Where the real battle lies

http://www.thestatesman.net/news/97030-where-the-real-battle-lies.html

 

Where the real battle lies

The Statesman
30 Dec 2014

Zarrar Khuhro

It is a wake-up call, they say. A tragedy so awful the mind reels at the thought of it; the soul curdles at the sight of it. We've had many such wake-up calls.
We've had the Parade Lane mosque massacre, the Karsaz blasts, the Marriot bombing, the recurring apocalypses that the Hazaras have faced, the steady drip-drip of killings so many in number that it becomes impossible to even list them.
We wake, like sleepwalkers jolted into reality by a fall; shocked to find ourselves muddied and bloodied, wondering how we got here when a moment ago we were safe and warm in our beds.

As is our wont, we then clean ourselves up and go right back to bed, counting ad hoc measures as if they were sheep until sleep once again consumes us. If we wake, it is only to hit the snooze button.
This time, they say it's different. Certainly the moratorium on death penalties for terrorism cases has been lifted, to what seems like wide public acclaim. There are of course voices arguing that this is not a solution, especially in a country where the judicial system is deeply flawed. In the long run, even sooner, this will create rather than curb abuses, they say.
On the other side is the refrain that no other punishment can possibly be meted out to unrepentant mass murderers; that incarceration means little when terrorists have shown a capability to operate, recruit and even escape from jail.
The debate will continue, as it should, but the moratorium stands lifted and this is being projected as a sign of a new determination.

Then there arises the next logical question: what's the point of executing terrorists if the courts are largely unable to convict them to begin with? That the judiciary has been woefully deficient on this count is something even its most stalwart defenders will have to concede.
It's not just about procedural issues and lacunae in investigation and prosecution. The simple fact is that the state has been unable to provide protection to witnesses and judges, a failing that LeJ (Lashkar-e Jhangvi) head Malik Ishaq, among others, has routinely exploited.

STRATEGIC ASSETS TURNING ROGUE IN PAKISTAN

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/strategic-assets-turning-rogue-in-pakistan.html

Tuesday, 30 December 2014 | Sandhya Jain |

The country has used terror as a state policy to achieve its goals in India and Afghanistan. But now as the situation gets out of hand, it will find it difficult to dismount the terrorism tiger

Pakistan’s policy of nurturing militias as strategic assets came home to roost on December 16 when Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan jihadis shot 148 persons, including 132 students, at the Army Public School in Peshawar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. The victims, mostly offspring of military personnel, were killed as revenge for Zarb-e-Azab, the Army action against the Taliban along the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border; 1,600 jihadis have reportedly been killed so far.

By grim coincidence, the attack came days after the ceremony awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl from the same Province who was shot in the head by the Taliban for championing education for girls. Schools have been hit previously as well, but each attack was viewed as a separate incident.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called his Pakistani counterpart to offer condolences and all help in meeting the threat. India’s Parliament and schools observed a two minute silence in honour of the victims; several children wept in grief. This seamless national unity achieved by Mr Modi was a far cry from the sickening politics over the Batla House encounter in which a valiant police officer lost his life battling terrorists. That aggravated minority politics is coming full circle with the Congress party considering a course correction by seeking feedback regarding its ‘anti-Hindu’ image.

In Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on the death penalty; two terrorists were promptly executed. Army chief General Raheel Sharif and Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Rizwan Akhtar rushed to Afghanistan to discuss a joint crackdown on militants. Hitherto, Pakistan accused Afghanistan of not doing enough to uproot terrorist bases there, while Kabul said that Islamabad allowed the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network to operate freely on its territory and stage attacks in Afghanistan.

Siachen: Army to start rapid induction of troops

Written by Pranav Kulkarni | New Delhi |
Posted: December 30, 2014

In a bid to counter a two-pronged threat from Pakistan and China at the world’s highest battlefield, the Army would start inducting soldiers at Siachen glacier with just four days for acclimatisation after winter.

The reduction in acclimatisation period from existing 11 days to just four days is an outcome of the joint research carried out by the Army and the DRDO since 2009. “We will be starting this (rapid induction) on the Manali axis road once it opens up (post winter). At present the total acclimatisation from Chandigarh to 14,000 feet is 11 days.

We will be reducing this to four days…We have already done the pilot study and we will be further assessing its efficacy… And if you reduce this, it is the need of the Army… it is the need of the hour that we are able to induct troops faster in case of war or peace,” Lt Gen (Dr) B K Chopra, DGAFMS, told The Indian Express.

Presently, the acclimatisation takes place in two stages of six and four days at Leh and at higher altitudes, respectively, before inducting at the glacier where heights range between 22,000- 2,4000 feet. The study on rapid acclimatisation was carried out by DRDO’s Delhi- based Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences in collaboration with Army’s High Altitude Medical Research Centre and Leh-based 153 General Hospital has been under trials for over a year.- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/siachen-army-to-start-rapid-induction-of-troops/#sthash.JBruj114.dpuf

Making ‘Make in India’ happen

RAVI VENKATESAN

December 30, 2014

To become a manufacturing nation, India has to quickly move beyond rhetoric to create a clear strategy and favourable policy environment for manufacturing to take off. A close dialogue and partnership between government and the private sector is critical

At this moment, the Prime Minister’s “Make in India” campaign appears to be exactly this — an imaginative marketing campaign. But there is much thought and even more work that is required to convert this to reality.

The theory behind “Make in India” is as simple as it is compelling. India must become a manufacturing powerhouse in order to gainfully employ its demographic dividend; there is no choice here. Fortunately, we have many natural advantages including a big labour pool and a large domestic market. In addition, with China’s competitive advantage in manufacturing eroding, India has the opportunity to take some share of global manufacturing away from China. All we have to do to improve the ease of doing business in India are these —stop tax terrorism, improve infrastructure, reform labour laws, invest in skills development, make it easier to acquire land, implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) and fast track approvals. Voila, we will take our rightful place as the world’s factory alongside China.

