Word: talibanism
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...long process of positioning themselves for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Central Asian country and want to preserve their influence there. Pakistan fears that Kabul will end up with close links to New Delhi, allowing India to essentially "surround" Pakistan; India worries that if the Taliban return to power, India will face more terrorist attacks at home. Influential Indian foreign policy analyst C. Raja Mohan has even suggested, in a recent editorial in the Indian Express, that New Delhi should push for a trilateral summit among India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to secure a lasting peace...
...which means "Soldiers of God" in Arabic, has operated since 2002 in the borderlands between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tehran has long suspected that the group receives tactical support from forces within Pakistan, including the same elements in the country's notorious military intelligence that helped form the Afghan Taliban. If Islamabad was involved in Rigi's capture, the move, combined with recent arrests of senior Taliban leaders living on Pakistani soil, could be a sign of the country's new seriousness at getting to grips with terror groups in its midst. "[It] may mark a dramatically different, and welcome...
Tehran and Islamabad had largely cordial ties until Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. By the 1990s, they found themselves facing each other across a post-Cold War battle line as Pakistan built up the Afghan Taliban, whose Sunni puritanism grated against Iran's state Shi'ism. Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Islamabad allowed the U.S. the use of two military bases in Pakistani Baluchistan for counterterror operations. This predictably drew Iran's ire and deepened its fears of external forces conspiring to undermine its interests both at home and in Afghanistan...
Experts say Jundallah may have served, for a time, as a tool of strategic depth for Islamabad, much in the same way it has allowed the anti-Indian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban to exist in safe havens in Pakistan. "Rigi was a lever with which to have some leverage with Iran, a check Pakistan could cash in," says Bokhari...
Pakistan has watched warily as both Iran and archrival India have expanded their influence with anti-Pakistani forces in Afghanistan - a country many in Islamabad still view as their backyard. The arrest earlier this month of Mullah Abdul Baradar, rumored Taliban deputy commander, by Pakistani authorities in Karachi has been seen as a sign of Islamabad's desire to now dismember some of the terror networks it once helped create. Handing over Rigi may be another gesture of goodwill. "Actions like this ease pressure on India and Iran," says Abbas. "There's now a chance for more cooperation and coordination...