The United Nations has closed all its offices and suspended its operations in this northwestern Pakistani city due to security fears in the wake of an audacious terrorist attack on the US consulate. All UN offices in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, will remain closed for two days because of the security situation.
The available details regarding the fidayeen attack on the United States consulate in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan on Monday, are still confusing.However, certain aspects of the attack are clear: It was a single target swarm attack, meant to penetrate the US consulate in a manner similar to the penetration of the General Headquarters of the Pakistan army in Rawalpindi in October last year.
United States President Barack Obama is sending a team of officials led by Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, to visit refugee camps housing lakhs of people who have been displaced by the military offensive in Swat and adjoining areas of the North Western Frontier Province. Holbrooke is expected to have a first hand assessment of the situation and then recommend how best the US can accelerate relief measures.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Wednesday indirectly blamed the Taliban for the daring suicide attack on the Inter Services Intelligence's provincial headquarters in Lahore. "It appears to be a fall-out of the ongoing military operations in Swat, Dir and other areas of the North West Frontier Province," Malik said and warned that there would be no let up in the crackdown on these 'anti-national elements'.
A suicide bomber struck a convoy of buses near a market in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 15 others, including women and children.
The relentless US drone attacks and the Pakistan ASrmy operations in the tribal areas has affected the Taliban's to carry out spectacular terrorist strikes in the non-tribal areas. They seem to be a weakened, but not a defeated force, writes security expert B Raman.
Mehsud, on whom the US has announced a bounty of $5 million, made the claim to the media from an undisclosed location, even as the prime suspect in Monday's assault has said that all his accomplices were from the tribal areas.
A suicide bomber struck at a hotel in a busy market in the restive North West Frontier Province on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and injuring over 20 others, most of them militants opposed to Pakistan's top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.The bomber struck at a hotel at the busy Jandola Bazar in Dera Ismail Khan, while scores of anti-Taliban militants were just beginning their meals. They were members of the 'Turkestan Bittani' group.
A bomb blast on Wednesday injured a provincial legislator and two others in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, which has witnessed a series of terror attacks in recent weeks.
Pakistan on Wednesday headed for a political showdown as opposition leader Nawaz Sharif vowed to defy restrictions and go ahead with his planned massive 'Long March' to Islamabad on Thursday, even as authorities arrested hundreds of politicians and activists to thwart the protests.
Taliban militants, who had kidnapped a top civil official in the restive Swat valley in North West Frontier Province on Sunday, released him only in exchange for two militants, raising question marks over a peace deal stuck between the militant group and the government. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said the official, Kushal Khan, and his guards had been released in exchange for two militants who were arrested in Peshawar last week.
Four days after a peace pact was inked between religious hardliners and the North West Frontier Province government, leading cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad is yet to make Taliban leaders accept the deal, to enforce Islamic laws in the violence-hit Swat valley.Mohammad, who has been holding talks with Taliban leaders, on Friday met its commander Maulana Fazlullah, who is his son-in-law, for direct talks as reports said the Taliban was demanding the withdrawal of security forces.
A hardliner religious leader led hundreds of his supporters in a peace march in the violence-hit north-western Swat valley in Pakistan on Wednesday apparently to convince the Taliban militants to honour a new pact reached with the government which envisages their laying down arms.
A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the press club in Peshawar on Tuesday, killing at least three persons and injuring several others, including journalists, in the latest in a wave of terror attacks that have rocked Pakistan. The bomber detonated his explosives when a policeman deployed at the gate of the press club tried to prevent him from entering the premises. The policeman was among the three persons who died in the blast, local media reported.
At least ten people were killed and nearly 50 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a crowded court complex in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, the latest in a wave of deadly terrorist attacks across the country.
A Pakistani legislator was killed in a suicide attack in the northwestern Swat valley on Tuesday. Details awaited.
Aitezaz Shah, a 15-year-old suicide bomber arrested last week along with one Sher Zaman in Dera Ismail Khan town of North West Frontier Province, was handed over to Punjab Police on Tuesday and brought to Rawalpindi.
The Pakistan Army on Sunday launched a fresh drive against pro-Taliban militants in the northwestern Swat region amidst indications that the security forces would adopt a tougher approach against the ultras in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
At least 10 people were injured on Friday in a car bomb blast outside a restaurant in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, hours after seven people were killed by a suicide bomber near a strategic air force complex in Punjab province. Witnesses said the blast occurred soon after a man parked a car outside a restaurant in Hayatabad on the outskirts of Peshawar. The walls and windows of the restaurant were shattered by the blast.
