While some reports say Sirajuddin Haqqani, the operational chief of Haqqani network has recently held a meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai in the presence of Pakistani Army chief Ashfaq Kiyani, Kabul-based sources reveal the meeting did not take place.
Two top United States security officials are traveling to Pakistan on Tuesday to meet the country's civil and military leadership and press for more aggressive action against Al Qaeda-allied groups. Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and the National Security Advisor General James Jones, who are embarking on a visit to Islamabad, will meet President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani.
K Alan Kronstadt, a specialist in South Asian affairs for the US Congressional Research Service, on how more US oversight on funding to fight terror in Pakistan could help both countries and even India.
Musharraf called the Army "the saviour of Pakistan" and said: "Bina iske, Pakistan ka vajood nahi" (without the army, Pakistan has no identity). That was said as much for the domestic audience as for Uncle Sam.
Police lathicharged and arrested over a 1,000 lawyers who took to the streets across Pakistan on Monday in protest against the imposition of emergency even as rumours that President Pervez Musharraf had been put under house arrest swept the country.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is locked in a power struggle with the army over his plans to ease tensions with India and his assertion that Taliban, not India, is the greatest threat to his country, a news report said today.
Pakistan's Army is to ask the country's embattled President Pervez Musharraf to relinquish office in a week's time as its top brass would not want him to be impeached, a news report said on Saturday.
Gen Kiyani has already withdrawn regular army troops from South Waziristan as demanded by Baitullah and has lifted the economic blocade imposed against the Mehsuds.
State-run PTV quoted the Inter-Services Public Relations as saying that Kiyani will take up his new assignment once the President, who is seeking re-election in the October 6 ballot, gives up his uniform.
Musharraf is widely believed to have chosen former ISI chief Lt Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani as his successor to head the Army, says Newsweek in its upcoming issue.
"How can you have a strategic dialogue without including the military," Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told reporters at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.
A high-level meeting chaired by Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad took stock of the deteriorating security situation in the restive Northwestern Frontier Province and authorised Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani to lead a military effort in this regard.
Pakistan on Friday test-fired the nuclear-capable, medium-range 'Ghauri' missile.
Kiyani is a non-controversial officer, who had in the past not come to notice for any dubious association with the Taliban or Al Qaeda or any of Pakistan's fundamentalist organisations.
The people of Pakistan are in a dark, foreboding mood.According to an International Republican Institute opinion poll, as many as 86 percent of Pakistanis believe their country is headed in the wrong direction.
President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday handed over charge of the Pakistan army to General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani.
General Taj has been closely associated with Musharraf, having been his military secretary at the time of the 1999 coup.