Energy factor

This is an attractive thesis that has a lot of merit. A simple step of making it easier to do business will make a huge difference to India’s manufacturing competitiveness. It is one plank of a manufacturing strategy. India ranks 142 on the World Bank Index; China is ranked 90. If we were to improve by just 50 places, it would be a huge perceptual breakthrough. However, this is not a manufacturing strategy in itself. As Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan correctly and controversially pointed out, much has changed in the world since China elbowed itself into becoming the world’s factory two decades ago. The nature of manufacturing is changing. Low-cost automation and robotics are making pure labour cost arbitrage less important. Lead times and a flexibility of supply chains are far more important, leading many companies to move manufacturing back closer to the big markets, the United States and Europe. Energy is the new labour in the sense that the cost of energy will significantly drive where things are made. Here, the U.S. with its huge new shale gas reserves has a big advantage. Developed countries are also realising how crucial local manufacturing is to jobs and to having stable, prosperous societies and so there is an attempt to reverse outsourcing and revive local manufacturing by embracing new technologies and innovations such as 3-D printing and the “Internet of things”.

For an industrial policy

Many faces of terror

December 30, 2014

Sometimes, terror is its own purpose. Militant groups with an identifiable cause often claim responsibility for their acts or choose their targets carefully. But those behind Sunday’s low-intensity explosion in Bengaluru that indiscriminately targeted ordinary people in a crowded public place have chosen to remain anonymous so far. The bomb blast, which claimed the life of a woman from Chennai who was on a visit to Bengaluru, was clearly intended to spread fear and set off panic, rather than send any specific political message. The aim seems to have been to create a feeling of insecurity among the city’s residents, and invite greater, harsh policing. This is not the first time Bengaluru has been subjected to a terror attack of this nature. 

Such low-intensity blasts are suspected to be the handiwork of local networks of extremists with limited material resources and logistics support. Investigators see similarities with the blast on board a Bengaluru-originating train arriving at the Chennai Central station, in which activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India, who escaped from the Khandwa jail last year, were believed to be involved. 

While it is too early to pinpoint responsibility, the fact remains that India-based terror modules have chosen Bengaluru for repeated attacks. While New Delhi and Mumbai have seen attacks with the involvement of organisations from across the border, most of the explosions in Bengaluru have been traced back to Indian groups such as those of Abdul Nasir Maudany or Al Umma or the Indian Mujahideen. The exception was the shooting at the Indian Institute of Science during an international conference, exactly nine years ago, which was carried out by Indians supposedly with links to the Laskhar-e-Toiba.

Whether the blast was intended to protest the arrest of the pro-Islamic State tweeter in Bengaluru, would be known only after further investigation. But, Bengaluru, a city with a large floating population, with workers drawn from different parts of the country, is surely growing too big and diverse for conventional policing. True, it is difficult to prevent terrorists picking soft targets. Intelligence inputs on the possibility of such attacks are usually vague and non-actionable. 

Disquieting developments

The new Ukrainian Parliament’s overwhelming vote last week in favour of the country opting for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a contentious signal from a pro-western government to further cement Kiev’s strategic ties with the West. The decision reverses the country’s policy of non-alignment with any political and military grouping, codified under former President Viktor F. Yanukovych in 2010. Instead, it paves the way for Ukraine’s strong military and strategic engagement with European powers and the United States. Eventual entry into the military alliance may still take years. 

But the current context of the continuing separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine lends the legislative step a provocative edge, from a Russian standpoint. Moscow has characterised Ukraine’s move as confrontationist; one that is consistent with its decade-long and stout opposition to the eastward extension of the military alliance. The Russian stance is also in sync with influential thinking in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union that grew sceptical of the relevance of NATO in a post-Cold War scenario. Whereas the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact followed the emergence of the new democracies in the former Eastern Europe, NATO has continued to expand in the more than two decades since.

Clearly, Kiev’s latest move cannot be viewed in isolation. Earlier in December, both Houses of the Congress adopted the Ukraine Freedom Support Act with the avowed objective of countering threats from Moscow to the territorial integrity of the Slavic nation. The Russian response has been the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan to promote regional trade.

 The Kremlin came under criticism for the annexation of Crimea following a referendum earlier this year. Its alleged role in aiding Ukrainian separatist groups with military equipment has since remained in the spotlight. Meanwhile, the United Nations said last month that nearly a thousand people have been killed since September 2014 when the ceasefire between the Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels came into force. Besides, the months-long conflict has claimed a few thousand lives. Moreover, the number of people who have registered as displaced by the conflict has risen by over 50 per cent to 460,000 in the same period. In the absence of swift and concerted diplomatic initiatives to address the scale of the humanitarian tragedy, the region runs the risk of prolonged instability. That is in the interest of neither Russia nor the western powers. Kiev’s overtures at this juncture to join NATO would merely raise the rhetoric and deepen mutual suspicion.

A year of man-made health crises

CHAPAL MEHRA

December 30, 2014

AP“Ebola has been endemic to the West Africa region for almost two decades. Yet, the ability of this region to address this disease, or any other, remains severely limited.” Picture shows Nowa Paye, 9, as she is taken to an ambulance after showing signs of Ebola infection in the village of Freeman Reserve, about 30 miles north of Monrovia, Liberia.

Governments that promise development, growth and human well-being must recognise that these are not possible without investments in health and health systems

Over the past year, several significant public health crises have unfolded in India and globally. As this year hurtles to an end, it becomes important to examine these events, if only momentarily, to understand the lessons they hold.

On closer examination, it becomes apparent that many of these crises were man-made — either because of continued neglect, a lack of focus on prevention and insufficient investment in health, or a focus on addressing diseases but not their root causes, i.e., the social determinants of health.

Early in the year, the war in Gaza and the blockade exacerbated a health crisis caused by continued international neglect of the people of Gaza. At the last count, the four-week conflict left 10,000 homes annihilated and displaced 4,50,000 people. The real public health crisis was the lack of electricity, clean drinking water and safe homes. Overcrowding and the lack of water and sanitation facilities led to a rise in the incidence of water-related diseases. As time passes, this destruction will expectedly result in multiple health crises that will affect the physical and mental well-being of hundreds of thousands of people.

