Muslims or even colonial rule as it was opposed to its own co-religionists.

London Targeted: Numbers Game

today’s mourning
in the wake of
yesterday’s jubilation
and the futility of
fragmenting one
into us and them

Ride Across the River

For one long instant, I have the feeling that I’ve been transported back to that day. That any second now, as we drive past, the bicycle will explode and send sharp bits of metal slicing into my flesh. As it once did to 38-year-old Major Abhimanyu S

Shrinking Violets in the Global Village

They come on TV shows and accuse each other of chicanery; they create issues where none exist; they worry audibly about our morals while possessing none themselves; they embezzle our money and wail about the disastrous state of our economy; they nearly di

Confessions of Jihadis

And while it is often feared that to explain terrorism is to justify it but it is only in this introspection that we can understand that the question is not what Islam has done to muslims but what the muslims are doing to Islam

The Beslan Silver Lining

If our battle against terrorism has to be more sophisticated we have to realise sooner than later that the greatest tool at our disposal is the piety, decency, and courage of the world’s vast majority of muslims.

The Dragon’s Teeth

There are many more like the man with the briefcase who walked into the Sialkot Imambargah. They did not develop their warped mindsets overnight -- nor will they be wiped out overnight by military means.

The Unbeatable Weapon

Washington doesn’t realise it faces a weapon capable of defeating superpowers.

Use of the Internet by Terrorists

Even shutting down the sites can’t stop them from spreading their agenda ... by the time the website is forced to shut down, the material has already been replicated all over the web.

Muslims Meet the FBI

A mutual outreach effort is underway across this country as American Muslim leaders and officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have been getting together to address not only the concerns of one party but also the expectations of the other

The War on Terrorism Stalled?

This was the first, albeit the most important, of many legal fights to come.

An Alternative Blow to Terrorism

Some experts claim Al Qaeda is now stronger than ever - others say it has been weakened by the Afghanistan and Iraq campaign.

Some Mother’s Son

There is strength and inspiration to be drawn from those who use their pain, not to cause further destruction, but to heal and move ahead. One such woman is Visaka Dharmadasa, whose young son Achinte went missing in September, 1998 when the LTTE attacked

September 12

you toss my brothers in the water– sink or float? now tell me– what separates the sheep from the goats?

False Alarm

This true story is about how terrorism, coupled with an odd coincidence has affected my life.

Iraqi Resistance Warns Turks to Keep Off Iraq

Many Turkish experts suspect the bombings were a warning to Turkey, one of few Muslim countries to have ties with Israel.

Outsourcing Torture

I too was born in a Muslim country. Should I carefully try to recall who I came in contact with during my 35-year stay in Canada and be careful not to transit through an American airport?

Who is Afraid of Al Qaeda?

As another tape from Osama surfaces on October 18, 2003 ...

A Tale of Two Fugitives

While one is known to inhabit jungles somewhere in the Western Ghats at the tri-junction of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, in southern India, the other has his last living address somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan

Just Another BLOW-UP?

The moment I saw that shiny steel box, I knew it spelled trouble. I had no idea of what it contained, but my gut feeling was that it would not be a fair report.

Suicide Bombers

If you don’t allow people to live honourably, you cannot deny them the luxury to at least die defiantly

A Strange Tango

It’s easy for Pakistanis to blame everything on the United States (the west in general). The truth is that’s why they do it. Surely our economic and social woes have more to do with our own inability to right our ship, no matter how evil the A

History Rehearsing: Dark Ages of Islam

poor masses hopelessly in search of a savior

When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States

They Shoot Kashmiri Pandits, Dont They?

They say they will act as a “buffer against the export of jehad into India”. They who ran away?

War and Terror

Is use of precise weapons of mass destruction justified to destroy imprecise ones?

February 14th with the INS

I was petrified and insisted on accompanying him to the INS office.

The Urdu Press in New York

We never thought we would flee America

The March of Folly

Is It A War On Islam?

What, then, should be the strategy for all those who believe in a just world and are appalled by America's war on the weak?

USA and Muslims

Muslim extremists generally dislike non-Muslims and they hate various people at local level

The Unmaking Of Gujrat

The key players in these elections and therefore Indian polity seem like characters in a drama of the absurd.

Husain Haqqani at UC Berkeley

Pakistan has to revisit its relationship with India

Hypocrisy Big

Is America an Empire? Is the Pope Catholic?

