October 11, 2005: In some of the more remote parts of India, the government is having some success in dismantling Maoist networks. In Chhattisgarh, 27 Maoists surrendered because of the increasing hostility of local tribes.
October 10, 2005: Eight U.S. helicopters arrived in Pakistan from Afghanistan. Pakistan also withdrew many of its American made helicopters from the Afghan border, for relief efforts in the northeast. This will make it easier for the Taliban and Islamic terrorists to operate along the Afghan border.
October 9, 2005: At first, Pakistan refused disaster aid from India, but later reconsidered and accepted. This will help peace negotiations between the two countries. It remains to be seen if the earthquake will shut down the Islamic terrorist camps in Pakistani Kashmir. Reporters cannot get very close to those camps in the best of times, and it may be a while before any news of damage to the camps gets out.
October 8, 2005: A massive earthquake hit northeast Pakistan, particularly the Pakistani portion of Kashmir, where the center of the quake was. The Indian portion of Kashmir, to the south, was hurt much less, with about a thousand fatalities. At least 30,000 people were killed in Pakistan, with nearly three million made homeless. There will be military implications to this. Last year, the devastating earthquake and tidal waves were instrumental to the peace deal in Aceh, Indonesia. But there, the portion of the population hurt by the disaster was several times what it is in Pakistan. Last December's tidal waves also had an impact on the Sri Lankan civil war and the Islamic terrorism in Thailand. Neither of these two nations saw an impact as dramatic as in Aceh.
Maoists set off a roadside bomb in eastern India, killing 13 security personnel, and wounding ten.
October 7, 2005: In Pakistan, gunmen opened fire on a mosque belonging to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam. Eight people were killed and 18 wounded. Sunni Moslems consider the Ahmadiyya to be heretics, and Sunni radicals have attacked the Ahmadiyya before. Such religious violence is common in Pakistan, where Sunni conservatives are often violent, and that is why al Qaeda found such a large pool of recruits in Pakistan.