Yet nothing made more news than the Ebola crisis in West Africa, where over 7,000 people have died. In the poorest and perhaps most politically unstable part of the continent where this crisis unfolded, the biggest areas of neglect were health systems, infrastructure, funding, trained human resources and little community education. Ebola has been endemic to the West Africa region for almost two decades. Yet, the ability of this region to address this disease, or any other, remains severely limited. Ebola wasn’t a global priority either, because it was centred in a poor region. International agencies bickered and took their time to respond while people died. When the first case emerged in the U.S., Ebola finally qualified as an important disease, and new experimental drugs, vaccines and preparedness soon followed. As always, it seemed too little, too late.Health care in India

Choosing the jewels of India

GAUTAM BHATIA

December 30, 2014

To open the Bharat Ratna to sports or other professional endeavours is confusing public success and stature with achievement in public life

Amongst Delhi’s socially active circles, the old joke goes that government awards are easily buyable; the Padma Shri is available in local neighbourhood markets and the Padma Bhushan requires a trip to Connaught Place. Such cynicism always gets primed in conversations during conferring of the Bharat Ratna. That former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malaviya have been nominated for the award makes no difference. The government sponsorship of an award of such rare merit is its most serious devaluation. The Prime Minister makes the recommendation to the President, who merely signs and endorses the name; the award is conferred.

Is this an appropriate and fair method to select an awardee of such national eminence, the jewel of India? Doesn’t the Prime Minister’s partisan position lend a bias to such a selection? Why should a politician be asked to make a “recognition of exceptional service and performance of the highest order, without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex?” Besides, doesn’t the award’s added scope — “to any field of human endeavour” — make the evaluation even more difficult?

Sadly, the history of the award is a history of its devaluation. In the early fifties when it was instituted, its first three recipients, C. Rajagopalachari, C.V. Raman and Dr. Radhakrishnan, were independence fighter, scientist and philosopher respectively — people whose work encompassed a wide public dimension. Since then, with the addition of music, film and sport, there has been an obvious change in profile. The most recent decoration of this, notably Sachin Tendulkar, was riddled in controversy. Critics asked how a cricketer — despite his national and international popularity and obvious greatness — could be compared to people whose life has been devoted to public service? Why then should Dhyan Chand not be similarly awarded? And since the award was open to foreigners, why not consider Tiger Woods or Roger Federer? Weren’t they even greater figures in international sport? In 1990 the award was, in fact, given to a non-Indian. Nelson Mandela, a Nobel Laureate and a South African citizen, became the first foreign recipient, a jewel of India. When the man belonged to the world, didn’t the Bharat prefix confer a provincial status to his greatness?

Idea of merit

Surge in illegal sales of drugs as gangs exploit online market

IAN SAMPLE

December 30, 2014

The rise of social media and greater Internet access through smartphones are behind a massive upsurge in illicit sales of drugs, according to the chief enforcement official at Britain’s medicines regulator.

Criminal gangs have become adept at using smartphone apps and social media to sell lifestyle drugs to a mass market of potential buyers at minimal risk and cost, said Alastair Jeffrey, head of enforcement at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

This year, he said, the MHRA had seized 1.2 million doses of illegally supplied erectile dysfunction drugs, 3,83,000 slimming products and 3,31,000 doses of sleeping pills, tranquillisers and antidepressants — mostly originating from China and India. For the first time, the MHRA pursued YouTube accounts and removed 18,671 videos that directed viewers to websites offering illicit drugs.

Many gangs operate through websites that claim to be bona fide online pharmacies. They focus on medicines that people might be reluctant to discuss with their GP or pharmacist, such as Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs, as well as slimming pills and hair loss treatments. Sales of anabolic steroids for bodybuilders and cognitive enhancers, some of which have not been tested in humans, are also booming.

“This is something we are looking at now in a serious way. There is a phenomenal market out there,” said Mr. Jeffrey, a former detective chief superintendent who ran the Met’s child abuse investigation command. “Smartphones have allowed people greater access to the Internet, and all of a sudden this accessibility, combined with social media, has made a significant difference in how criminals reach consumers.”

Criminals have moved into the area of prescription drugs and similar treatments because the profits from these to be made far outweigh those to be made from narcotics such as cocaine, heroin and cannabis. The risks are lower, too, with jail sentences for handling unlicensed or fake medications a fraction of those doled out for dealing in class A substances.

In 2010, the World Customs Organisation estimated that the global market for counterfeit drugs was worth $200bn (£130bn), putting it ahead of prostitution. The combined heroin and cocaine markets are worth $160bn. About half of the drugs sold on the internet are counterfeits, according to the World Health Organization.

Criminal groups use a number of different approaches to make money from prescription drugs. Fake pills can be made from scratch from various powders and sold. They can be laced with a small amount of the drug’s active ingredient to ensure they pass chemical tests. Other gangs obtain discarded out-of-date drugs and repackage them with fresh dates, or buy cheap generic drugs and resell them after replacing the labels and packaging to make them look like top-brand medicines. In Britain, the MHRA works with Internet domain registries, credit card companies, Interpol and sites such as YouTube, Amazon and eBay to identify rogue traders, take down their websites and close their accounts.

U.S./INDIA DEAL FOR HIGH-ALTITUDE UAVS LIKELY

by Fortuna's Corner 

December 22, 2014

Deal For High Altitude UAVs Likely

Drone Laws Blog – Drone/UAV News on Law and Industry Attorneys Who Fly – Call Us dronelawsblog.com/

The file photo shows a RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. File photo: Reuters

An agreement or announcement to this effect is likely when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India as the chief guest for the Republic Day ceremony next month, sources informed The Hindu.

India and the U.S. are negotiating a deal for the purchase of high altitude, long endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

An agreement or announcement to this effect is likely when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India as the chief guest for the Republic Day ceremony next month, sources informed The Hindu.

Though the variant and the numbers are not known, it has been learnt that the UAV in question is most likely the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, a non-combat drone and the largest unmanned aircraft system built by the U.S.

Global Hawk is a HALE Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) with extraordinary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, providing near-real time, high resolution imagery of large geographical areas both during the day and night, in all types of weather.

