This week marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the US. For those too young to remember—or born after them—the significance may be difficult to grasp. It was the day the world confronted a stark reality: terrorism planned in one corner of the world could strike innocents thousands of miles away.

Almost exactly a year earlier, on 14 September 2000, India’s then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had warned the US Congress of precisely this risk. He said: “As many of you here in the Congress have in recent hearings recognized a stark fact: no region is a greater source of terrorism than our neighborhood. Indeed, in our neighborhood, in this, the 21st century, religious war has not just been fashioned into, it has been proclaimed to be, an instrument of State policy. Distance offers no insulation. It should not cause complacence. You know and I know such evil cannot succeed. But even in failing, it could inflict untold suffering.”

The warning was prescient. India, which had faced terrorism for decades, knew that geography offered no protection. Yet 9/11 showed the world the scale of the threat.

Twenty-five years on, there is still limited acknowledgement of the toll terrorism has taken on India. Pakistan, the source of terrorism directed against India, has reinvented itself as a peacemaker. It’s the country where in May 2011, the US hunted down Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda ideologue and main mastermind of 9/11. One of the biggest ironies of the situation, make of that what you will.

Another irony is the contrast in international solidarity. The world rallied behind the US after 9/11. Twenty-five years later, that cohesion is far weaker, thanks to US President Donald Trump’s offensive unilateralism.

The wars and upheavals that followed 9/11 also reshaped West Asia: the US war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the rise of Islamic State in the vacuum that followed, the continued threat from al-Qaeda and the turmoil unleashed by the 2011 Arab Spring. Together, these developments have helped shape the region’s current conflicts.

New front in West Asia

The Yemen-based Houthis, seen as aligned with Iran, have reportedly seized the strategic island of Perim (also known as Mayun) in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. If the Houthis gain full control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from ‌the Strait of Hormuz, it would give Iran an upper hand in the war with the US. It would cripple oil supplies through the second major transit corridor, spiking prices. So far, Saudi Arabia had relied on the Red Sea route to export oil, that had kept prices in check.

The development also poses a dilemma for Mecca Pact signatories – Pakistan and Turkey, besides Saudi Arabia. The pact says an attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all.

According to a Reuters report, Pakistani officials were worried that the Houthi threat was more likely to draw Islamabad into war than Iranian missile strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure. Houthi attacks in southern Saudi Arabia had wounded at least 73, Al Jazeera said.

Perhaps it was this worry that prompted Pakistan to deliver a Saudi warning to Iran, urging it to rein in its Yemeni Houthi allies, sources told Reuters. Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir called Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi to discuss "ways to restore diplomatic efforts to de-escalate on all fronts." Quite a predicament for Pakistan.

Could this development complicate the prospect of a joint statement at the Brics summit this weekend in New Delhi? Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE are members of the bloc now.

Israel faces pressure

Israel’s closest allies in the West together announced sanctions on the Jewish state for plans to expand West Bank settlements. It’s something President Donald Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio, have, surprisingly, not condemned.

The trigger seems to be Israel opening up tenders for some 1,200 new settlement homes in an area east of Jerusalem.

The UK then announced the sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing the Israeli government of turning a blind eye to the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians by settlers. Foreign secretary Ed Miliband said the move marked the "beginning of a new approach" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The UK sanctions will also affect companies and individuals providing services for settlement expansion. The UK’s move synchronised with measures announced by France and Canada. All three said the action "marks a further turning point in our approach to protecting the two-state solution." Besides this, nine other countries, including Denmark, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden, in a separate statement said they supported a negotiated two-state settlement - Palestinian state co-existing peacefully alongside Israel.

Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, responded with counter-measures, including shutting the UK's consulate in East Jerusalem. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister and chief settlement promoter, suggested Israel should expel the British ambassador, the New York Times reported. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said Israel should recognize that the Falkland Islands, a British territory in the south Atlantic, belonged to Argentina.

Germany’s far right gains ground

The week also brought bad news for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) notching up a major electoral victory in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The reverberations of the win are being felt across Europe.

