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If the recent events in Pakistan are any indication, the Taliban is far from dead, and the place from where Al Qaida may rise again is between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There are some who take Nostradamus seriously, and though I am not one of them, I can not but agree with them that war on Iraq is just a small battle in a much larger conflict. What begun as 9/11 was thought to have been solved with attack on Taliban in Afghanistan, but the subsequent events have raised very very serious questions about the way this whole thing is being comprehended. Today, Iraq is burning, Iran is threatening and Afghanistan remains on the edge. If that is not enough, we have surging Islamic terrorists not only in countries like Thailand and Philippines, but also in many Islamic countries as well.

It is time to reconsider if our focus has left a blind spot somewhere. Right after 9/11, everybody knew that Afghanistan was the center of those threatening US and Anglo-Saxon civilization in the name of Islam. In subsequent years. Taliban was displaced but could not be destroyed, and inadvertently the root of the problem was left to survive. What we are seeing today are some signs of its renewed growth and spread.

Afghanistan's geo-political location makes it the single most important place in the world. It is a bridge between two Muslim civilizations. On its West is the whole of Middle East, the heart of Islamic culture, the holy places, and the major petro reserves that directly or indirectly finance the anti US terrorist groups too. On its East live the majority of largely liberal Muslim populations of the world, in South Asia and South East Asia. Afghanistan is the bridge between the two not only in terms of culture but also in terms of ideologies, sentiments and identities. Its militant history since the invasion of Alexander in fourth century BC makes it a unique bastion of courage, resistance and determination, qualities that are being brilliantly exploited today in the name of religion. No wonder then, that even after the devastation it faced post 9/11, Afghanistan continues to serve as the headquarters for all such forces.

The new center of gravity in this struggle has now emerged at the Afghan Pakistan border, and engulfed the North West Frontier Province. Events in the recent past show how little control any government has in this region, and how much the Taliban have rejuvenated. While they keep a low profile, and improve their networks with the rest of the world, both on East and West, the threats to US and many other countries in the world continue to rise. They can not attack US, but with their networks, it is next to impossible to prevent them from infiltrating. They have mastered the art of proxy war just too well. The only way to dislodge them is an all out open attack, for which military offensive will only be a small part. The main target need to be the networks created by them.

It is not that Iraq is not important, but violence there is running today in the form of a self-sustaining vicious cycle of destruction, that is receiving its impetus from outside. Fighting the symptoms may be important, but attacking the root cause is always the most effective strategy.

Learn more about this author, V. Kumar.
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