The Global Hawk has an endurance of over 24 hours and can operate at an altitude of 60,000 feet. The U.S. has extensively deployed it in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It has further been upgraded as the MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance platform for the U.S. Navy.

The Silent One: Mullah Omar and the Resurgence of the ‘New’ Afghan Taliban

Matthew Rosenberg

Around an Invisible Leader, Taliban Power Shifts

WASHINGTON — If the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, were ever to assert himself more publicly, this would have been the year to do it.

In a season of immense upheaval in the jihadist world, the Taliban gained ground in new Afghan offensives, endured a bloody internal power struggle and had to contend with the rise of the Islamic State militant group as an ideological rival. Through it all, Mullah Omar has remained silent.

Further, though he has stayed completely out of the public eye since he fled American airstrikes in late 2001, his reclusiveness became even more pronounced in the past year: Now, all but two of the Taliban’s leaders who had direct access to Mullah Omar have been cut off, according to senior Taliban figures and Afghan and Western officials, all of whom say a significant power shift is underway.

“I have not seen Mullah Omar in a very long time,” Maulvi Najibullah, a senior Taliban military commander, said in a telephone interview from Peshawar, in northern Pakistan.

The invisibility of Mullah Omar has been accentuated by the visible role of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, reinforcing the Taliban’s increasingly secondary role in the world of Islamist militants, Afghan and Western officials said.

So, is the influence of the elusive mullah waning?

Senior insurgents who have raised objections to Mullah Omar’s reclusiveness have been marginalized — or worse, insurgents and officials said. One Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Raqib Takhari, is believed to have been killed in February after angrily telling compatriots that he would start making his own decisions if he was not granted an audience with Mullah Omar, Afghan and European officials said.

The apparent fissures in the Taliban command structure are seen as an opportunity by some, particularly within the new Afghan administration of President Ashraf Ghani. Afghan officials say the upheaval presents a chance to revive stalled peace efforts, perhaps by peeling off disenchanted insurgent leaders instead of seeking a grand bargain with the entire group, which has proved a futile effort to date.

Eager to exploit any potential Taliban weakness, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, suggested at a news conference in October that Mullah Omar might be dead.

In a separate interview, Rahmatullah Nabil, the acting Afghan intelligence chief, said he could not be sure “whether Omar is alive or dead. That’s difficult to say at this stage.”

But the Taliban quickly dismissed any talk of their leader’s being dead. And other Afghan officials, along with some European and American counterparts, said the suggestions that Mullah Omar had died were a propaganda ploy intended to weaken Taliban morale, not a reflection of the true thinking within the Afghan government.

“There’s a consensus among all three branches of the Afghan security forces that Mullah Omar is alive,” said one European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private intelligence briefings. “Not only do they think he’s alive, they say they have a good understanding of where exactly he is in Karachi,” the Pakistani metropolis where some say Mullah Omar is hiding.

Whither Pakistan?

By Samir Tata

19 December 2014

Source Link

How can Pakistan free itself from six decades of violence and instability? According to Samir Tata, Islamabad must accomplish three tasks if it wants a ‘reset’ to happen – 1) reshape its relations with its neighbors, 2) modernize its military capabilities, and 3) encourage political reforms and economic development.

Pakistan is a failing state on a trajectory to becoming a failed state. It is roiled by violence unleashed by armed Islamic fundamentalist and separatist groups. The country is the product of two bloody vivisections: the 1947 partition of British India[i], and the 1971 civil war that dismembered its two wings into Pakistan and Bangladesh.[ii] Except for a turbulent first decade of parliamentary democracy, Pakistan has been under military rule directly or indirectly since 1958. Pakistan’s military has developed two distinct asymmetric capabilities: armed Islamic fundamentalist auxiliary groups[iii], and a nuclear weapons arsenal.[iv] Not surprisingly, the specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue Islamic fundamentalists has put Pakistan in the crosshairs of the United States.[v] And, reflecting its myriad problems over the span of six decades, Pakistan has been unable to break the grip of economic malaise.

A turnaround strategy for Pakistan will require a decade-long effort involving three prongs: (1) reshaping Islamabad’s relations with its neighbors and allies; (2) modernizing and rebalancing Pakistan’s military capabilities while dismantling irregular paramilitary groups; and (3) restructuring domestic political arrangements to foster devolution, democracy and economic development.

Reshaping Islamabad’s external relations

Islamabad and Beijing have had close relations for a half century rooted in a mutual interest in counterbalancing India. Now Pakistan has an opportunity to transform its relationship with China based on a new bargain: energy security for China and military and economic security in return. Beijing may not need Pakistan to counterbalance India, but Pakistan is indispensable for ensuring China’s energy security.

Pakistan, by virtue of its geography and its nuclear weapons, is the only country that can provide China with an energy corridor that is outside the control of the United States or Russia. A land-based pipeline network connecting Iran’s oil and gas fields via Pakistan to China’s western province of Xinjiang (the Iran to Pakistan section has already been built) could provide China with unparalleled energy security.

Accordingly, Pakistan should leverage its unique geostrategic position and negotiate a long-term (ten year) strategic partnership with China that would have two critical dimensions. First, China would underwrite (through grants rather than loans) the modernization of Pakistan’s conventional military capabilities, including drones, satellites, missiles and cyber warfare capabilities. Clearly, as part of guaranteeing the security of the energy corridor, Pakistan’s military would have to neutralize Islamic fundamentalist terrorist and separatist groups operating in the country’s northwest and southwest. Second, China would underwrite (again through grants instead of loans) an ambitious program of infrastructure development that would position Pakistan for economic take-off. Such a program would cover such areas as: alternative energy (including nuclear and solar); water and irrigation; transportation, communication, and sanitation. Pakistan could become the showcase for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank being promoted by China. [vi]

Pakistan is indispensable to Saudi Arabia because it serves as a hedge against the loss of the American military security umbrella. Simply put, there appears to be an implicit Saudi-Pakistani bargain shrouded in ambiguity: Saudi Arabia, in extremis, would have access to Pakistani nuclear weapons in return for underwriting Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development program and partially funding the government’s budget. [vii] If Pakistan is to ensure the security of its nuclear weapons arsenal, both from the United States and domestic Islamic fundamentalist groups, Islamabad will have to negotiate a separate long-term agreement with Riyadh committing the Saudis to underwrite the cost of dismantling armed Islamic fundamentalist groups. Such an explicit agreement would help reassure the US that the risk of Pakistani nukes falling into terrorist hands is de minimus.

