Current News Blog

Don’t say the magazine industry is dead yet – there’s still some space left for expansion – like into the world of international terrorism.

Neal Ungerleider at True/Slant found this gem of jihadi literature online. It’s a dense 73 pages and is titled “The Echo of Battle”. (Maybe the magazine industry just needs to work on its titling?) Interestingly, it seems to feature a lot of discussions of movement philosophy as well as some very charming stock imagery:

Get your own copy over here.

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Just yesterday we posted about the eighth anniversary of the start of the war, and here we are today posting about a suicide bombing in Kabul killing 17.

From the Guardian:

A suicide bomb exploded outside the Indian embassy in Kabul this morning, killing 17 people and wounding dozens.

The force of the rush-hour blast flattened walls and rattled windows up to a mile away. Television news footage showed soldiers and passersby pulling a severed leg from a destroyed vehicle.

The Afghanistan interior ministry, which is based in the same road as the Indian embassy, confirmed that 15 civilians and two Afghan police officers were killed. Officials said at least 76 people were wounded.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the explosion and confirmed that the embassy was the target.

It’s not really news that security in Kabul is shaky. I do find it interesting that this is the second time the Indian Embassy in Kabul has been targeted. It is, perhaps, a good reminder of who supported the Taliban in its early days: Pakistan. And raises the question (on purpose?) of whether or not Pakistan’s spy agency the ISI is still secretly supporting their efforts.

Leave your comment on Current News over here.

Also from the Afghanistan War group:
- Afghanistan Wednesday: Obama and Congress, Taliban and Public Support – From the News blog
- Fighting IEDs with advertising: Mad Men in Afghanistan? – On Current News
- Afghanistan’s Presidential Election (Video) – On Current News

It’s been nearly a year since Pakistani militants’ deadly attacks on Mumbai, and the NY Times reports that the group responsible, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is still alive and kicking.

Despite pledges from Pakistan to dismantle militant groups operating on its soil, and the arrest of a handful of operatives, Lashkar has persisted, even flourished, since 10 recruits killed 163 people in a rampage through Mumbai, India’s financial capital, last November.

Indian and Pakistani dossiers on the Mumbai investigations, copies of which were obtained by The New York Times, offer a detailed picture of the operations of a Lashkar network that spans Pakistan. It included four houses and two training camps here in this sprawling southern port city [Karachi] that were used to prepare the attacks.

Not great news for India or for India’s testy relationship with its neighbor, Pakistan. The NYTimes also points out that the influence of the group could hurt coalition efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan has become the fulcrum of a lot of the battle against international terror, what with the remnants of Al Qaeda in its Northwest Frontier Province, and being the home base for the Mumbai attacks of last year. But is Pakistan doing enough to combat terror? Is the ISI, the country’s spy agency, secretly backing some of these groups? Or does the government have enough power to effectively fight terror?

Related from Current:
- Terror in Mumbai (Video) – Video from last year’s attacks
- Our Close Ally? (Video) – Vanguard’s Adam Yamaguchi investigates how the US fares in the eyes of Pakistanis