Free Republic

SUJATPUR, Bangladesh — Everyone knew it was out there somewhere, an invisible line that cut through a cow pasture and, at least in theory, divided one nation from another. But no one saw it as a border — it was just a lumpy field of grass, uneven from the hooves of generations of cattle, and villagers crossed back and forth without even thinking about it. Today, no one can ignore the line. In a construction project that will eventually reach across 2,050 miles, hundreds of rivers and long stretches of forests and fields, India has been quietly sealing itself off...

INDIA is accelerating the construction of a 2,500-mile fence to seal its border with Bangladesh amid growing fears that its Muslim neighbour could become “a new Afghanistan”. Indian officials and western diplomats have been alarmed by an increase in terrorist attacks by militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and by the Dhaka government’s failure to crack down on them. One group said to have links with the government claimed responsibility for 500 synchronised explosions in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts in August. India’s cabinet has decided to speed up work on the 8ft security fence, which is intended to keep out...

NASA posted a photo of the border between India and Pakistan as seen from outer space on Facebook on Sunday. The photo was taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station and shows the familiar outline of the north-western segment of India picked out in glowing lights. The astronaut who took the photo was "looking north across Pakistan's Indus River valley." The thread of orange that separates the two countries is lit by security lights that glow orange. The brightest spot visible is Karachi which faces the Arabian Sea. The Indus Valley is also dotted with lights. This is...

To prevent infiltration from the Pakistan border, Indian authorities are extending barbed wire fencing along the border deep inside the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. This region falls in the periphery of Rann of Kutch in Gujarat -- a marshy, barren and treacherous terrain extending for several kms where one would hardly find a blade of grass. The barbed wire fencing is being extended so that no portion of the Indo-Pak border remains easy for intrusion. Just across the barbed wire fencing, one can see the white border pillars from where the Pakistani territory begins. The entire Rann of Kutch...

Bangaon, India -- The twisted razor wire that separates this lush border town from neighboring Bangladesh is a symbol of the tangled ethnic politics playing out across the South Asian subcontinent. While India has worked to create a regional free-trade bloc, it has also been building a $1 billion security fence along its 2,500-mile border with Bangladesh. The concertina fence, which snakes awkwardly though jungles, mountains and villages in five Indian states, mirrors a fence being built along the 1,800-mile western border with Pakistan at a cost of $3 billion. When the fences are completed in 2007, the Hindu nation...

Image: http://indiafacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Galloping-Growth-of-Madrasas-1000x500.jpg Islam is hell-bent on re-conquering India. Post-independence through Madrasa multiplication Darul Uloom Deoband has laid a formidable siege to India. The task was facilitated by secularism-doped Hindus swearing by Pandit Nehru! The quantum jump in the number of madrasas from 88 in 1947 to five lakhs in 2006 across India is a mind boggling narrative of unremitting Islamic aggression. It has the potential to bring about tectonic changes in the future geopolitical developments across India -- including the much dreaded clash of civilizations! Unfortunately the secularism-trapped Indian government never tried to exercise any control over lakhs of madrasas...

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Monday Pakistan must take on a substantive role in peace talks with the Taliban if the war in neighboring Afghanistan is to be ended. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Monday, Mr. Mattis demanded Islamabad provide explicit support for “all those who are trying to maintain peace” in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region. “We are looking for every responsible nation to support peace in the subcontinent and across this war in Afghanistan. … It is time for everyone to get on board,” Mr. Mattis said ahead of bilateral talks with Indian Defense Minister...

A community in the central Logar province of Afghanistan has awarded the ‘Bravery’ Medal to the US President Trump for his recent stance against Pakistan. The handmade medal was prepared with a total cost of $645 with the contribution of the participants of an informal Jirga in which around 300 people had participated. Syed Farhad Akbari, a community leader in the province, on January 14 told RFE/RL’s Afghan Service that more than 300 people at an informal “jirga,” or council, of concerned citizens agreed to award the medal to the U.S. president. He said the handwritten message on the award...

The leader of Pakistani-administered Kashmir region said on Sunday Indian troops shot at his helicopter near the disputed frontier, a move likely to further fray ties between the two countries. Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between nuclear-armed neighbors, who both claim the mountainous region in full and have fought two of their three wars over it since their separation in 1947. Farooq Haider Khan, the prime minister of the Azad Kashmir region controlled by Pakistan, said his civilian helicopter was fired upon by Indian army from across the “Line of Control”, which acts as a de facto border between the two...