PAKISTAN’S ‘OTHER’ INSURGENTS FACE ISLAMIC STATE

By Karlos Zurutuza*

DECEMBER 27, 2014

http://www.eurasiareview.com/27122014-pakistans-insurgents-face-islamic-state/

The media tend to portray Balochistan as “troubled”, or “restive”, but it would be more accurate to say that there´s actually a war going on in this part of the world.

Balochistan is the land of the Baloch, who today see their land divided by the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is a vast swathe of land the size of France which boasts enormous deposits of gas, gold and copper, untapped sources of oil and uranium, as well as a thousand-kilometre coastline near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

In August 1947, the Baloch from Pakistan declared independence, but nine months later the Pakistani army marched into Balochistan and annexed it, sparking an insurgency that has lasted, intermittently, to this day.

Now senior Baloch rebel commanders say that Islamabad is training Islamic State (IS) fighters in Pakistan´s southern province of Balochistan.

IPS met Baloch fighters at an undisclosed location in the Sarlat Mountains, a rocky massif, right on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and equidistant from two Taliban strongholds: Kandahar in south-eastern Afghanistan and Quetta in southwest Pakistan.

The fighters claimed to have marched for twelve hours from their camp to meet this IPS reporter.

They are four: Baloch Khan, commander of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and Mama, Hayder and Mohamed, his three escorts, who do not want to disclose their full names.

“This is an area of ​​high Taliban presence but they use their own routes and we stick to ours so we hardly ever come across them,” explains commander Khan, adding that he wants to make it clear from the beginning that the Baloch liberation movement is “at the antipodes of fundamentalism”.

“Today we speak of seven Baloch armed movements fighting for freedom but all share a common goal: independence for Balochistan,” says Khan. At 41, he has spent half of his life as a guerrilla fighter. “I joined as a student,” he recalls.

The senior commander refuses to disclose the number of fighters in the BLA’s ranks but he does say that they are deployed in 25 camps throughout “East Balochistan [under the control of Pakistan]”.

Khan admits parallelisms between his group and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), also a “secular group fighting for their national rights,” as he puts it

“We feel very close to the Kurds. One could say they are our cousins, and their land is also stolen by their neighbours,” says the commander, referring to the common origin of Baloch and Kurds, and the division of the latter into four states: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Historically a nomadic people, the Baloch have had a moderate vision of Islam. However, Khan accuses Islamabad of pushing the conflict into a sectarian one.

“Until 2000 not a single Shia was killed in Balochistan. Today Pakistan is funnelling all sorts of fundamentalist groups, many of them linked to the Taliban, into Balochistan, to quell the Baloch liberation movement,” claims the guerrilla fighter, adding that target killings and enforced disappearances are a common currency in his homeland.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a group advocating peaceful protest founded by some of the families of the disappeared, puts the number of people from Balochistan since 2000 at more than 19,000, although exact figures are impossible to verify because no independent investigation has yet been conducted.

Afghanistan: No Sympathy For Pakistan

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20141221.aspx

December 21, 2014: Fighting has been heavy, mainly in Kunar, Nangarhar, Ghazni, Helmand, Uruzgan, Balkh and Herat provinces during the last three days. The army reports they have killed nearly 200 Taliban while losing less than twenty soldiers. The lose losses are largely due to the troops having and using skills enabling them to spot, and then destroy or disable nearly 200 mines and roadside bombs. The Taliban do poorly in gun battles against the better armed and trained troops. The fighting was heaviest in the east (Kunar) and the south (Helmland). In Kunar Pakistani Taliban and other terrorists are trying to keep transit routes to Pakistan open and also seeking to intimidate local tribes into tolerating the presence of these foreigners. The Afghan troops were able to find and attack the enemy because several villages have been under siege by the foreign terrorists and there was some urgency about breaking those sieges so the villages could get fuel and food. This is all part of some fundamental changes in this area. Over a week ago several thousand armed tribesmen in Kunar rebelled against the Islamic terrorists and the army has come to the aid of the tribesmen. The Afghan Taliban in the area, although not on good terms with the Pakistani Taliban, have joined in fighting the soldiers, who threaten to interfere with the lucrative Taliban drug smuggling operations here.

In Kabul police ordered a two month ban on unauthorized boat use on the Kabul River. This river is merely a stream most of the year but after the Spring thaw and after the Fall harvest (when irrigation upstream is much reduced) it fills up. While blocked by three dams along its 700 kilometers length it is usable this time of year by flat bottom boats near (south of) Kabul and the police believe Islamic terrorists have been using the river to move men and bombs.

The major problem in Afghanistan continues to be (as it has for centuries) a culture of corruption that has resisted numerous attempts to reduce it. When this corruption problem is actually measured Afghanistan finds that it is one of the most corrupt nations in the world. However, Afghanistan has made some progress in the last year. In 2013 Afghanistan was in a three way tie with North Korea and Somalia at the bottom of the list of 175 nations surveyed. This year North Korea and Somalia are still at the bottom together but Afghanistan has moved up to 172. Corruption in this Transparency International Corruption Perception Index is measured on a 1 (most corrupt) to 100 (not corrupt) scale. The two most corrupt nations have a rating of 8 and the least corrupt (Denmark) is 92. African nations are the most corrupt, followed by Middle Eastern ones. In East Asia North Korea sets the standard for sleazy behavior while Afghanistan part of an arc of ancient corruption stretching from Central Asia through Pakistan to India and thence of Burma and Southeast Asia. In Afghanistan the most lethal aspect of the corruption is how it makes it easier for terrorists to operate in a major city, like Kabul. In a crowded place like that well-funded terrorists can pay off enough people to stay hidden. Thus the police know of over a hundred Islamic terrorist cells in the metropolitan Kabul area but is unable to shut down all of them because of the silence (and security) terrorist cash (and threats) can buy. Metro Kabul contains about 88 percent of the four million people in Kabul Province. The police have also found that many of the young men who join the Taliban do so because that organization is officially fighting to end corruption. Young Afghans quickly figure out that the corruption is the main cause of the poverty and backwardness in Afghanistan. Many of these recruits eventually leave the Taliban when they discover that the anti-corruption angle is more rhetoric than reality. Very real is the Taliban support of the drug gangs and the use of violence against uncooperative civilians. Most of the young idealistic recruits have a hard time accepting those two items that the Taliban does not publicize.