Former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan and former chief secretary of the North West Frontier Province, Rustam Shah Mohmand, tells Aditi Phadnis that the United States is part of the problem in Afghanistan.
Twenty-eight people, including a leader of the ruling PPP, a woman councillor and 25 militants, were killed in separate incidents of violence in Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province and nearby tribal belt.
Police and paramilitary troops set up security posts and bunkers protected by sandbags in Kabal, a small town near Maulana Fazlullah's stronghold at Imamdheri.
'The Taliban are their own worst enemy. They are a public relations disaster,' says Nicholas Schmidle, who spent two years reporting from Pakistan.
Citing official sources, Dawn News channel said that at least 10 soldiers were killed and a dozen others injured in the attack, which occurred at a spot 12 kilometres from Miranshah.
About 300 students held hostage by three would-be suicide bombers at a school in north-western Pakistan on Thursday were freed by armed local residents who stormed the building killing two of the militants in a gunbattle. The militants took control of the government-run primary school in Dir district of the North West Frontier Province and held the children hostage for several hours.
For the last 30 years, Afghanistan has been beset by a cruel and callous war, the likes of which the modern age has not seen. Afghans are now seeking to determine their own future. But the Pashtuns still remain a divided people by an arbitrary Line of Control scratched across the heart of their nation.
The ripples of Lal Masjid crackdown were felt mostly in tribal areas of NWFP like Malakand Agency and Bajour.
Hardening its stance, the Pakistani Taliban have announced the boycott of negotiations on Friday with the North West Frontier Province government unless it releases all its detained members under a deal signed last month.
Taliban's move came as Pakistani forces stepped up their campaign to retake territory in the districts of Buner, Dir and Swat. The military said they had killed more than 100 militants and lost several soldiers since fighting began on Tuesday.
'The citizen jihadis see no television, Internet and video players which they regard as evil. They are being influenced by what they hear on the hundreds of FM radio stations operating in the tribal areas.'
The New York Times reported that Pakistan was moving 6,000 troops (more than a brigade) to fight militants on its western border with Afghanistan, quoting a Pakistani official who did not want to be identified. The Pakistan military, advancing on three fronts backed by fighter aircraft and attack helicopters in Buner, snatched the vital 8-km-long Ambela heights which overlook most of Buner.
Matchboxes featuring Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's photograph and offering a reward of US$ five million for information about him are being circulated in Pakistan's tribal North West Frontier Province. Postal and email addresses for sending information on the Al Qaeda chief are printed on the matchboxes. A leaflet within the matchboxes, containing 30 match sticks, says bin Laden is wanted by the US government on charges of killing 220 innocent citizens.
Maj Hamza of the Inter-Services Intelligence and his assistant Subedar Saeed were killed when their car came under attack in Rashakai area by suspected pro-Taliban militants.
Rescuers scrambled to remove the rubble of over 20 houses that collapsed due to the impact of the suicide car bombing at a playground in northwest Pakistan as the toll in the devastating attack rose to 95 on Saturday.
The two boys were brainwashed into believing that there was no need for educational qualification as they were destined to go to paradise.
The Pakistan government on Monday agreed to enforce Islamic law in large areas of its restive North West Frontier Province, including the Swat valley, in a concession to buy peace in the region, which has been the scene of a raging Taliban insurgency.
The recent attacks in Pakistan's Punjab should be taken as warning shots of an impending battle which will further destabilise that country and the region.
Pakistani security forces on Thursday launched a crackdown against tribesmen, arresting nine of them in the Khyber Agency, after they failed to trace the country's ambassador to Afghanistan, who is believed to have been kidnapped in the region on Monday.The authorities defended the action, saying the tribesmen were taken into custody under the collective responsibility law as the ambassador had gone missing from a main road in their area.
Fifteen-year-old Aitezaz Shah, who was arrested from Dera Ismail Khan town of the North West Frontier Province, identified the bomber as a man named Bilal who belonged to the South Waziristan tribal region, Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said.A team of investigators has gone to South Waziristan to meet Bilal's family to get more information about him. Reports said that the investigators had shown a photograph of the suspected bomber to Aitezaz Shah, who identified him.
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