Skype, Gmail get a reprieve... for now;
Clipping Sechin's (and Putin's) wings

A pipeline to China on the horizon;
For FSB target, some long-delayed justice

Pakistan plays a triple game...; As the U.S. scales back pressure on Islamabad; AQ takes a backseat in Afghanistan; Pentagon report touches on China-India conflict

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the U.S.-India partnership is losing momentum under President Barack Obama’s stewardship.  Fortifying the alliance was bound to be a secondary priority for any administration faced with a recession, a flagging war effort in Afghanistan, political stalemate in Iraq, stalled Middle East peace efforts, defiant pariah regimes in Iran and North Korea, and strategic tensions with China. Still, allowing the partnership to falter appears to have come easier to a president who never quite displayed George W. Bush’s zeal for the Indian-American relationship. To be sure, problems also exist on the Indian side. New Delhi has itself fallen into a form of post-honeymoon malaise, as the phase of grand political gestures gives way to tough technical negotiations. However, rather than mitigate the downside of this difficult period, the Obama administration is pursuing an agenda that further complicates it and, in doing so, risks some of the tremendous gains made in U.S.-India relations over the past decade.

Israel and Lebanon clash at the border; Arming the Saudis; Terror title shifts to South Asia; IMU leader Yuldashev dead

New missile bases expand China's reach; Chinese media censorship "increasingly tight"

That a Pakistani-born U.S. national was responsible for the latest attempted terrorist attack on U.S. soil should come as little surprise. Pakistan has stood, almost unchallenged, at the epicenter of global terrorism for the post-9/11 era. Individuals or groups based in Pakistan have been involved in the majority of planned attacks on Western nations since 2001 and the country has played a critical role in the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Finally, nuclear-armed Pakistan maintains a network of Islamist militant groups focused on targeting India and is now host to a ferocious Islamist insurrection of its own; an insurgency that is now more deadly than those in either Iraq or Afghanistan. In short, no discussion of counterterrorism is complete without an examination of Pakistan and its role in Western terror attacks, the Afghan War, and its own attempts to combat domestic terrorism.

New U.S. base in northern Afghanistan?; Pak cracks down on Punjabi Taliban, sort of; India considers beefing up border presence even more; Headley tells India ISI involved in Mumbai

Back in the USSR;
Umarov: public enemy number one

Iraq seeks info on Iran nuke sites; Turkey beats back PKK, with U.S. help; AQAP tries its hand at western media, targets Yemen gov.; Tajikistan's lonely airbase