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Watch List 2022. Asia. Keeping Kashmir on the Radar

Crisis Group’s Watch List identifies ten countries facing deadly conflict, humanitarian emergency or other crises in 2022. In these places, early action, driven or supported by the EU and its member states, could save lives and enhance prospects for stability.

Away from the international limelight, the decades-old conflict in Indian-administered Kashmir grinds on, as New Delhi grapples with a Pakistan-backed but largely local separatist insurgency. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government unilaterally scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, abrogated its statehood and redrew its geographic boundaries. The government claimed that its decisions would put an end to militancy in India’s only Muslim-majority region and ensure its economic development.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pakistan's Gen. Ameer Abdullah Khan Niazi, second from left, signs the surrender document as chief of India's Eastern command Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora, left, looks on, surrounded by other commanders in Dacca (now Dhaka), Bangladesh, on Dec. 16, 1971. (AP)

Today, Dec. 16, we commemorate the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 — a war that ultimately transformed what was originally known as East Pakistan into the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan, ruled at the time by its dictatorial president Gen. Yahya Khan, reacted to a growing movement for autonomy in Bengali-dominated East Pakistan by sending in the troops. That prompted intervention by India, which ultimately helped the increasingly rebellious Bengalis to break away from rule by Islamabad.

The human cost of the war was huge. But perhaps no survivors have suffered a sadder fate than the children who were born as the result of sexual violence committed by members of the Pakistani military: the so-called war babies, whose existence has been long ignored or suppressed by both Bangladesh and Pakistan.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pakistani shopkeepers and traders burn Indian products including TV transmission systems during a demonstration in Lahore on Oct. 8. Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Once, in a TV studio near Delhi almost eight years ago, I tried to stop a war between India and Pakistan and left thinking: Let them fight. It’s never a good idea to join a TV debate when those two are on the brink of yet another war.

I was visiting Delhi just after the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, and my publisher persuaded me to accept an invitation to discuss Indo-Pak relations. I was the only Pakistani among the half dozen panelists, mostly Indian ex-generals and defense experts, all apparently trying to start and win a war with outrageous sound bites.…  Seguir leyendo »

Durante dos y media décadas, Pakistán ha aplicado una política que implica infligir a la India la “muerte de los mil cortes” – es decir, procede a desangrar al país a través de repetidos ataques terroristas, en lugar de intentar una confrontación militar abierta que no puede ganar contra la India debido a que este país tiene fuerzas convencionales superiores. La lógica es que la respuesta de la India a esta táctica iría a ser siempre atemperada por su deseo de no descarrilar sus ambiciosos planes de desarrollo económico, así como la negativa del gobierno de la India con respecto a hacer frente al riesgo de una guerra nuclear.…  Seguir leyendo »

In the wee hours of Sept. 29, Indian special operations forces slipped across the Line of Control (LoC) into Pakistan-administered Kashmir and attacked sites where terrorists had gathered to infiltrate into Indian-held territory. The details of this operation, described as surgical strikes, are hazy, and more will likely emerge. Cross-LoC operations by India are not entirely unprecedented, but the apparent scale of the strikes and public acknowledgment by the Indian Army broke new ground.

India’s leaders and the public welcomed the strikes as a justified response to the Sept. 18 attack at Uri in Kashmir in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed.…  Seguir leyendo »

Punto muerto prolongado entre India y Pakistán

El subcontinente ha vivido hostilidades, particiones, matanzas colectivas e incluso genocidios; para alcanzar una paz duradera, el conflicto centenario entre India y Pakistán debe ser abordado. Pero el fallo de los líderes de la región a la hora de aprender de los errores del pasado continúa amenazando con serias implicaciones para su futuro. Esto se hizo evidente en las celebraciones de India y Pakistán por el Día de la Defensa, el 6 de septiembre de 2015. Ese día, en 1965, ambos países entraron en guerra. Las celebraciones del año pasado alcanzaron un nuevo máximo de patrioterismo y cada Estado declaró su victoria sobre el otro.…  Seguir leyendo »

India and Pakistan each possess more than 100 nuclear warheads. Their political establishments really don’t like each other. Correspondingly, we should always pay heed to tensions between the two nations.

A new crisis is brewing.

Last week, India announced it will establish protected settlements to rehouse about 200,000 Hindus in the Kashmir Valley. Forced out of Indian Kashmir by Pakistan-supported Islamists in 1989-1990, the displaced citizens are a priority for Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government. Conversely, Islamist protests illustrate opposition to Hindu empowerment. India and Pakistan have been fighting over the province of Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947; they have fought three wars over it, in fact.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Saudi war in Iraq and lessons for Pakistan Irak parece estar desmoronándose a pedazos con el rápido avance del  Estado Islámico de Irak y el Levante (ISIS, por sus siglas en inglés) que amenaza con llevar al país hacia una división entre chiíes, suníes y entidades kurdas, mientras que simultáneamente difumina la frontera con su turbulento vecino en el oeste. Por otra parte, la insurrección ahora amenaza con extenderse a otros dos países vecinos, Afganistán y Pakistán, que ya se enfrentan a innumerables desafíos internos. Para la India, el mensaje es claro: sus intereses de seguridad nacional están en riesgo.…  Seguir leyendo »

In 1914, a terrorist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo - unleashing geopolitical forces and World War I. Today, while the United States rightly worries about al-Qaeda targeting the homeland, the most dangerous threat may be another terrorist flash point on the horizon.

Lashkar-i-Taiba holds the match that could spark a conflagration between nuclear-armed historic rivals India and Pakistan. Lashkar-i-Taiba is a Frankenstein's monster of the Pakistani government's creation 20 years ago. It has diverse financial networks and well-trained and well-armed cadres that have struck Indian targets from Mumbai to Kabul. It collaborates with the witches' brew of terrorist groups in Pakistan, including al-Qaeda, and has demonstrated global jihadist ambitions.…  Seguir leyendo »

A few days back I travelled to Batamaloo neighbourhood in Srinagar, the capital city of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Coils of barbed wire blocked the desolate roads; thousands of Indian soldiers patrolled the streets to enforce a strict military curfew. I couldn't reach the man I wanted to meet and finally managed to speak to him on the phone.

On 2 August Fayaz Rah, a 39-year-old fruit vendor from Batamaloo, had lunch with his wife and three children. Outside, Indian troops enforced the curfew. Yet the children would find a clearing or a courtyard to play cricket or imitate the adults and raise a slogan for Kashmir's independence from India.…  Seguir leyendo »