Jihad – The Misperceptions

It would be unfair to mistrust the dedication and valour of the jihadis

Myopic, Malevolent, Megalomaniac

Musharraf knows that PPP (P) and PML (N) would not like to join hands with MMA because it displeases USA

Unraveling Pakistan: Taming The Shrew-Mare

Pakistan’s Army has become a wild mare. It has to be broken into. It has to be re-taught to walk, run, trot

Road Blocks in Normalising Relations

If cross border terrorism ceases, facilitating a dialogue between India and Pakistan, will a dividend of long term peace follow?

India’s Potential Lose-Lose-Lose Scenario

India may actually be helping Pakistan in the long run, not harming it, with its current war hysteria

The Hindu Right

Advani’s yathra in an air-conditioned Toyota left a trail of blood in its wake

The Quarterbreds of Californet

What choice is left in the face of such enmity?

The Last Crusade

Sharon’s visit finally removed the façade from the Israeli diplomacy

The Pattern of Violence

if the man at the helm sees the larger picture

Deja Vu

General Musharraf should be open and honest

The Panel of Vendettas at UC Berkley

A true hero would make a radical notion and never back track

The Place of Debate

He said there was also a need for debating on the concept of secularism, whether it is contrary to Islamic teachings and concept?

Empty Vessels And All That Jazz

do you think he is up to task to rid us of feudals next?

Indian Diplomacy : Time To Recheck

The year saw a marked upswing in new Delhi’s relations with the US, Russia, Japan, Germany and France

Borders are Made of These

if I join this ideological war, the blood will only congeal in my heart

India, Pakistan and America’s Mixed Signals

War is the last thing that we need there

Is Jehad Passe’?

it is too early to say that the military has changed its spots

Muslims and The West After 11th September

America has exacted blood revenge for the Twin Towers

Here Are the Muslim Feminist Voices, Mr. Rushdie!

Muslim women HAVE been speaking out against the obscurantist Islam he decries

A Decision to Regret

the Afghans have always resisted a government imposed from abroad

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments

There will always be a lunatic fringe in the Muslim society

Explaining it to an American Friend

godspeed and prudence in this time of grieving

Bahr-e-Zulmaat

a mother who wears the hijab suggested to her 28-year-old daughter she take it off

Implications for India

India needs to show maturity

Caught In Between

Pakistan is on the defensive almost constantly

Random Thoughts From a Far Away Land

On the Eve of Pakistan’s Independence day ... these thoughts occupy a migrants mind

Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry, SJ

An interview with a war hero ...

The Quest for Power

It took General Zia 14 months after the July 1977 coup to assume the Presidency, while General Musharraf waited 20 months to do the same

The Winds of Change

When the world’s only superpower changes direction, smaller states, especially those located on the periphery of potential conflict, have to be nimble in adjusting their policies.

A World Upside Down

can the United States honestly determine the reasons behind the tragedies in Washington

Bigotry, Racism and American Media

all of us have vividly seen that Israeli security forces consistently breached all international human rights standards

A Different Story

The winds of change are slowly whispering their way across the South Asian sub-continent

Negotiating Human Rights

arrested in Pakistan for saving the life of a battered woman

Khuda Hafiz, Kashmir?

I am a militant. According to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member ...

Twosome Troubles of Troublesome Two

The adolescent behavior of both the Indian and Pakistani elites and their awry management of bilateral relations has become a matter of international notoriety

The Millenium Manifesto or ’Ikeesween Sadi Dastoor’

Kashmir does not belong to Pakistan regardless of historical events during partition...

Falsehoods Galore

Pakistan has thus turned into an oligarchy well versed in the art of making things disappear

Karachi, a City Born of Dreams, Bred with Love and Left to Rot

Only Karachi can define Karachi the way it is

A Visit to Pakistan

Could it be that there is a feeling that India does not accept the existence of Pakistan?

Evolution of South Asia

Information revolution and the future of the sub-continent

Muslims should take control of their own image

Whining about caricatures only shows an unwillingness to face reality.

Monks on a Pilgrimage

a peace march to Pakistan across the India-Pakistan border

Wag the Dog

A war between the lackeys of capitalism claiming to represent the free world, and violent, fascist mercenaries

ATA: A Terrifying Act

There are numerous silly, but harmless laws, as well as a few really dangerous ones. One such well-intentioned but seriously flawed law, is the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The Pakistani Connection: An Opinion

Pakistani media watchers have to be concerned today because people and the newspapers in this country have recently started mentioning Iraq and Pakistan in the same breath.