Now, Corbyn’s challengers are fighting each other in Labour contest

LONDON : Two candidates seeking to take on Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn in a leadership contest – Angela Eagle and Owen Smith – battled each other on Sunday, each claiming higher support than the other.

Eagle and Smith appeared on Sunday television to set out their vision for the party and the country, including on Brexit. The official Labour position was for Britain should remain in the EU, but Corbyn was flayed for allegedly not campaigning strongly enough for it.

Wednesday is the deadline for the nominations for the contest, with Corbyn already on the ballot paper as one of the candidates. His rivals, however, insist that he, like other candidates, should be supported by at least 51 party MPs, which he cannot be sure of, given last week's no-confidence motion against him.

The three could go ahead for a vote of Labour members, registered supporters and union affiliates. Eagle and Smith are keen to whittle the choice down to Corbyn and one opponent.

“I think one of us standing would be better, is the honest answer,” Smith told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “But I think the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) has got to be a grown-up organisation and come to a decision in the next couple of days as to who it is.” Asked if the party should pick its leader based on who had more nominations, Smith said: “That’s one way in which we could do it.” HTC TORONTO: Interactions between a Canada-based terrorism expert and jihadis fighting in Iraq and Syria have thrown up a hitherto unknown aspect of Indian fighters – many of them gravitate towards an al Qaeda affiliate and not the Islamic State, perceived as global jihad’s sexy beast.

Amarnath Amarasingam, a fellow with George Washington University’s Programme on Extremism, has contacted close to 100 jihadis in the conflict zone since late 2014.

Of those, he has interviewed nearly 40, and about half a dozen were from India.

Amarasingam found almost all the Indians he interviewed had joined the Jabhat al-Nusra, which is affiliated to al Qaeda and fell out with IS.

“IS is the sexy topic for most people who are watching this stuff. And anyone leaving their home country to go to Syria, people just assume they’re going to join IS. But a lot of people are drawn to Nusra because it’s al Qaeda in Syria, it’s carrying the torch of Osama bin Laden and carrying the torch of the original movement,” Amarasingam told Hindustan Times.

There is also the sense that Nusra offers the “purest form” of jihad as against Islamic State, which is “a bit more theologically corrupted”. According to the latest estimates, nearly 50 Indians have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with jihadi groups, including 21 cases that recently came to light in Kerala.

At least six Indians have