For the uninitiated, the AfD is anti-immigration; it has been described as xenophobic and extremist. These labels have been trashed by AfD’s 35-year-old leader, Ulrich Siegmund. The party was founded in 2013 in response to then German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Euro policies; she advocated fiscal austerity and structural reforms to keep the Eurozone intact. Merkel’s 2015 open-door policy for refugees contributed to the growth of the AfD.

AfD's policies include a "remigration" plan, i.e., mass deportation of migrants. The party says it will only deport criminals and illegal migrants.

Sounds eerily similar to US President Donald Trump’s policies? Trump reportedly posted a screenshot of the AfD’s projected win on his Truth Social platform. Ahead of Germany's federal election last year, US Vice-President JD Vance endorsed the party, in a move criticised in Germany as political interference. On 9 September, Merz cancelled a planned phone call with Trump, after the US president publicly celebrated the AfD win.

Why is the win significant? For one, the German far right hasn’t governed a state since World War II. The AfD win opens a new chapter in Saxony-Anhalt state's politics. Once part of East Germany, the state voted for Merz’s Christian Democratic Union in the last parliamentary election.

Second, the AfD's win is seen as a reflection of Merz’s plunging popularity. The AfD is reported to be leading opinion polls nationally.

The AfD’s rise also signals an increasing preference for the right in European politics. Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told a party gathering in Madrid that the German result showed that “the extremist threat, largely thanks to the surrender of the traditional right, is gaining ground in Europe and in the world”. Similar sentiments came from ruling party politicians in Italy, France and Poland.

Russia celebrated the AfD win, with Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s presidential envoy praising a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD”. The AfD is seen as pro-Kremlin and has called for an end to aid for Ukraine and to refugee status for Ukrainians.

What does it mean for India? A strong and popular AfD could mean pressure to restrict the number of students coming to Germany for education. It could also squeeze opportunities for skilled migrant labour from India. The party’s rise, therefore, warrants close attention in New Delhi.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the US. For those too young to remember—or born after them—the significance may be difficult to grasp. It was the day the world confronted a stark reality: terrorism planned in one corner of the world could strike innocents thousands of miles away.

Almost exactly a year earlier, on 14 September 2000, India’s then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had warned the US Congress of precisely this risk. He said: “As many of you here in the Congress have in recent hearings recognized a stark fact: no region is a greater source of terrorism than our neighborhood. Indeed, in our neighborhood, in this, the 21st century, religious war has not just been fashioned into, it has been proclaimed to be, an instrument of State policy. Distance offers no insulation. It should not cause complacence. You know and I know such evil cannot succeed. But even in failing, it could inflict untold suffering.”

The warning was prescient. India, which had faced terrorism for decades, knew that geography offered no protection. Yet 9/11 showed the world the scale of the threat.

Twenty-five years on, there is still limited acknowledgement of the toll terrorism has taken on India. Pakistan, the source of terrorism directed against India, has reinvented itself as a peacemaker. It’s the country where in May 2011, the US hunted down Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda ideologue and main mastermind of 9/11. One of the biggest ironies of the situation, make of that what you will.

Another irony is the contrast in international solidarity. The world rallied behind the US after 9/11. Twenty-five years later, that cohesion is far weaker, thanks to US President Donald Trump’s offensive unilateralism.

The wars and upheavals that followed 9/11 also reshaped West Asia: the US war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the rise of Islamic State in the vacuum that followed, the continued threat from al-Qaeda and the turmoil unleashed by the 2011 Arab Spring. Together, these developments have helped shape the region’s current conflicts.

New front in West Asia

The Yemen-based Houthis, seen as aligned with Iran, have reportedly seized the strategic island of Perim (also known as Mayun) in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. If the Houthis gain full control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from ‌the Strait of Hormuz, it would give Iran an upper hand in the war with the US. It would cripple oil supplies through the second major transit corridor, spiking prices. So far, Saudi Arabia had relied on the Red Sea route to export oil, that had kept prices in check.

