portal of the news

Taliban Target: Scholars of Islam By MUJIB MASHAL and JAWAD SUKHANYAR New York Times, MAY 28, 2017 TOGH-BAIRDI, Afghanistan — A lone grave, its dirt mound shaded under the drooping branches of a mulberry tree and kept adorned with flowers, has become a daily stop for seminary students and staff members near Togh-Bairdi, in northern Afghanistan. It is the burial site of Mawlawi Shah Agha

Who are the new jihadis? Biographies of ‘homegrown’ European terrorists show they are violent nihilists who adopt Islam, rather than religious fundamentalists who turn to violence by Olivier Roy There is something new about the jihadi terrorist violence of the past two decades. Both terrorism and jihad have existed for many years, and forms of “globalised” terror – in which highly symbolic

I am returning to active blogging after a few years in response to requests from some loyal followers. The purpose remains educational in focus and I hope to use this medium to alert my students and other followers about informative and insightful publications on South and South West Asia besides occasional updates about my own writings, travel reports and events.