What is Gordon Brown's 'line of terror'?

The British PM's new term for explaining foreign policy is more nuanced than George Bush's 'axis of evil'

Gordon Brown meets with his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Gilani, at Islamabad Prime Minister House, in Islamabad, Pakistan. Photograph: Olivier Matthys/EPA

Gordon Brown's repeated references at the weekend to what he calls "a line of terror" through the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, via Europe to Britain, is his latest formula for explaining why his foreign policy focus is increasingly moving east.

Critically, unlike George Bush's "axis of evil", Brown's line or chain of terror – a process he describes stretching from the training camps of Pakistan, from where jihadis flow across the porous border into Afghanistan to fight British troops, and potentially through Europe to commit terrorist atrocities closer to home – incorporates states he regards as potential allies as well as threats, chiefly Pakistan.

The recent Mumbai terror attacks exposed the complex interconnectedness of the fate of the three countries Brown is visiting on this whirlwind tour: Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.

The Pakistani group suspected of being behind the atrocities, Lashkar-e-Taiba, were originally formed in Afghanistan but cultivated and funded by the Pakistani intelligence services.

So the latest attacks severely strained what had been improving relations between Delhi and Islamabad – raising the possibility that Pakistan will now be distracted from its battle with the Taliban along the Afghan border as it turns to tackle a potential threat from its old foe, India.

The higher the tensions between these two countries, the less likely Pakistan – once judged by Washington its most important ally in the war on terror, above Britain – is to assist the western battle with the Taliban.

Barack Obama's suggestion that resolving the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir – a festering grievance which has helped radicalise some southeast Asian Muslims – will be one of his key foreign policy priorities suggests he also recognises the dangers now erupting in this region.

And Brown has an extra strategic interest given concerns over the number of young radicalised British Muslism travelling to Pakistan to train in jihad.

Add in a global recession which requires a stable and prosperous India to bolster flagging western economies, and a Pakistani economy that has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in recent months, and it is not hard to see why this region is suddenly of intense interest to Brown. His visit will be portrayed a recognition that no one side of this toxic triangle of countries can be tackled in isolation and that political and economic as well as military solutions will be required.

It is also an attempt to bolster support for the military operation in Afghanistan by arguing that containing the Taliban there will disrupt the so-called line of terror and benefit other links in the chain, inluding Britons fearing domestic terrorist attack.

referred: Gurdian My News Adda