It was a timely warning that must be heeded, as a matter of priority, if the troubled countries of this region are to successfully come out of their present predicament. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who paid a day-long visit to Pakistan, said at flood-affected Mehmood Kot, Muzaffargarh, on Wednesday, that there were hidden powers behind the acts of terrorism in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, and he provided the right answer: Unity. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif, who were present on the occasion, expressed their happiness at the friendship existing between the Turkish and Pakistani people and the generous assistance Turkey had given to help tide over the flood-related crisis here. One would be hard put to question the point Mr Erdogan underlined, that in unity lay the secret of strength needed to face the global and regional challenges. Afghanistan, blighted by the invasion of neo-imperialist powers, is going through a most chaotic experience, with foreign forces hopelessly trying to snuff out the tough local resistance. The USA, leading the pack of NATO and other Western countries, sees the writing on the wall, but its superpower ego would feel hurt without an honourable exit, and its greed for natural resources of foreign lands would envisage a post-occupation hold on Afghanistan that, however, lends it a faade of independence. Pakistan, bearing the fall-out of its ill-advised participation in the so-called war on terror, is in bad shape as well, marred by suicide bombings, lawlessness, economic meltdown, corruption, and rank mismanagement. Having brought down on it the curse of terrorism, the USA is casting an evil eye on its nuclear assets. Irans efforts at peaceful nuclear development have caused a hue and cry among the USA and its allies, which intentionally twist the nature of its programme to present it as a ploy for developing nuclear weapons, and have imposed uncalled-for sanctions on it and threatened it with dire consequences unless it stopped the enrichment process. Turkey, the least insecure on account of economic advancement and better management of internal threats, nevertheless faces acts of terrorism and foreign pressures that tend to inhibit its progress. It is not lost on impartial observers of the region that all these countries happen to be Muslim and the forces ranged against them are either non-Muslim or abetted by them. And it should also be abundantly clear to the ruling classes of these countries that there could be no more effective course of action than to create unity among themselves to thwart these anti-Islamic machinations. They should begin with the task of finding a way to rid Afghanistan of foreign aggressors and a solution that appeals to the local people, and then launching a comprehensive policy of development geared to the common good of all of them and the rest of the Muslim world.