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It may return if more structural concerns in counter-terror thinking and policies are not addressed over time

The al Qaeda video showing its current head Ayman al-Zawahari declaring a renewed bout of jihad in the Indian subcontinent has triggered widespread alarm in the region, especially in India. The alarm over a video may seem exaggerated but there are enough reasons for India to worry.

Remember the Kremlin Watchers of yore during the height of the cold war and their best-sellers on the Evil Empire? And the scary stories on communism they used to disseminate? And how the newspaper columns of those days were filled with their analyses? And the so-called classified documents of the Soviet State and Communist Party to which they managed to have access and which they used liberally in their writings and books?

Sections of the Spanish media, quoting the authorities investigating the Madrid blasts of March 11,2004, have reported that the terrorists, who orchestrated the blasts, had used the mobile telephones as timers for the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along with copper detonators, different from the aluminium detonators used in the past by the ETA, the Basque terrorist organisation. According to one report, the IEDs had the alarms set for 7-39

The birth of AQIS at the time when al Qaeda is loosening its grip over the jihadist movement in the Middle East, which has been taken over by the Islamic State (IS), raises questions about al Qaeda's possible resurgence in South Asia.

Attention has to be focussed on Saudi Arabia as it enters a period of transition and uncertainty in the wake of reports about a deterioration in the health of King Fahd, who has been admitted in hospital. In the absence of authentic reports on his health, rumours are rife that his end may be near.

Within a fortnight of the death of Osama bin Laden, news came of the appointment of a senior al Qaeda leader, Saif Al-'Adl, as the interim chief, indicating clearly an internal tussle for the leadership of the global terrorist group, raising, in the process,

That is the latest position of the Government of Begum Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh Prime Minister, in the face of growing international pressure spearheaded by the member-countries of the European Union (EU) to act against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory.

ACT 1: March 2002. Abu Zubaidah, a Palestinian member of Al Qaeda, was arrested in Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was the operational chief of Al Qaeda; his arrest was a major breakthrough, we were told. This is hardly supported by the report of the 9/11 Commission.

How big a catch is Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a 40-year-old Libyan married to a Pakistani, fluent in Urdu and Arabic and suffering from lucoderma, whose arrest was announced by the Pakistani authorities at Islamabad on May 4,2005?

like the ISI, Lashkar-e-Tayyeba or the Indian Mujahideen, the al Qaeda will not meet much success in India because the Indian Muslims are happy with their lot in a secular, democratic country and even al Zawahiri understands that.

While the year 2003 saw many acts of terrorism in South, South-East and West Asia, as well as in Chechnya in Russia, very few major acts of terrorism were reported from Central Asia. In fact, ever since the US-led coalition went into action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics (CARs) have remained largely free of major acts of terrorism

There has been no credible evidence so far of any mastermind having orchestrated the various serious acts of jihadi terrorism reported during 2003, whether from Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq or Turkey. The available evidence indicates that all these incidents were planned and executed by local elements, which share the pan-Islamic ideology of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF), b

The fact that a renewed idea of nation-building for Syria is now down to a non-traditional political entity with roots in extremism keeps the trajectory of the state’s future in suspension

The top job for now will possibly go to someone already blessed by Zawahiri, but the future al-Qaeda could be much more Afghanistan-Pakistan centric as the group looks towards a new era of ideological and operational leadership

Instead of responding with counterterror operations, which are conservative and contained, operations such as Operation Sindoor will be the new norm

The Al Qaeda in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is of Jordanian origin, has reportedly claimed responsibility for the blasts directed at three hotels in Amman on November 9,2005, in which about 60 innocent civilians, the majority of them Jordanian nationals, were killed. There is no valid reason for doubting the claim.

Can good sense prevail in Washington once again? Military action in Libya will generate anti Americanism, which will swell the ranks of Al Qaeda and cause the "Arab Youth" bulge to find a frightening outlet.

The exasperation of Porter Goss, the Director of the US' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with Pakistan's role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other remnants of the Al Qaeda, is evident from his remarks on bin Laden during an interview with the "Time" magazine which has been carried by it this week

The normalisation of extremist groups staking control of major States has had no clear policy response from most countries.

With Al Qaeda far from being vanquished, and Pakistan and Bangladesh inevitably turning into jihadi outposts in the emerging pan-Islamist network in Asia, India is more than likely to be caught in the vicious tail-wind of the next wave of terrorism, gathering momentum since 9/11.

Conflict resolution and political problem-solving in other countries are not traits that Chinese diplomats excel at. It remains to be seen how China walks this tightrope in Afghanistan, which remains a fractured crucible of contradictory ethnic and political interests

The Taliban, ably helped by Pakistan, the US’s frontline ally in its global war on terror, has badly dented the notion of US invincibility. Despite President Joe Biden’s efforts in recent months to reassure allies that “America is back”, there is a wariness about both US commitment and its competence.