PAKISTAN’S ‘OTHER’ INSURGENTS FACE ISLAMIC STATE

By Karlos Zurutuza*

DECEMBER 27, 2014 

The media tend to portray Balochistan as “troubled”, or “restive”, but it would be more accurate to say that there´s actually a war going on in this part of the world.

Balochistan is the land of the Baloch, who today see their land divided by the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is a vast swathe of land the size of France which boasts enormous deposits of gas, gold and copper, untapped sources of oil and uranium, as well as a thousand-kilometre coastline near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

In August 1947, the Baloch from Pakistan declared independence, but nine months later the Pakistani army marched into Balochistan and annexed it, sparking an insurgency that has lasted, intermittently, to this day.

Now senior Baloch rebel commanders say that Islamabad is training Islamic State (IS) fighters in Pakistan´s southern province of Balochistan.

IPS met Baloch fighters at an undisclosed location in the Sarlat Mountains, a rocky massif, right on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and equidistant from two Taliban strongholds: Kandahar in south-eastern Afghanistan and Quetta in southwest Pakistan.

The fighters claimed to have marched for twelve hours from their camp to meet this IPS reporter.

They are four: Baloch Khan, commander of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and Mama, Hayder and Mohamed, his three escorts, who do not want to disclose their full names.

“This is an area of ​​high Taliban presence but they use their own routes and we stick to ours so we hardly ever come across them,” explains commander Khan, adding that he wants to make it clear from the beginning that the Baloch liberation movement is “at the antipodes of fundamentalism”.

“Today we speak of seven Baloch armed movements fighting for freedom but all share a common goal: independence for Balochistan,” says Khan. At 41, he has spent half of his life as a guerrilla fighter. “I joined as a student,” he recalls.

The senior commander refuses to disclose the number of fighters in the BLA’s ranks but he does say that they are deployed in 25 camps throughout “East Balochistan [under the control of Pakistan]”.

Khan admits parallelisms between his group and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), also a “secular group fighting for their national rights,” as he puts it

“We feel very close to the Kurds. One could say they are our cousins, and their land is also stolen by their neighbours,” says the commander, referring to the common origin of Baloch and Kurds, and the division of the latter into four states: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Historically a nomadic people, the Baloch have had a moderate vision of Islam. However, Khan accuses Islamabad of pushing the conflict into a sectarian one.

“Until 2000 not a single Shia was killed in Balochistan. Today Pakistan is funnelling all sorts of fundamentalist groups, many of them linked to the Taliban, into Balochistan, to quell the Baloch liberation movement,” claims the guerrilla fighter, adding that target killings and enforced disappearances are a common currency in his homeland.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a group advocating peaceful protest founded by some of the families of the disappeared, puts the number of people from Balochistan since 2000 at more than 19,000, although exact figures are impossible to verify because no independent investigation has yet been conducted.

However, in August this year, the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on Pakistan’s government “to stop the deplorable practice of state agencies abducting hundreds of people throughout the country without providing information about their fate or whereabouts.”

Baloch insurgent groups, however, have also been accused of murdering civilians. In August 2013, the BLA took responsibility for the killing of 13 people after the two buses they were travelling in were stopped by fighters in Mach area, about 50km (31 miles) south-east of the provincial capital, Quetta.

Afghanistan’s quest for strategic autonomy

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What Afghans yearn most for, after decades of strife, is peace and tranquillity to make their own decisions Pranay Kotasthane | Anand Arni inShare 0 inShare 4 Comments Subscribe to: Daily Newsletter Breaking News Latest News 11:21 PM IST PMO tells ministries to opt for domestically manufactured electronic products 10:05 PM IST Coal auction: 7 mines in Chhattisgarh, 6 in MP are on offer 09:51 PM IST Arvind Kejriwal escapes unhurt as man hurls stone at him at rally 07:53 PM IST Audi to invest $29 bn through 2019 to chase BMW’s top spotot 07:27 PM IST Separatists to dominate Scotland in UK election: poll Editor's picks Army Chief asks troops to keep up operations against terror in Assam J&K: PDP seeks assurance from BJP on Article 370, AFSPA Japan approves $29 bn stimulus spending, impact in doubt Pakistan violates ceasefire along IB in Jammu, Kathua RBI targeting inflation over medium term: Raghuram Rajan Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters Let no one mistake it, Pakistan has no solutions to offer for Afghanistan. It promises much but the price it is seeking—recognition of the Durand line, a patron-client relationship and containment of India—is structurally against a strong Afghanistan. 

On the supply side, Pakistan simply cannot deliver. Neither does it have the economic strength to provide Afghanistan any succour, nor is it in a position to rein in the assets it spawned. Moreover, it is abhorred by the bulk of the Afghans, even within the ranks of the Taliban. What Afghans yearn most for, after decades of strife, is peace and tranquillity to make their own decisions, something that has been denied to them by years of Pakistani interference and perfidy. To bring peace and security to its citizens, a strong Afghanistan is necessary. And this is possible only if it achieves strategic autonomy in its interactions with the world. This goal of a strategically autonomous Afghanistan has multiple dimensions. The first aspect of strategic autonomy is the multiplicity of accessibility with the world, so that if one path is blocked, the others can be made operational. This is particularly relevant to Afghanistan—a land-locked country overly dependent on Pakistan for accessing the sea trade route in the absence of any dependable Iranian port. Pakistan has exploited this position of being the gateway of Afghanistan to the world with great efficacy. 

