On May 25 an explosion was reported outside the Delhi High Court in the scorching heat of the afternoon. It led to terror and fear amongst the people and without delay authorities set off high alert in the capital and tighten the security at public places. This has been the scene after every blast. Fortunately, no one was injured. May 25 blast was the second in the preceding eight months that happened on September 19, 2010. Many security measures were taken and made sure that further no such explosions would take place.
The newly unveiled U.S. Nuclear Posture Review focuses on five key objectives; one of them is preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. The report underscores nuclear terrorism as ‘today’s most immediate and extreme danger.”
What is Nuclear Terrorism and how serious is the threat? Is it an overrated nightmare? Some facts here:
Very often western observers play down the existence and influence of Pakistan based Lashkar- e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami inside Bangladesh’s territory. Investigations into number of terror strikes in Bangladesh occurred between May 2004 and December 2005 have revealed, rather unearthed, a lethal nexus between these two Pakistan based terror groups and couple of mainstream political parties (Pro-Islamic Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in Bangladesh. It also revealed how they teamed up to score a political point by assassinating rival political leaders.
Religious target Killings in Pakistan reached a new low on Wednesday (March 02) when Pakistani federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated by pro Taliban elements in the capital city of Islamabad.
The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001 shocked the international community. Terrorism, which by and large was considered a phenomena limited to Middle east and South Asia, was threatening the worlds most rich and powerful — the United States. The initial response to these terrorist acts was a knee-jerk military attack led by the US on the bases of al-Qaeda and its host Taliban in Afghanistan.
India’s External Affairs Minister, Mr Natwar Singh, while attending the ASEAN - plus 3 meetings and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Jakarta in July 2004, had noted that India was ready to provide security in the Malacca Straits and stressed that it was in India's national interest to ensure that the Strait remained a crime-free sea-lane.
The dwindling Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) Karnataka State Committee may get fresh issue to revive and consolidate after Arcelor Mittal and POSCO’s interest for investments in that State. Land acquisition, displacement and minority issues may dominate their agenda. Recent Industrialization programme in the state could be a major issue for the Maoists to seek public support. The Karantaka State government has decided to acquire one lakh acres of land in June 2009 in and around all the second tier cities excluding around 2,000 acres adjoining Bangalore.
Three names have been doing the rounds in India these days: Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, David Coleman Headley (a.k.a Dauod Geelani) and Tahawur Hussein Rana; one hard core veteran Jehadi and two motivated ‘would be’ terrorists. They are in the news for plotting major assaults in India. Among them, Ilyas Kashmiri who was rumored to be dead early this year, in fact survived three drone attacks in Pakistan’s Waziristan region, belongs to the Al Qaeda- Harkat-Ul- Jihad- Al-Islami (HuJI) lineage and heads Al Qaeda’s deadly 311 brigade. He still carries a head money of US $ 600,000 dollars.
Of late, the menace of computer ‘hacking’ has become a punishable offense when it compromises national security. Of course not all acts of hacking will be amounting to terrorism, and sometime used as a tool for pranks or profit. This could be regarded as terrorist action only if the hacking is designed to disrupt government’s activities, or to advance anti- national causes, or to intimidate its citizens. Either a threat or real use of it, is a potential act of terrorism, or rather can be regarded as cyber-crime or cyber-terrorism in a broader context.