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:

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.

The Government of Bangladesh has recently accepted India’s proposal to set up a Joint Task Force to deal with militancy and other anti-national elements. However, modalities of the Task Force are yet to be decided. As of now, India will be assisting Bangladesh with intelligence inputs only without any direct involvement in any joint military operations to flush out militants taking shelter in Bangladesh.

Once again Indian cities are under terrorist radar and vulnerable to lethal attacks. In a matter of 24-hours two big cities -Bangalore, in the south and Ahmadabad, in the western part of the country were targeted. This shows the entrenched capability of the terrorists to carry out attacks on the urban centers and create mayhem by killing innocent people.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 resulted in a historic partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan. Pakistan emerged as a key ally of the U.S. in the global war to counter terrorism. Though barely realized, in February 2008 this war entered a new phase. The U.S. had thus far fought the war against terrorism with the support of the dictatorial regime of the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The parliamentary elections in Pakistan in February 2008 transferred political authority in favor of the democratically elected government.

The involvement of a number of Indians in the foiled UK terror plots of early July this year rang alarm bells in India. Are Indian Muslims being lured into al-Qaida's global jihad? Britons of Indian origin have been tied to al-Qaida in the past, including the Muslim convert Dhiren Barot and Haroon Aswat, the alleged mastermind of the 21/7 bomb attacks. Unlike these Qaida predecessors, Kafeel Ahmed, one of the Glasgow car bombers, was born and raised in large part in India, in the booming hi-tech city of Bangalore.

One of the most dreaded terrorist groups in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is presently facing a leadership crisis. The arrest of two of its most prominent leaders, Abu Dujana and Zarkasih (also known as Yusron Mahmudi and Abu Irsyad respectively) has jeopardized JI’s future plans in the region. Of late, JI has faced the wrath of the anti–terrorist initiatives by the Indonesian government duly supported by other Southeast Asian neighbours as well as Australia.