A breakthrough that enables other connections to the sea will go a long way in strengthening Afghanistan. This is where the Chabahar port will be a game changer. Not only will it help the country, it will also give Central Asia access to a sea outlet thereby unlocking the considerable energy and mineral wealth of Afghanistan and the other “stans”. Chabahar is in Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran, less than 100km from Gwadar, Pakistan’s port being built with China’s assistance. Chabahar will offer an alternative trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia. It is only 1,500km from Mumbai, about a day’s sailing time, and another 800km by road to Zaranj in Afghanistan from where the Indian built road will link it to Delaram. Delaram connects to the garland shaped highway linking all major Afghan cities to Kabul. This highway, part of the Asian highway, in turn links up with the road network in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The second aspect of strategic autonomy is a wide economic basket. Afghanistan has large deposits of copper, iron, high-grade chrome ore, uranium, beryl, barite, lead, zinc, fluorspar, bauxite, cobalt, lithium, tantalum, sulphur, mercury, rubies, lapis lazuli, emeralds, gold and silver. 

Harsh Realities Confront China’s Urbanisation Plan and Hukou Status

By Dr Monika Chansoria

December 27, 2014 

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China’s “urbanisation” campaign is subjected to cater to nearly 260 million migrant workers who await benefits calculated on the basis of the household registration system, commonly known as hukou. At the third plenum of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, incorporating “human-centered urbanisation” into an approved policy termed “core of urbanisation” was emphasised upon with the primary task of “human-centered urbanisation” being to help migrants in registering as urban residents. The CCP has set a target of a new hukou status for nearly 100 million migrant workers by the end of 2020. The Chinese government announces stepping up financial support and policy incentives to improve people's well-being and stimulate domestic demand, in order to shore up economic recovery. In this reference, official Chinese media reportage cites that 728.4 billion yuan ($107 billion) has been earmarked towards the education and medical system, social security, job promotion and affordable housing construction in China. Besides, the basic pension insurance covers 232.38 million urban residents in 27 provinces and autonomous regions, along with four municipalities starting such pilot programmes.

However, even though China reportedly generated 10.1 million new jobs exclusively in the urban areas till November 2014, the urban jobless rate would likely be 4.3 percent by the end of 2014. The condition of the jobless rural migrant workers does not look very promising. This, despite the fact that by the third quarter of this year, 152 million rural migrant workers found jobs outside their hometown. Another issue is skyrocketing property prices in various cities in China. To address this, the government is investing 41.5 billion yuan to expand affordable housing construction for the middle- and lower-income groups. This year alone, the State Council reported that 277,000 units of low-rent housing have been built, and another 1.36 million are presently under construction. In a recent press release the Chinese State Council stressed upon its efforts to stabilise the real estate market through increasing supply of affordable housing.

Notwithstanding that all these incentives by the Chinese government look promising, the bitter realities surrounding the urbanisation plan are too grave and sombre to ignore. During many conversations, I came across many families that are struggling to survive in cities across China especially among the migrant working class. A case in point is that of Yang Hongjiang originally from the Zhejiang province. Together with his wife Yue Huimin, they raise seven children. Since only three of the seven children have household registration in their hometown, his remaining children cannot be enrolled in school since they do not have hukou. All these factors could potentially give rise to greater social unrest, something that both the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party shall best try to contain.

China Confirms It Conducted Test Flight of New DF-41 ICBM

Bill Gertz

December 27, 2014

Chinese Military Confirms DF-41 Flight Test

China’s People’s Liberation Army on Thursday confirmed that its military conducted a flight test of a new long-range missile that U.S. intelligence agencies say involved the use of simulated multiple warheads.

“China has the legitimate right to conduct scientific tests within its border and these scientific tests are not targeting any country or target,” PLA Sr. Col. Yang Yujun told reporters at a year-end news briefing.

Yang was asked about the flight test of the DF-41 ICBM on Dec. 13 and whether the testing of the missile changed China’s strategic nuclear policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

“What needs to be pointed out is that China pursues a nuclear policy of self-defense and its policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons has not changed,” he said.

The reference to the no-first-use policy by the military spokesman is a tacit admission the missile involved the test of a last stage that carried multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs.

The missile test was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon Dec. 18. Defense officials said the DF-41 was launched from the Wuzhai Missile and Space Test Center, also known as Taiyuan, in central China. The missile landed in an impact zone in a remote region of western China and was closely monitored by U.S. satellite and other electronic monitoring gear.

Military analysts said the test of China’s long-range nuclear missile that can carry up to 10 nuclear warheads increases the strategic threat to the United States. The Pentagon has said the DF-41 will be able to target all of the United States.

China’s state-run Communist Party newspaper Global Times in November 2013 published a provocative article showing the effects of submarine-launched nuclear missile attacks against Seattle and Los Angeles that the article said would kill up to 12 million people. The article was later withdrawn from publication. However, the report revealed China’s plans for nuclear strikes on the United States in a future conflict.

China’s new Jin-class ballistic missile submarines began the first sea patrols this year as predicted by senior Navy officials and the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military, according to defense officials familiar with intelligence reports of the sea patrols.

The nuclear missile submarine patrols also mark a major step forward in China’s large-scale nuclear forces build up that has been carried out largely in secret.

The MIRVed DF-41 missile test also is expected to rekindle the debate in U.S. intelligence circles about the size of China’s nuclear arsenal, initially thought to be limited to around 240 strategic warheads.

The testing of a 10-warhead missile is an indication that the Chinese warhead arsenal is far larger or will rapidly expand as new DF-41s are deployed in the coming years.

A new report by the Georgetown University Asian Arms Control Project reveals that satellite photos have identified a new DF-41 launch complex at the Taiyuan launch center. The imagery is dated April 13, 2014, and is compared with a photo from 2010 of the same location.

The report, dated Dec. 16, states that the DF-41 appears to be based on the Russian design SS-25 road-mobile ICBM but “with Chinese characteristics.”

The DF-41, deployed with either six or 10 MIRVs, as well as DF-31A MIRVed missile will increase the number of warheads in the Chinese strategic arsenal to as many as 600 warheads by 2025, according to the report.