In the latest blow to already fragile ties between the United States and Pakistan, the Defense Department said on Saturday it has suspended $300 million in funding to Islamabad over what it calls the government's failure to take action against terrorists. The suspension is part of a broader pullback in military aid for Pakistan announced by the Trump administration in January. The administration says Pakistan is not taking strong enough steps to combat the Taliban and other groups. Pakistan, which serves as a key route for transporting supplies to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has repeatedly denied harboring terrorists. The aid...

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration has quietly started cutting scores of Pakistani officers from coveted training and educational programs that have been a hallmark of bilateral military relations for more than a decade, U.S. officials say.

It's past time the United States did some soul-searching and accept responsibility for exacerbating an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. This will require a rethink of Washington's current handling of Afghanistan and indeed its entire view of the region. Steve Coll recently made a cogent argument in the New York Times that the U.S. should seriously engage with China and other regional powers. However, this is impossible so long as Washington remains convinced that Pakistan alone is the primary impediment to peace rather than its own mistakes... Both Islamabad and Washington compete to wear the cloak of victimhood. Pakistan remains in...

Palestinian-Arabs in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) are not a very happy bunch these days, and not just because of Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Contrary to western media hype of a potential explosion of violence due to U.S. President Trump’s announcement, protests in the Palestinian territories were relatively subdued. Only a few thousand Palestinians participated in demonstrations at their peak. All considered, it was hardly the new Intifada that the terrorist group Hamas has called for. Palestinians, it seems, have much greater concerns to attend to. Mahmoud Abbas’ (Abu Mazen) less than inspiring leadership, whose...

Doubling down on support for terrorism finally generates consequences. Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. The PLO and the Palestinian cause more generally are sinking into irrelevance and rather than reform their policies to rebuild their position, they have adopted a scorched earth policy that only intensifies their race to the bottom. On the face of things, the situation isn’t bad. Last month the PLO got 128 nations to vote in favor of their anti-American resolution rejecting US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. One of the states that voted with them was India. . Israel was...

Activists from various religious parties thronged the Faisal Chowk (Charing Cross Chowk) on Mall Road on Saturday afternoon on the call of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi on the social media following the government’s crackdown on the participants of the protest sit-in at Faizabad Interchange in Islamabad on the orders of the Islamabad High Court (IHC). Surprisingly, there was no police presence in the most sensitive location in Lahore which houses the Punjab Assembly, headquarters of the Lahore Police, and provincial headquarters of the country’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). ... One of the...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it would suspend nearly all security aid to Pakistan, an across-the-board freeze that is the most tangible sign yet of Washington’s frustration with the country’s refusal to crack down on terrorist networks operating there.The decision, which could affect as much as $1.3 billion in annual aid, came three days after President Trump complained on Twitter that Pakistan had “given us nothing but lies & deceit” and accused it of providing “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.”The move underlines how swiftly relations with Pakistan have deteriorated since Mr. Trump...

At a revolutionary school in Pakistan, Durkhanay Banuri dreams of becoming military chief, once a mission impossible for girls in a patriarchal country where the powerful army has a severe problem with gender equity. Thirteen-year-old Durkhanay, a student at Pakistan's first ever Girls' Cadet College, established earlier this year in the deeply conservative northwest, brims with enthusiasm and confidence as she sketches out her life plan. "I want to be the army chief," she tells AFP. "Why not? When a woman can be prime minister, foreign minister and governor of the State Bank, she can also be chief of the...

Full Title: Trump withholding $255M in aid to Pakistan, as he accuses country of giving 'safe haven' to terroristsThe Trump administration has decided to withhold millions in military aid to Pakistan as the president accuses the Muslim-majority nation of harboring terrorists and telling “lies” to the United States. “The United States does not plan to spend the $255 million in [Fiscal Year] 2016 Foreign Military Financing for Pakistan at this time,” a National Security Council official told Fox News on Monday. The official added, “The president has made clear that the United States expects Pakistan to take decisive action against...

NEW DELHI: Indian security forces hit back at Pakistan, hard, overnight Monday, killing three Pakistani soldiers across the LoC in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), and separately, neutralising a wanted Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist in J&K's Pulwama district. In retaliation for a ceasefire violation on Saturday+ , the Indian Army undertook an operation very reminiscent of last year's surgical strikes. They crossed over to PoK early Tuesday, to Rakhchikri in the Rawlakot sector, and killed three Pakistani troops while also wounding one, agencies reported.

With most of the Western hemisphere on holiday, another crisis appears to be developing on the India–Pakistan border known as the Line of Control (LoC). The incident started on Saturday, where at least four Indian soldiers were killed, in an exchange of fire with the Pakistani Army on the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir, ABC News reported. The two sides reportedly exchanged heavy fire in the Keri sector of the Rajouri district, about 222 km southwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The skirmish started when Pakistani troops used automatic weapons,...