The Taliban is ready to completely disown the Al Qaeda, and is willing to work with the United States to improve security in Afghanistan, a major report has disclosed.
The United States is set to give control of a controversial prison having nearly 3,000 Taliban rebels and terror suspects to the Afghan authorities.
A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officer in Afghanistan took about 45 minutes to notify a senior allied commander about Pakistan's calls that its outposts were under attack, according to new details of the probe into last month's air strike that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers.
Amid a deterioration in United States-Pakistan ties, China has assured Pakistan's political and militaryleadership of its support in maintaining sovereignty and internal stability and promised to help its 'trusted ally' play a bigger role in global and regional affairs.
Pakistani forces were "unusually accurate" as they fired shots on an Afghan-United States patrol on November 26, an American officer stationed in Afghanistan has said, providing new details about the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack that could put fresh strains on the already tattered US-Pak relations.
A high-level group of Afghan, Pakistani and American officials will meet on Thursday for the first time since September last year for talks on the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, including efforts to involve the Taliban in negotiations.
The Pakistan army on Sunday took over Shamsi airbase in the country's southwest after it was vacated by the United States forces in line with a deadline set by the government following a cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.
The Taliban once again made their intentions clear on Sunday, with spectacular coordinated attacks which resulted in an 18-hour battle with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan forces. With the looming political uncertainty, whispers of a civil war, the insurgents are well positioned to fill in the vacuum.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has summoned envoys in key world capitals for a meeting to review Pakistan's strategy on important foreign policy issues like the war on terrorism and relations with countries like the United States and India. Pakistan's envoys to the US, India, Afghanistan and several European countries are among those who have been asked to provide recommendations for forming strategies in the wake of the cross-border NATo raid.
Afghan security forces have killed all the Taliban attackers who unleashed a wave of coordinated suicide attacks targetting diplomatic area, NATO bases and the Parliament in Kabul, a top official said on Monday.
Pakistan boycotted the Bonn Conference to emphasise to the world community the importance of its sovereignty even though it wants peace and stability in Afghanistan, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said on Monday.
Heavily-armed Taliban suicide attackers on Sunday struck Afghanistan capital Kabul, with several explosions and gunfire rocking the diplomatic enclave as the militants took over a hotel and tried to enter the parliament.
Strongly condemning the Mumbai serial blasts, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has expressed his outrage at the killing of innocent civilians in the terror strike. "These attacks against innocent civilians are outrageous and on behalf of the Alliance, I want to express my sincere condolences to the Indian authorities and especially to the families of the victims," Rasmussen said.
Pakistan is refusing to participate in the United States-led probe into North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombing that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead along the Afghanistan border last week, the Pentagon has said.
With the most recent nosedive in United States-Pakistan relations in the aftermath of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, ironically, India-Pakistan relations seem to be on a more solid footing than the so-called US-Pakistan strategic partnership, said Thomas Donnelly, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who specialises in defence and security policy.
Just days after a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation airstrike on Pakistani border posts, another incident of "heavy artillery fire" between the two forces reportedly broke out early on Wednesday across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border but was "quickly defused" and there was no loss of life, according to a media report.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghanistan forces came under fire from across the Pakistan border before they called in a deadly air strike on two Pakistani military posts that left 24 soldiers dead, media reports quoted Afghan and western officials as saying.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack that killed 24 Pakistani troops has widened the US-Pak rift, according to a leading American daily, which said the Obama administration's regret and Islamabad's anger over the strike reflects a "deepening distrust" that gets harder to repair with each new confrontation.
The Pakistani military on Monday rejected the regret expressed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief for a cross-border air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and warned that the action could have "grave consequences".
Outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat leader Ahmed Ludhianvi played a cat-and-mouse game for almost six hours with the police and paramilitary forces who were trying to prevent them from entering the Pakistani capital.
Pakistan is inching towards a decision on reopening North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply routes, which were closed following a cross-border air strike in November, though it is expected to impose "tough conditions" like a hefty transit fee for the movement of container trucks and oil tankers. The issue of allowing the United States and its allies to resume using Pakistani routes for transporting supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan figured at a meeting of leaders.
The expression of remorse by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was enough to break the deadlock that had led to the blocking of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes for the last seven months, following the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border NATO strike at the Salala check-post in November last year.
Launching another broadside against Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday said the Taliban, that has launched some audacious attacks in his country will not be able to "move a finger without Pakistani support."
In a fresh jolt to United States-Pakistan ties, the Pentagon on Monday said it is withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan for a "short period of time", after talks failed to lift the six-month blockade of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes to war-torn Afghanistan.
The White House has ruled out an apology to Islamabad for November 26 incident in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in cross-border fire by the North Atlantic Traty Organisation and said it is time that the two countries move ahead. "I wouldn't have anything new to offer on that beyond what we have said, that we deeply regret the incident. We have thoroughly investigated it. We shared the results of that investigation with the Pakistanis," said a US official.
Pakistan will soon reopen the ground lines of communication to Afghanistan, which were shut down last November following the death of 24 soldiers in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's strike, the White House has said. "We continue to work with Pakistan on this issue. We did not anticipate that the supply line issue was going to be resolved prior to the summit. And our teams continue to meet and we are making diligent progress," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
United States President Barack Obama should "show some courage" and apologise to Pakistan for a cross-border air strike by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year, the ruling Pakistan People's Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said.
The temporary suspension of the crucial North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply route to Afghanistan by Islamabad last year in response to incursions by allied forces and the Davis Raymond episode reflects the fragile nature of the United States-Pakistan relationship, the Obama administration said in a new report.
The United States on Tuesday said that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries have decided it is important to have participation of Pakistan at the Chicago Summit on Afghanistan hoping that Islamabad would be able to reopen the supply routes by then.
Rejecting General David Petraeus' claim that thousands of Afghan Taliban have either 'laid down' their arms or moving towards doing so, Mullah Omer-led Taliban vowed continuing their war until the establishment of Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.
Pakistan on Thursday said that the United States probe report on the last month's North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers is "not based on facts".
Terrorists torched 10 tankers carrying oil for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan in southern Pakistan, injuring five persons including the vehicles' drivers, police and witnesses said on Monday.
Continuing its tirade against the successful launch of Agni V, Chinese state media has again accused New Delhi of buckling under pressure from the North Atlantic Treaty organisation to cut down the missile's range from 9,000 km to 5,000 km.
Making sure nothing sensitive is left behind, American forces set on fire all their redundant and useless equipment before abandoning the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwest.
The Pakistani military will shoot down any United States drone that intrudes the country's airspace under a new defence policy in which troops have been given greater liberty to respond to incursions by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to a media report.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday announced the withdrawal of most Australian troops from Afghanistan by the middle of next year, while rolling out her future plan of Canberra's role in the war-torn country. In a speech in Canberra, Gillard said Australian troops would begin pulling out this year and most would be home by the end of 2013 -- an election year in the country.
As United States finalises its plan to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, Indian authorities are getting ready to train nearly 30,000 Afghan troops in the next three years. The US has urged other countries to join hands with it to train Afghan troops, which will take over the duties of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's forces after they leave in 2014. Incidentally, the Pakistan government had expressed its interest in training Afghan troops.
Asserting that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers was a "military engagement", the United States has said it is carrying out a crucial investigation to determine the circumstances that led to the tragic incident but Islamabad has refused to participate in the probe.
With a deadly North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air raid sparking outrage in Pakistan, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said it was time for the country "to review its relations" while demanding "complete clarity" from the international community on Islamabad's sovereignty.
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