International jihadi terrorism of the Al Qaeda model will continue to pose the most serious challenge to the intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies and the police forces of the world in the short and medium terms, that is, for another five to 10 years. It shows no signs of any dilution of motivation and determination.

Before the elections in the beginning of this year, the authorities of the Iraqi Government had announced warrants for the arrest of 29 Iraqis and foreigners, who, according to them, are either former members of the Saddam Hussein Government or part of the Abu Mus¿ab al-Zarqawi terrorist network of the Al Qaeda.

As a nation impacted heavily by terrorism, India has done well to continue to bring the world back to focus on the issue that was receding from global headlines.

Despite being knocked off its feet by the collapse of the Ghani government of Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, New Delhi has quickly re-established its presence in the new Taliban-led Afghanistan.

There has been an intensified hunt for Osama bin Laden and other surviving leaders of Al Qaeda on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

No Indian terrorist group is co-operating with the international jihadi terrorist movement headed by Al Qaeda.However, certain Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisations, which are members of bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF), are being used by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for organising terrorist attacks in Jammu & Kashmir (J) and other parts of India.

The killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was a crippling blow to the global terrorist group and its violent agenda. The manner in which US special forces took him out in his protected lair will seriously undermine the morale of terrorist groups and their sympathisers across the world.

Pakistan, with its innumerable terrorist organisations, some of them now working on their own, would provide enough fertile ground for organisations like ISIS to thrive within and spread outwards from here. It must be remembered that Al Qaeda leadership is still based in the FATA of Pakistan from where it continues to give directions.

In the last year, ISKP, through its violent attacks, has attempted to create instability in Afghanistan and beyond to trigger propaganda for its jihadi goals.

The geography of terror groups is fluid. Kokernag to Kandahar is in the throes of security being provided by actors who were part of the crisis to begin with

Religious terrorism isn’t about poverty, local issues, schools one studies in or the religious milieu in which someone grows up.

Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is more than likely to spearhead a reprisal attack to avenge the killing of its mentor and patron, al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The group will extend its focus to western targets, specially the US, in the days ahead.

To mark the first anniversary of the spectacular terrorist strikes in Madrid by jihadi terrorists with definite sympathy for Al Qaeda, even if not satisfactorily proved links to it, the city is hosting what has been projected as an International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security from March 8 to 10 to discuss, inter alia, the causes and the underlying factors of terrorism, methods of confronting it and the democratic responses available

Amid the ongoing fundamental changes in the international order, such as the growing bipolar competition between the US and China and the promotion of multipolarity, middle powers may take more ownership of conflict points such as Afghanistan. To comprehend this possibility, it is important to trace the evolution of middle powers in the Persian Gulf. This paper looks at the complexities of the Gulf middle power states, with Afghanistan as the the

US President Donald Trump is desperate to pull American troops out of the war-torn country, even if it means clearing the way for the Taliban's ascent to power in Kabul

The Modi government has declared that virtually everyone who opposes its policies in Jammu and Kashmir is a terrorist. This makes it difficult to find a way out of the Kashmir miasma.

The killing of Osama bin Laden is undoubtedly a military defeat for al Qaeda but on the ideological front, there is still some way to go before it can be said with surety that the global terrorist movement has been put to rest.

Kashmir is in trouble. Several incidents in quick succession that shattered peace in the State over the past few weeks are ominous. Trouble brewing in the Middle East, the regrouping of the Al Qaeda and various elements of terror groups, their re-emergence from the badlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the rising crescendo of bickering within Pakistan-all of this poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the region and elsewhere.

No accurate estimate is as yet available on the human losses and material damage suffered by the Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist organisations belonging to Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) as a result of the earthquake, which struck Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan on October 8, 2005.

It would be folly to treat the threat issued to the Indian cricket team by a terrorist organisation based in Bangladesh as posing danger only to the players. The threat issued by Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) poses a direct and serious danger to India because, despite denials by the Bangladesh Government, it is clearly an indication that terrorist groups affiliated to the Al Qaeda have made Bangladesh an operational base. The

The synchronised explosions in London on July 7, 2005, seem to be the handiwork of the Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) formed by it in February, 1998.

An examination of the prospects for al-Qaeda following the US drawdown in Afghanistan and the likely threats which the region, and India in particular, might face in the future. A supplementary scrutiny of ISIS, and the group's possible expansion in the region, is also proffered.

The rise of Islamic State does pose a strategic threat to South Asia, although the influence might not be direct, according to Prof. Stephen Tankel of American University. He says since the decline of the Al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan, the IS has emerged a source of new leadership.

In a surprising statement, the military spokesman of Sri Lanka Keheliya Rambukwella claimed that Al Qaeda and those involved in the bombing of Marriot Hotel in Islamabad were trained by LTTE. The technique was similar to the one used by the Tamil group way back in 1996 when a truck loaded with a bomb exploded near Colombo's Central Bank killing 91 people.