The development also poses a dilemma for Mecca Pact signatories – Pakistan and Turkey, besides Saudi Arabia. The pact says an attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all.

According to a Reuters report, Pakistani officials were worried that the Houthi threat was more likely to draw Islamabad into war than Iranian missile strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure. Houthi attacks in southern Saudi Arabia had wounded at least 73, Al Jazeera said.

Perhaps it was this worry that prompted Pakistan to deliver a Saudi warning to Iran, urging it to rein in its Yemeni Houthi allies, sources told Reuters. Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir called Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi to discuss "ways to restore diplomatic efforts to de-escalate on all fronts." Quite a predicament for Pakistan.

Could this development complicate the prospect of a joint statement at the Brics summit this weekend in New Delhi? Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE are members of the bloc now.

Israel faces pressure

Israel’s closest allies in the West together announced sanctions on the Jewish state for plans to expand West Bank settlements. It’s something President Donald Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio, have, surprisingly, not condemned.

The trigger seems to be Israel opening up tenders for some 1,200 new settlement homes in an area east of Jerusalem.

The UK then announced the sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing the Israeli government of turning a blind eye to the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians by settlers. Foreign secretary Ed Miliband said the move marked the "beginning of a new approach" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The UK sanctions will also affect companies and individuals providing services for settlement expansion. The UK’s move synchronised with measures announced by France and Canada. All three said the action "marks a further turning point in our approach to protecting the two-state solution." Besides this, nine other countries, including Denmark, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden, in a separate statement said they supported a negotiated two-state settlement - Palestinian state co-existing peacefully alongside Israel.

Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, responded with counter-measures, including shutting the UK's consulate in East Jerusalem. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister and chief settlement promoter, suggested Israel should expel the British ambassador, the New York Times reported. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said Israel should recognize that the Falkland Islands, a British territory in the south Atlantic, belonged to Argentina.

Germany’s far right gains ground

The week also brought bad news for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) notching up a major electoral victory in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The reverberations of the win are being felt across Europe.

For the uninitiated, the AfD is anti-immigration; it has been described as xenophobic and extremist. These labels have been trashed by AfD’s 35-year-old leader, Ulrich Siegmund. The party was founded in 2013 in response to then German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Euro policies; she advocated fiscal austerity and structural reforms to keep the Eurozone intact. Merkel’s 2015 open-door policy for refugees contributed to the growth of the AfD.

AfD's policies include a "remigration" plan, i.e., mass deportation of migrants. The party says it will only deport criminals and illegal migrants.

Sounds eerily similar to US President Donald Trump’s policies? Trump reportedly posted a screenshot of the AfD’s projected win on his Truth Social platform. Ahead of Germany's federal election last year, US Vice-President JD Vance endorsed the party, in a move criticised in Germany as political interference. On 9 September, Merz cancelled a planned phone call with Trump, after the US president publicly celebrated the AfD win.

Why is the win significant? For one, the German far right hasn’t governed a state since World War II. The AfD win opens a new chapter in Saxony-Anhalt state's politics. Once part of East Germany, the state voted for Merz’s Christian Democratic Union in the last parliamentary election.

Second, the AfD's win is seen as a reflection of Merz’s plunging popularity. The AfD is reported to be leading opinion polls nationally.

The AfD’s rise also signals an increasing preference for the right in European politics. Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told a party gathering in Madrid that the German result showed that “the extremist threat, largely thanks to the surrender of the traditional right, is gaining ground in Europe and in the world”. Similar sentiments came from ruling party politicians in Italy, France and Poland.

Russia celebrated the AfD win, with Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s presidential envoy praising a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD”. The AfD is seen as pro-Kremlin and has called for an end to aid for Ukraine and to refugee status for Ukrainians.

What does it mean for India? A strong and popular AfD could mean pressure to restrict the number of students coming to Germany for education. It could also squeeze opportunities for skilled migrant labour from India. The party’s rise, therefore, warrants close attention in New Delhi.