Chaffing under public ridicule in the US as well as internationally for having 'lost' the war, Trump is under immense pressure to do something, cautions Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The logic of war plus the gathering storms in US politics as the midterms loom large leave him with no real alternative but to negotiate, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Both sides have now revealed a preference for escalation over strategic defeat, and each new provocation narrows the space for the next pause. The Touska seizure, Iran's refusal to negotiate under blockade, Israel's strikes on Iranian oil infrastructure -- all of these add up to an increasingly untenable situation. This makes the wild card -- Trump and his motormouth -- more consequential than ever, notes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the Iran War.
By all available indications, the White House drafted a face-saving note and handed it, ready-made, to Islamabad. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was supposed to then post it in the guise of a plea urging Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks 'to allow diplomacy to run its course'. Trump would then graciously accept Pakistan's 'request' and declare a ceasefire. Sharif dutifully posted the message on X. Except that he, or whoever was handling the account, forgot to delete the tell-tale first line visible in the edit history: 'Draft - Pakistan's PM Message on X'. Prem Panicker's must read blog on the Iran War.
Two bomb explosions on a university campus in Islamabad have reportedly killed 15 persons and left 10 injured. "It was a bomb blast. It was inside the Islamic university building. There was another one a few minutes later," a police official was quoted as saying.
Blaming the American private military company Blackwater and Pakistani secret agencies for the suicide attacks in International Islamic University in Islamabad and the deadliest attack in Khyber bazaar in Peshawar that claimed a number innocent of lives, Qari Hussain, commander of Tehrik Taliban Pakistan said that it is an attempt to malign the Taliban and warned that militants would avenge 'the killing of innocent people within few days.'
The Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent says a series of drone attacks have killed nearly 50 of its members, including deputy head Ustad Ahmad Farooq and Qari Imran, the group's central council member and in charge of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
In a rare public admission of Pakistani links to militancy in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, the official media in Beijing said the co-founder of the Al Qaeda linked East Turkestan Islamic Movement was indoctrinated in a madarasa in that country.
Officials said this was another example of Pakistan misusing higher studies as bait for recruitment in terror groups.
The charge sheet has been filed in a case registered on November 7 last year, they said.
Qin, who recently succeeded Wang Yi, had a phone call at the request of Bilawal on January 9, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement in Beijing said on Tuesday.
Chastened by the Kargil conflict, Pervez Musharraf will be remembered for gradually lowering the profile of terrorism and seeking a realistically negotiated settlement to the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's high commissioner to Pakistan when Musharraf seized power in a coup in October 1999.
Learning perhaps from the Kargil debacle, Musharraf tried hard to evolve as a statesman in his dealings with India, recalls Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Scholar Michael Kugelman said that until Pakistan is willing to target extremists operating within the country, ordinary Pakistanis will continue to suffer.
Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, one of Pakistan's largest and oldest seminaries and dubbed as a 'university of jihad' by its critics for helping sow violence across the region for decades, has educated more Taliban leaders than any school in the world and its alumni now hold key positions in Afghanistan, according to a media report.
Amid deepening concerns in China over the regrouping of the ETIM, blamed by Beijing for all the violent attacks in its volatile Xinjiang province and elsewhere in the country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mullah Baradar at Tianjin and sought to prevail on him to build a 'positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits Afghanistan's national realities'.
Pakistan's military can go to any length to inflict harm on India, so don't write off the possibility of an ISI-IS alliance, says Rajeev Sharma.
'Kashmir is the main issue between the two countries.' 'We have not been able to resolve it bilaterally.' 'As the two major countries in South Asia, we have to go back to the drawing board and start engaging.'
Pakistan's prime minister is trying to use the unrest in Kashmir to save his government, says Ambassador G Parthasarathy, a former high commissioner to Islamabad.
'We're paying them nothing because that's what they've done to help us. Nothing'
'Modi has said he has been made the PM of India not to do small things but big things. What bigger thing can there be than to have peace with Pakistan and in the neighbourhood?'
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