Winning: The Triumph Of Islamic Terrorism

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20141226.aspx

December 26, 2014: ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) continues winning on its own terms. Many Westerners don’t really understand those terms, for they have little to do with “victory” in the Western sense. ISIL seeks symbolic victories and achieves them by staging spectacular (often macabre) events that are captured on video and them distributed to the world via the Internet. For example, ISIL has found that “snuff” (images of actual murders) attract a lot of attention especially if the killing is done in a spectacular (beheading, crucifixion and mass murder) fashion. These snuff videos are not just for creating terror, but also for attracting recruits. One recent video deliberately showed the faces of the young ISIL men beheading a group of Iraqi soldiers. This made it clear that at least one of these bold warriors was from East Asia and several were from Europe. Millions of young Moslem men (and women) have seen these videos and about one percent of the men (and a much smaller number of women) went off to join ISIL in Iraq and Syria. Much less frequently these bewitched young people attempt to create some murderous mayhem in their own neighborhoods (as the narration accompanying the videos suggest.

Westerners are perplexed at how new Islamic terrorist recruits are still motivated to join the effort despite the high death toll among the holy warriors. The United States alone has done major damage to Islamic terrorist organizations since 2001. Over a hundred thousand Islamic terrorists have been killed or captured as have over a hundred terrorist leaders. This includes al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. The major affiliates of al Qaeda, in North Africa, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Yemen have suffered major losses in the last decade. The branch in Iraq was but a shadow of its former self before 2011 when the civil war broke out in Syria between Shia and Sunni Moslems.

But this violence is about more than religion. A lot of it is politics. One of the reasons Islam ran out of steam centuries ago was that the Moslem areas never embraced democracy and intellectual progress. This led to lots of cultural, social, economic and political problems. Until the 20th century, most Moslems lived as part of some foreign empire or under local Islamic, and totalitarian, monarchs or dictators. The foreign empires were gone by the mid-20th century but democracy has had a hard time taking hold. The dictatorships are still there. And the people are restless. As has happened dozens of times in the last thousand years, every few generations young Moslems embrace, often fatally, the idea that radical, very violent Islam is the answer. The goal here is a religious dictatorship run by Moslem clerics.

Radical Islam as an alternative to all the other forms of government never works. In theory, establishing "Islamic Republics" would solve all problems. People could vote, but only Moslems in good standing could be candidates for office. A committee of Moslem holy men would have veto power over political decisions. Islamic law would be used. It was simple, and it makes sense to a lot of Moslems in nations ruled by thugs and thieves, especially if the people are largely uneducated and illiterate.

Islamic Republics don't work. The only one currently operating (not counting others that say they are but aren't) is in Iran. The major problems were twofold. First, the radicals had too much power. Radical religious types are no fun, and you can't argue with them because they are on a mission from God. Most people tire of this in short order. To speed this disillusionment, many of the once-poor and now-powerful religious leaders became corrupt. This eventually sends your popularity ratings straight to hell.

Report on Intensified ISIS Offensive Against Iraqi Forces in Al-Anbar Province

Jessica Lewis, Ahmed Ali, and Sinan Adnan

December 27, 2014

ISIS Offensives in Ramadi City and Al-Asad Airbase in Al-Anbar, Iraq

The contest for Ramadi, the capital city of Anbar province in western Iraq, is reaching a critical juncture. ISIS is now launching attacks upon the Anbar Operations Command headquarters, the 8th Iraqi Army Brigade headquarters, and the government complex in the center of the city as of December 2014. Anti-ISIS forces, including the Iraqi Security Forces and tribal fighters, are concentrated there. The fall of these locations to ISIS would mean the effective fall of Ramadi, a major objective for ISIS as key terrain on the Euphrates River and the home of the Anbar Awakening. ISIS has reinforced its Anbar operations from its bases in Syria, and is maneuvering an armored convoy toward Al-Asad Airbase. Coalition forces have been engaging in numerous airstrikes against ISIS in order to protect this vital city and base, which protects American as well as Iraqi Forces.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), along with other insurgent groups, has contested control of Ramadi since January 2014 when the Iraqi military withdrew from major urban centers in Anbar. ISIS gained full control of Fallujah, but never succeeded in controlling Ramadi. Since then, the Iraqi Army (IA), Iraqi Police (IP), and anti-ISIS tribal fighters have clashed with ISIS in Ramadi, and cycles of violence have continued in the city almost without interruption. Ramadi is the capital of Anbar and representative of the enduring control of the state within the Sunni heartland of Iraq. Its defense demonstrates successful cooperation between ISF units and Sunni tribal militias. Ramadi is also therefore an enduring objective of ISIS, in order to break this relationship, seize territory from the state, and consolidate its own physical space for its Caliphate. The ISIS offensive to establish complete control of the Euphrates River Valley is therefore still underway, with Ramadi as its principal objective. But the campaign to defend Ramadi is also escalating, with promise to deny this key terrain to ISIS in the long term.

As of December 23, the ISF and tribal militias have succeeded in preventing ISIS from breaching the fortified defenses of the Ramadi government complex, the Anbar Operations Command (AOC), and 8th IA Brigade headquarters. ISIS established control of adjacent neighborhoods in November 2014, and ISIS has launched attacks into the city’s main fortifications several times over the last six weeks. At the present time, ISIS controls several Ramadi neighborhoods proximate to these key locations inside the city center. But the city’s primary defenses are holding, and the ISF still maintains critical ground lines of communication into the city center. The fight for Ramadi is nevertheless tied to the broader fight for Anbar, in which ISIS is leveraging freedom of movement in the desert to maneuver past ISF defenses. Lack of progress in Ramadi may cause ISIS to project greater force in Haditha and Baghdadi in western Anbar in order to split the attention of the ISF. Baghdadi village is immediately adjacent to the strategic Al-Asad airbase in central Anbar province, and the integrity of the base is the lynchpin of ISF’s Anbar campaign. The ISF campaign for Ramadi must therefore hold Haditha and Al-Asad airbase while the Ramadi campaign neutralizes ISIS in that zone in order to exploit a widening gap in ISIS control and prevent ISIS from reestablishing itself in central Anbar. 

Read this update online