Word: tribalization
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...Before the attacks on Mumbai, the U.S. had been keen on seeing a reduction of Indo-Pakistan tensions in the hope - openly voiced by President-elect Barack Obama - that such changes would free Pakistan to conduct more effective counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in its northwestern tribal areas. Washington fears that Indo-Pakistan rivalry will make its own task in Afghanistan more difficult. Obama therefore called for promoting a rapprochement between India and Pakistan as a key objective of U.S. foreign policy. But he will find few takers in India for continuing a peace process with...
...with ancient animosities, it's almost certain that politics will be attended by violence. Ahead of provincial elections in January, there's a potentially explosive Shi'ite-vs.-Shi'ite clash brewing in the south. In Sunni areas to the west and north of Baghdad, a new alliance of tribal sheiks, many of them U.S.-funded ex-insurgents, are challenging the Sunni parties currently in power...
...first time the President and his Sunni and Shi'ite deputies in the presidential council have publicly chastised Maliki over the tribal gatherings. In late November, they demanded that Maliki suspend the pro-government groups until their legality could be determined. "For us to begin today to form councils paid for by the national budget to assume a role that has no known institutional or legal place, this is a situation that needs a serious pause," the council said in a statement posted on its website. The Prime Minister's critics say the so-called Support Councils are a blatant...
Maliki has blithely brushed off the criticism, saying the tribal groups are akin to the Sahwa, or Awakening, movement. That movement (of Sunni tribal sheiks in the once al-Qaeda-infested western province of Anbar) sided with the U.S military and the Baghdad government to drive the insurgents out. And on Wednesday, Maliki delivered his own shot across Talabani's bow, defending the legality of the councils and rejecting claims that they are beholden to him. The councils are in the service of the state and will serve future governments, he said in an open letter to Talabani written...
...incident of transnational terrorism," he says. "The ideology is shared across borders, from Pakistan to India to Bangladesh." Terrorists these days are just as likely to meet in Dubai to discuss logistics, or in Katmandu to plan strategies. Training can take place not only in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, but also in Bangladesh, which also faces a mounting challenge from Islamic extremism. Weapons, distributed by a network of arms dealers that supply Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, Indian separatists groups and even Nepal's Maoists, are in easy reach. Neither the weapons, nor the tactics, of the Mumbai...