[EN] Asia Trends #1 – The Challenge of Terrorism in South Asia: national and transnational Dimensions – Jean-Luc Racine

Terrorism in South Asia is a multifaceted reality, which has developed in practically all countries of an area whose population is estimated at 1,7 billion. Before radical Muslim groups turned to terrorism, separatist movements have drifted eventually from guerrilla insurgencies to terror attacks. Suicide bombings, for instance, were first carried out by the ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’ in Sri Lanka and in India, most of them having a Hindu background. Insurgent groups from Northeast India followed basically an ethno-political agenda. The Maoist insurgents called Naxalites, defined by the then Indian Prime Minister as “the biggest threat to national security”, are still active in Central India tribal hills, and have also been branded as “terrorists”. We know the limitations of such a qualification which tends to either blur the fact that those depicted as ‘terrorists’ by one side might be called ‘freedom fighters’ by the other side or by those backing them, as observed for decades in Kashmir….