Secret three-way talks between the United States, Afghanistan and Taliban have begun, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said.
Thousands of American, Afghan and British troops launched an attack on the watery Taliban fortress of Marja on Saturday morning.
Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar, a former operative of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, has said that the US must directly talk to Afghan Taliban chief and his protg Mullah Omar to resolve the political situation in Afghanistan.
'Pakistan should evolve a common narrative. The country should have common position in combating all kinds of terrorism and not fight selectively.' 'The main motive was revenge, of course. But the Nobel Prize to Malala Yousufzai also contributed to the Taliban's anger' Bestselling Pakistani author and foreign policy expert Ahmed Rashid speaks exclusively on the Peshawar school attack with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
"We have removed the leader of an organisation that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and coalition forces, to wage war against the Afghan people, and align itself with extremist groups like Al-Qaeda," the US president said in a statement.
As top Obama Administration official went to the Capitol Hill to explain to them the new Af-Pak policy, lawmakers questioned Pakistan's role and wanted assurance from the US government that Islamabad would be honest and sincere this time.
The Taliban said the operation has been named after its deceased leader Mullah Omar.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday expressed concern over a large gathering of Afghan nationals protesting outside the UNHCR office and seeking refugee status, saying it could act as a super spreader of coronavirus as there is lack of adherence to Covid-19 appropriate norms.
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."
The latest militant assault on the Afghan capital comes as the Taliban intensify their nationwide offensive against the US-backed government in Kabul.
Jalaluddin Haqqani died a year ago due to prolonged illness and was buried in Afghan province of Khost.
Murtaza Ahmadi, now aged 7, grabbed world headlines two years ago when his brother made him a shirt out of a blue and white plastic bag, with Messi's name and number 10 playing number.
Four gunmen trying to storm a guesthouse in the diplomatic area of Afghanistan's Kabul have been killed, say the police.
The US has hailed a power-sharing deal between rival Afghan presidential candidates as a "moment of extraordinary statesmanship" that ended a prolonged dispute threatening to plunge the war-torn nation into further political turmoil and complicate the NATO troops withdrawal.
Local officials in Herat said that over 30 people have died and more than 600 others have been injured in several earthquakes in this province, reported the Pajhwok Afghan News.
Beijing's growing assertiveness as kingmaker in Kabul has suffered a setback with Washington quietly moving in, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The terrorist attack was carried out by ISIS gunmen, General Kenneth Franklin McKenzie, Commander of the United States Central Command, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference on Thursday, hours after the terrorists opened gunfire at American soldiers standing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
Pakistan will no longer provide sanctuary to top militant commander Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban and will not allow its territory to be used against anyone, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi has said.
Terror group Al Qaeda is "shaping" its regional affiliate in the Indian subcontinent to spread its operations into Jammu and Kashmir, Bangladesh and Myanmar, according to a UN report.
Tired of the alleged "double game" being played by Islamabad, American lawmakers have announced to hold a Congressional hearing next week to discuss whether Pakistan is a "friend or foe" of the US in the war on terror.
Four Indians and an American, were killed during the five-hour long siege that ended early Thursday morning.
The Pakistani Taliban have introduced "moral policing" in parts of northeastern Afghanistan in a bid to enforce their puritanical version of Islam, Afghan police officials have said.
The chief of the Islamic State militant group in Af-Pak region has been killed in a US drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, three days after another top leader of the terror outfit died in a similar American air assault, a media report said on Saturday.
Afghan refugees in New Delhi protest against the Taliban and Pakistan's interference in Afghanistan.
Indian-American doctor Dilip Joseph, who was rescued from Taliban's captivity in a daring operation in Afghanistan has thanked the US and Afghan forces for saving his life, after the physician returned home in Colorado.
WWhat Pakistan faces in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is virulent insurgency and terrorism, fuelled by its association with Al Qaeda
Taliban's elusive leader Mullah Omar has claimed that his fighters are near victory and has asked United States President Barack Obama to withdraw his troops 'unconditionally and as soon as possible.'
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik has rejected offer of a ceasefire by the Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban's spokesman outlined conditions for a ceasefire, which said the country must stop its involvement in the war pitting Afghan insurgents against the Kabul government and refocus on a 'war of revenge' against India.
Three years after she became an emblem of the brutality of the Taliban, a young Afghan woman, who had her nose and ears sliced off as punishment for running away from her abusive husband, has unveiled her reconstructed face to the world.
Streets in capital Kabul were mainly quiet and tense early on Thursday as Afghans awoke and headed to the polls for an anxiously awaited presidential election that Taliban fighters have vowed to disrupt with attacks
Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Muhammad Omar is alive and hiding in the Pakistani city of Karachi, a top Afghan intelligence official has said, echoing a similar assessment by Western intelligence officials.
The Taliban is on the run and the US forces have reversed the momentum, said a top Pentagon official on Monday, cautioning against reading too much into a single combat incident in which more than 30 US soldiers was killed in Afghanistan.
Peace talks with the Taliban, trade and security would be high on the agenda during a meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in the Afghan capital Kabul.
Asserting that the United States has the right strategy for Afghanistan to break the momentum of the Taliban, United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday said he would begin to transfer some of the American troops from this war torn country in July 2011.
'Whatever comes in the minds of the Pakistani generals and Pakistan military, they just go for it.' 'They do not care about the consequences for their country or the consequences to the people of Pakistan.'
An ISIS suicide bomber was responsible for the explosion outside the Kabul airport, Politico reported citing US officials.
Afghanistan's political district was rocked by violence on Thursday when Taliban terrorists blew up a British embassy vehicle and later gunfire broke out at an army base.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who was on a visit to the US last month, said that America's relationship with Pakistan has "not served" either of the two countries and raised questions on the Biden administration's approval of a USD 450-million sustenance package for the F-16 fleet.
Omar runs a shadow government, complete with military, religious and cultural councils, and has appointed officials and commanders to virtually every Afghan province and district, just as he did when he ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban claim, the New York Times reported on Monday.
Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar has left for the US on his maiden visit to hold talks with top American officials on regional security, counter terrorism and intelligence issues.
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