Word: islamists
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...crosshairs of the U.S.-led war on terror. The meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Zardari, took place in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan. Reportedly on the table were plans to beef up trade ties as well as improve cooperation in the fight against Islamist extremism - clear signs, experts say, that Moscow is bolstering its role in the "Af-Pak" theater, a region Russia had largely retreated from after the scarring decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s...
...Some analysts suggest social unrest may mix with the turmoil of Taliban insurgencies further south. In Tajikistan, the fragile status quo that has existed since a civil war between Russian-backed forces and an Islamist opposition ended in 1997 looks to be unraveling. Observers point to a possible influx in recent months of Tajik and Uzbek militants, returning to their homeland after fighting alongside Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. Since May, the Tajik government has locked down the country's Rasht Valley, ostensibly as part of an anti-drugs operation, but also, say experts, in a bid to crack down...
...immediate crisis may be over in Nigeria, but the threat of violence remains. Government security forces today attacked a mosque filled with Islamist militants, killing scores of fighters and forcing more to flee. The militants, blamed for days of violence across the country's north, belong to a group known as Boko Haram, which aims to overthrow the federal government in Abuja and impose a strict version of Islamic law. The sect's leader Mohammed Yusuf escaped the raid along with some 300 of his men, but was later arrested and then died in custody according to police. Four days...
...Islamist group is not the only threat facing Nigeria. The country is one of Africa's biggest oil exporters, and yet some 70% of its people live in abject poverty. A string of devastating attacks by militants demanding a greater share of the oil wealth in the Niger Delta, in the south, has reduced oil output by a third, hitting government revenues. This week's fighting will add to the sense that the government is losing control. "The government is no longer in control of the security situation outside the main cities," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Abuja...
...already said that it's a pending matter. It's very significant. If he's going to take it up, it is naturally going to ruffle feathers, to put it lightly." Zardari is already burdened by unpopularity, public anger at power cuts and prices, and the challenges of taming Islamist militancy. If the Supreme Court continues to flex its muscles and revisits the president's old corruption cases, he could find himself in even more trouble than Musharraf seems...