In The News

UK Fears Record Afghan Heroin Output

Declan Walsh June 13, 2006
Despite 3,300 British troops deployed to the Helmand, Afghanistan, the province is on track to produce a record heroin crop. There are numerous reasons for the inability of British soldiers to control the trade. The UK government accused the Afghan minister in charge of counter-narcotics of having ties to smuggling. While the UK has not yet provided concrete proof, the allegation has strained...

Extremism Isn’t Islamic Law

Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid May 26, 2006
The Koran is clear: “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” (2:256). Yet the government of Afghanistan came close to executing a Muslim man who had converted to Christianity. Bowing to international pressure, the government ruled that the man was insane and called off the trial. The man’s life was spared, but using the Koran to justify the death penalty for apostasy in Muslim society remains...

A New Rival to “Regime Change”

Howard LaFranchi May 23, 2006
The US invasion of Iraq secured the illusion throughout the world that the US reacts to hostile nations with regime change. The US has many methods at its disposal for regime change, but the common thread was that the leader was a threat and had to be removed. Yet a new approach to US foreign policy regarding hostile nations is gaining momentum in Washington. This approach hinges on the idea that...

Pakistan’s Obedient Son

Susanne Koelbl May 17, 2006
Both the US and Afghanistan pressure Pakistan to capture suspected terrorists hiding along its borders. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai once had strong ties, but the relationship is unraveling over the issue. Meanwhile warlords challenge Musharraf’s authority and promote domestic unrest, motivated by the desire for control of Pakistan’s rich natural...

India Flexes Its Muscles With First Foreign Military Base

Nick Paton Walsh April 27, 2006
The Indian Air Force is reportedly refurbishing an airbase in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan. Jane’s Defence Weekly reports that India will station two squadrons of Russian-built fighter craft and also help train the Tajik air force. Tajikistan and India refuse to confirm the report. Tajikistan, an impoverished and largely Muslim nation, is bordered by China on the east and Afghanistan...

New Globalization Battle Threatens Asia

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller April 26, 2006
The world today must confront a new economic policy conundrum: national governments doubting the benefits of cross-border mergers and acquisitions on the one hand, and the forces of economic globalization driving such partnerships on the other. The battle, already waged in Europe and the US, has now migrated to Asia. As global industry restructures, three major factors frame the conflict over...

On Tape, Bin Laden Warns of Long War

Craig Whitlock April 24, 2006
Osama bin Laden insists that the US War on Terrorism is really a War on Islam and warns his followers by audiotape to prepare for long conflict. The tape contradicts his previous message from January that called for a long-term truce with the US for withdrawal from Iraq. In the April tape, bin Laden urges followers to head to Sudan and fight with peacekeepers, suggesting that the West wants to...