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...growing instability along Tajikistan's 830-mile (1,335 km) border with Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, members of a narcotics-smuggling ring - which included a former Tajik government minister and rebel commander - were killed after a skirmish with security forces in the Tavildara Valley, a strategic east-west transit route through Tajikistan and an Islamic stronghold opposed to the government. "The group included several Russian citizens ... aiming to transport large amounts of money through Tajikistan to support terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the government told the press, claiming that the ring was part of an "international terrorist" network with...
...Islam's traditional powers - imperial dynasties such as the Mughals and the Ottomans - created a hunger for a more muscular religious identity than that found in the intoxicating whirl of a dervish or the quiet wisdom of a sage. Nationalism and fundamentalism subdued Sufism's eclectic spirit. In the West, Sufism now usually provokes paeans to an alternative, ascetic life, backed up perhaps by a few verses from Rumi, a medieval Sufi poet much cherished by New Age spiritualists. But there was nothing fringe or alternative about it. "In many places, Sufism was the way whole populations expressed their Muslim...
...Some analysts think that historical legacy can still be exploited. A 2007 report by the Rand Corp., a U.S. think tank, advised Western governments to "harness" Sufism, saying its adherents were "natural allies of the West." Along similar lines, the Algerian government announced in July that it would promote the nation's Sufi heritage on radio and television in a bid to check the powerful influence of Salafism, a more extreme strain of Islam that is followed by al-Qaeda-backed militants waging a war against the country's autocratic state...
...Still, Naqvi, Devji and other academics doubt that governments can use Sufism to fight their political battles. As in the past, foreign meddling would likely do more harm than good. "What is needed today, more than the West pushing any one form of religion," says Naqvi, "is a propagation of the underlying values of Sufism - love, harmony and beauty." This is not easy, especially in Pakistan, where poverty, corruption and the daily toll of the global war on terrorism simmer together in a volatile brew. Set against this, the transcendental faith of Sufi mystics seems quaint, if not entirely impotent...
...Jairam Ramesh, the Indian Environment and Forestry Minister, had other ideas. With Clinton standing by, Ramesh told reporters that India was in no position to reduce its rising levels of carbon-dioxide emissions, and that the West - which had polluted with impunity for decades - was in no position to dictate reductions to developing poor countries. "There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions," he said. (Read a story about how India's cows contribute to global warming...