GOA, India: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi branded Pakistan a “mother-ship of terrorism” at a summit of the BRICS nations on Sunday, testing the cohesion of a group whose heavyweight member China is a close ally of its South Asian arch-rival.
Modi’s remarks to a meeting of leaders from the BRICS — which include Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa — escalated his diplomatic drive to isolate Pakistan, which India accuses of sponsoring cross-border terrorism.
Tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors has escalated since a Sept. 18 attack on an army base in Kashmir, near the disputed frontier with Pakistan, killed 19 Indian soldiers in the worst such assault in 14 years.
India later said it had carried out retaliatory “surgical strikes” across the de facto border that inflicted significant casualties. Pakistan denied any role in the attack on the Uri army base, and said the Indian operation had not even happened, dismissing it as typical cross-border firing.
“In our own region, terrorism poses a grave threat to peace, security and development,” Modi said in his remarks to BRICS leaders who met at a resort hotel in the western state of Goa.
“Tragically, the mother-ship of terrorism is a country in India’s neighborhood,” the 66-year-old prime minister said, without directly naming Pakistan, in a series of tweets issued by the foreign ministry.
No immediate reaction was available from Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
Modi’s posturing overshadowed the gathering of leaders of a group originally set up to boost economic cooperation. It followed a productive bilateral summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Saturday that yielded billions of dollars in defense and energy deals.
The BRICS leaders had donned brightly colored sleeveless jackets, of a style made popular by India’s first post-independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, for an informal dinner on Saturday evening.
They were due later on Sunday to hold an outreach session with leaders from a little-known group of countries from the Bay of Bengal region whose key attribute, from India’s point of view, is that Pakistan is not a member.
Lack of strategic restraint
Modi’s hard line against Pakistan marks a departure from India’s tradition of strategic restraint, and New Delhi has won expressions of support from both the West and Russia over the army base attack.
Yet China, a longstanding ally of Pakistan that plans to build a $46 billion export corridor, has shown public restraint.
Modi and President Xi Jinping also held a bilateral meeting on Saturday and the accounts of their conversation emerging from both sides pointed to key differences of opinion.
In one remark reported by the state Xinhua news agency, Xi said that China and India should “support each other in participating in regional affairs and enhance cooperation within multilateral frameworks.”
The dispatch went on to refer to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). This grouping includes Pakistan, which was to have hosted a summit in November that collapsed after India and other members pulled out.
The final BRICS summit declaration was expected to repeat earlier condemnations of “terrorism in all its forms,” say diplomats and analysts, but avoid leveling blame over tensions between India and Pakistan.
“Modi is aware that such language wouldn’t get the consensus necessary to make it into the final communique. Including it in his speech ensures it gets wide circulation anyway,” said South Asia expert Shashank Joshi.
“So far, we haven’t seen any indication at all that China is softening its public support for Pakistan. India did not expect differently,” added Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
(Additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Islamabad)
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Pakistan a 'mother-ship of terrorism', Modi says at BRICS summit
Pakistan a 'mother-ship of terrorism', Modi says at BRICS summit
Mexico’s violence-hit Guadalajara to host World Cup games
GUADALAJARA: The city of Guadalajara erupted with cartel violence this past weekend, alongside other parts of Mexico, after an army raid left a notorious drug lord dead.
Now, Guadalajara is looking ahead nervously to the World Cup this summer, in which it will host four games.
Authorities are turning to technology to keep its slice of the planet’s premier sporting event safe, as Mexico is co-hosting the tournament with the United States and Canada.
Drones, anti-drone equipment and AI-driven video surveillance systems are some of the tools the state government of Jalisco — of which Guadalajara is the capital — will deploy to provide security.
The preparations come as Jalisco endures an epidemic of disappearances and the discoveries of clandestine graves, with Guadalajara having more of its residents go missing due to brutal drug-related violence than any other city in Mexico.
On Sunday, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of the most wanted men in Mexico and the United States, was killed in a military operation some 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Guadalajara.
The cartel reacted with fury, triggering gunfire with security forces that left at least 57 people dead across Mexico — both soldiers and cartel members — as well as highway blockades in 20 states.
Following the burning of buses and businesses, authorities suspended football games in Guadalajara and the central state of Queretaro.
Football’s world governing body FIFA declined to comment on the violence in one of the cup’s host cities.
On Monday, the streets of Guadalajara remained semi-empty, as businesses stayed shut as classes were suspended in Jalisco. Schools also shut down in a dozen other states.
Days before, state security officials had reported that Guadalajara was “peaceful.”
- ‘Grotesque situation’ -
Jalisco is one of the states with the most disappeared people in all of Mexico, with 12,575 reported missing, according to official statistics. More than half of the cases come from Guadalajara’s metropolitan area.
Disappearances are driven by forced recruitment for criminal groups, said Carmen Chinas, an academic at the University of Guadalajara.
