Al Qaeda remains "very capable" and focused on attacking the United States, a top American military official said on Sunday, adding the situation in Afghanistan is "serious" and "deteriorating" as the militants have found a "safe haven in Pakistan."
Describing India's concerns as legitimate, a top United States official has said that there is no immediate danger of foreign fighters from Afghanistan moving towards the Indian border after 2014, when American troops leave the country.
The people who planned and executed the 9/11 attack are still operating in the area and plotting attack against the United States, the White House today said, adding this is the reason why America continues to be in Afghanistan.
We understand the electoral compulsions, the desperate need for the BJP to have at least 50 per cent of the Hindus vote for them in Uttar Pradesh in a few months. For that, you need polarisation, put your own Muslim compatriots on the 'other' side. This is how your domestic politics runs contrary to your national, strategic interest, warns Shekhar Gupta.
United States President Barack Obama is considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the tribal areas to strike at a different centre of Taliban power in Balochistan, from where the top leaders of the outfit are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan.
'You need to have a really textured, rich, intimate, long-standing local knowledge of places like this before you start running around creating governments,' says Afghan expert Sarah Chayes.
Olson was responding to questions from the lawmakers who expressed concern over Pakistan being "selective" in taking actions against terrorist groups.
Former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha has admitted that the deadly Haqqani network was created by it and America's Central Intelligence Agency and claimed that the insurgent group's chief Jalaluddin Haqqani had "in fact been invited to the White House by President (Ronald) Reagan".
Ahead of taking charge as the head of the American Key Central Command, General David H Petraeus on Wednesday said turning things around in Afghanistan and Pakistan will require taking away militant sanctuaries and strongholds, which he expected the insurgents would defend tenaciously. 'Certainly in Afghanistan, wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult,' Petraeus, who would be directly in charge of fighting in both the countries, said.
He will call for 'an end to the politics of resistance and retribution', a senior aide said.
'If the US intention was to use the FATF platform to isolate Pakistan and impose sanctions against it, that is not going to work when influential countries such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia will not lend support to the US campaign,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Steve was the foremost strategic analyst on South Asia,' remembers Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Pakistan has assured the US administration that American military hardware provided to it will be used solely for defensive purposes, a top US official said on Friday.
Sending a strong message to Pakistan and Afghanistan, United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday asserted that terrorists will not be allowed to plot against the US from safe havens 'half a world away'. "With our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat Al Qaeda and combat extremism," Obama said in his maiden address to the joint session of the US Congress.
'No amount of digression can hide deflect the fact that the PM's visit was badly conceived, planned and executed,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
At least eight Central Intelligence Agency workers were killed in a daring suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan on Thursday.
The US needs to do three things to help the newly elected Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan, says Stanley A Weiss
The United States has slapped sanctions on Pakistan-based terrorist leader Bahawal Khan for being involved in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A Pakistan-born United States scientist Aafia Siddiqui, with suspected links to Al Qaeda, has been indicted on federal charges that she tried to kill the American interrogators after her arrest in Afghanistan.The 36-year-old neuro-scientist was arrested in Ghazni province of Afghanistan in July this year while loitering around the Governor's compound.Siddiqui was held for questioning by army officers and FBI agents.
Yasin was also responsible for the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.
Trump said America is "open to business" and competitive again.
India and Pakistan fear that any instability in the war-torn Afghanistan following the withdrawal of American troops could result in "surplus terrorism" in both the countries, a top US official has said.
Tillerson said that he believed that the US has a partner in Pakistan.
Pakistan National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz brings to New Delhi a newfound Pakistani confidence, stemming from its leverage in Afghanistan, says Ajai Shukla
'There's no wonder that many Pakistani parents send their kids to madrasa and one knows what happens to a small percentage of the kids who go there.
The White House on Thursday insisted that United States President Barack Obama is a Christian and his faith is not a topic of conversation, a day after a poll showed that nearly 18 per cent of Americans think he is a Muslim.
A report compiled by Sydney-based think tank Institute of Economics and Peace has said that the world became less peaceful over the last one year, with a sharp rise in the number of homicides.
If the ruling BJP stresses on Hindu nationalist themes ahead of the general election in May, there will be communal violence'
'New Delhi and Washington are now on the same page, on dealing with growing Chinese assertiveness, across the entire Indo-Pacific region,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, Chancellor, Central University of Jammu.
'I am greedy to have my eggs in different baskets.'
B'desh minister termed as "untrue" the allegations of minority repression in the country.
In an unusual personal intervention in a foreign election, United States President Barack Obama has asked the two presidential candidates in Afghanistan's disputed polls to maintain calm and threatened to cut-off American aid if 'extra-constitutional' steps are taken.
AK Pasha, a professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, discusses the impact of the anti-Islamic film, in an interview with rediff.com's Priyanka
United States President Barack Obama has failed on the foreign policy front and protection of national security, the Romney Campaign has alleged. In a memorandum, the Romney Campaign on Thursday alleged that Obama has failed on various foreign policy issues, like endangering American mission in Afghanistan and weakening the relationship with Pakistan, failing to stop Iran's nuclear weapons programme and a damaged relationship with Israel.
The United States respects Pakistan's sovereignty but will carry out strikes to eliminate terrorists who are targeting its forces, the Obama Administration said on Monday as Islamabad expressed concern over the drone strike by American forces on its territory to kill Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
'Washington is telegraphing here is its willingness to support a low-grade, limited use of force meant to send a strong message to Pakistan.' 'Perhaps something along the lines of the surgical strikes in 2016, or perhaps something a bit more -- but not much more.'
''There is the perennial worry in the Indian mind regarding the US 'hyphenating' India and Pakistan. Frankly, this is a completely nonsensical hypothesis. The US has always 'hyphenated' India and Pakistan and it couldn't have been otherwise,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India previously rejected the US religious freedom report, saying it sees no locus standi for a foreign government to pronounce on the state of its citizens' constitutionally protected rights.
After over a year of rancorous relations, United States and Pakistani authorities are considering to launch joint counter-terrorism operations against the dreaded Haqqani network, which has carried out several attacks on American troops, in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The US gained one-day international status at the beginning of 2019 and beat Scotland in December. Higgins is eyeing Test status within the next decade.
