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| India-Pakistan |
| Maldives Wants U.S. to Help It Fight Terrorism |
| 2015-09-30 |
| [BLOOMBERGVIEW] The Maldives is calling on the United States to help it respond to an attack on its president, potentially opening the newest front in the war on terror. President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom on Sunday narrowly escaped an kaboom on his boat. His wife was injured. Investigators have converged on the island nation in the Indian Ocean to determine whether the blast is related to organized terrorism. The government is already rethinking its security and defense practices; brass hats say terrorist recruiting has been on the rise there. Maldivian Foreign Secretary Ali Naseer Mohammed told me Tuesday that officials are still piecing together what happened. "No group has grabbed credit," he said. "But we believe it was an attack directed to the president. That's the first time the president has been attacked in that way." Ali was in the United States this week for the UN General Assembly, and he said his government has been tracking an increased flow of its citizens traveling to Iraq and Syria to fight there, at least 40 so far. Some are coming back to the Maldives. "That is actually the biggest threat that we face as a nation-state and as a society. That is our biggest fear," he said. "And that's where our security forces are finding quite a challenge." An unidentified Islamic Death Eater group last month threatened terrorist attacks and attacks against the president in a YouTube video that featured the flag of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... . But Ali said that until this week, there had been no credible information that any terrorist group was operating in the Maldives. Now the government is reevaluating that. "Some of the terrorist groups operating in South Asia and the Middle East have been able to penetrate to certain individuals," he said. "We know Maldivians are being recruited. Social media is they key instrument being used." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Obama requests the Argies take the lead since they claim them |
| Posted by: Frank G 2015-09-30 21:10 |
| #3 Send advisors with seawater monies pls. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-09-30 16:49 |
| #2 I think the "Dear Mister President Reagan" in the salutatory was the give-away. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-09-30 08:19 |
| #1 President Gayoom hasn't been keeping up with recent events, has he? |
| Posted by: Raj 2015-09-30 00:16 |