Family members of disappeared people have unearthed hundreds of clandestine graves as they look for their loved ones.
Some activists have expressed dismay over Guadalajara’s hosting of the World Cup.
“I don’t think there is anything to celebrate. It seems like a pretty grotesque situation to me,” said 26-year-old Carmen Ponce, whose brother Victor Hugo was disappeared in 2020.
“The country celebrates goals while we are here searching,” she said at a field where last September she and her mother found buried plastic bags containing the remains of five people.
People are also jittery about hosting World Cup games in a city that has been through so much.
Juan Carlos Contreras, who oversees the city’s security camera network, told AFP there could be protests by residents furious with the government as they search for their missing loved ones.
- ‘Economic blow’ -
Missael Robles, a 31-year-old tour guide from Guadalajara, told AFP that he’s canceled as many as 25 tours since the Oseguera violence exploded on Sunday.
“The economic blow is a big deal,” he added.
Authorities have discovered properties used by criminal groups just a few kilometers from the Akron stadium which is due to host World Cup games.
Less than two kilometers (one mile) from the sporting complex, the state prosecutor’s office raided a house and arrested two people accused of kidnapping.
AFP saw chains wrapped around metal bars in the abandoned building, with the Akron stadium visible in the distance.
Jose Raul Servin, who has been looking for his son Raul since he disappeared in April of 2018, fears that tourists coming for the World Cup could be preyed on by crime gangs.
“We don’t want anything to happen,” he said, “like what’s happened to us.”
Servin remembers with nostalgia that his son was a football fan. “If he were here, he would be happy about the World Cup,” he said.
Now, Guadalajara is looking ahead nervously to the World Cup this summer, in which it will host four games.
Authorities are turning to technology to keep its slice of the planet’s premier sporting event safe, as Mexico is co-hosting the tournament with the United States and Canada.
Drones, anti-drone equipment and AI-driven video surveillance systems are some of the tools the state government of Jalisco — of which Guadalajara is the capital — will deploy to provide security.
The preparations come as Jalisco endures an epidemic of disappearances and the discoveries of clandestine graves, with Guadalajara having more of its residents go missing due to brutal drug-related violence than any other city in Mexico.
On Sunday, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of the most wanted men in Mexico and the United States, was killed in a military operation some 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Guadalajara.
The cartel reacted with fury, triggering gunfire with security forces that left at least 57 people dead across Mexico — both soldiers and cartel members — as well as highway blockades in 20 states.
Following the burning of buses and businesses, authorities suspended football games in Guadalajara and the central state of Queretaro.
Football’s world governing body FIFA declined to comment on the violence in one of the cup’s host cities.
On Monday, the streets of Guadalajara remained semi-empty, as businesses stayed shut as classes were suspended in Jalisco. Schools also shut down in a dozen other states.
Days before, state security officials had reported that Guadalajara was “peaceful.”
- ‘Grotesque situation’ -
Jalisco is one of the states with the most disappeared people in all of Mexico, with 12,575 reported missing, according to official statistics. More than half of the cases come from Guadalajara’s metropolitan area.
Disappearances are driven by forced recruitment for criminal groups, said Carmen Chinas, an academic at the University of Guadalajara.
Family members of disappeared people have unearthed hundreds of clandestine graves as they look for their loved ones.
Some activists have expressed dismay over Guadalajara’s hosting of the World Cup.
“I don’t think there is anything to celebrate. It seems like a pretty grotesque situation to me,” said 26-year-old Carmen Ponce, whose brother Victor Hugo was disappeared in 2020.
“The country celebrates goals while we are here searching,” she said at a field where last September she and her mother found buried plastic bags containing the remains of five people.
People are also jittery about hosting World Cup games in a city that has been through so much.
Juan Carlos Contreras, who oversees the city’s security camera network, told AFP there could be protests by residents furious with the government as they search for their missing loved ones.
- ‘Economic blow’ -
Missael Robles, a 31-year-old tour guide from Guadalajara, told AFP that he’s canceled as many as 25 tours since the Oseguera violence exploded on Sunday.
“The economic blow is a big deal,” he added.
Authorities have discovered properties used by criminal groups just a few kilometers from the Akron stadium which is due to host World Cup games.
Less than two kilometers (one mile) from the sporting complex, the state prosecutor’s office raided a house and arrested two people accused of kidnapping.
AFP saw chains wrapped around metal bars in the abandoned building, with the Akron stadium visible in the distance.
Jose Raul Servin, who has been looking for his son Raul since he disappeared in April of 2018, fears that tourists coming for the World Cup could be preyed on by crime gangs.
“We don’t want anything to happen,” he said, “like what’s happened to us.”
Servin remembers with nostalgia that his son was a football fan. “If he were here, he would be happy about the World Cup,” he said.
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