The Pakistani Army on Friday rejected a United States-led inquiry report into a cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, saying it is "short on facts." "The Pakistan Army does not agree with the findings of the US/NATO inquiry as is being reported in the media. The inquiry report is short on facts," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.
In understanding Obama's strategy, we must begin with an obvious but unstated point: The extra forces that will be deployed to Afghanistan are not expected to defeat the Taliban. Instead, their mission is to reverse the momentum of previous years and to create the circumstances under which an Afghan force can take over the mission.
Struggling to restore its flagging ties with Pakistan in the aftermath of the deadly strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Obama administration has said it has not cut any civilian aid to the country, noting the move in this regard was part of a defence bill in the Congress. "Well, first of all, just to clarify what has and hasn't happened here in our understanding. We have not cut $700 million in aid to Pakistan," State Department spokesperson said.
As Pakistan brainstorms to revamp its foreign policy after last month's deadly strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said the country will retaliate against all future attacks, but also made it clear that Islamabad is not taking its ties with the United States to a point of no return. Khar made the remarks as she presided over a session of the two-day meeting of envoys convened to frame recommendations for a foreign policy revamp
The United States on Monday said it will vacate the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, believed to be used by the Central Investigation Agency-operated drones, by December 11 deadline set by Pakistan following the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation strike that killed 24 of its soldiers.
United States-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops in Afghanistan have been ordered not to approach the buffer zone on the Af-Pak border in order to avoid recurrence of last week's air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The United States said it was in early stages of investigation into the cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and was not apologising to Islamabad, as of now.
The chain of events that led to ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's death continue to remain very much in dispute.
Nirupama Rao, India's new ambassador to the United States, has defended India's stand on Libya and Syria, which stands in stark contrast to that of the US and its allies in the NATO. In the interaction that followed her keynote address at the third Brookings-FICCI Strategic Dialogue on US-India Relations, Rao said, "Let me say that we deeply value the consultations that we had with the United States on issues related to the Arab Spring and the upheavals that we have seen".
At least seven people were killed and over 90 injured in a suicide car bomb blast outside the NATO headquarters in Kabul on Saturday. The presidential palace and several embassies are also located in the area. The blast comes just five days before presidential elections and against a backdrop of increased violence by the Taliban. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, saying people would not be deterred from voting.
Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee began a round of discussions with world leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is still believed to be inside the country, even as the rebel forces have entered the capital Tripoli, the Pentagon has said. =
At least 10 people have been killed in a more than four-hour standoff between militants and police at a luxury hotel in Kabul, according to the Afghan police.
Pakistan poses a 'bigger' security challenge than Afghanistan for the United States and the rest of the world, a top American diplomat has said. Christopher Dell, who currently runs the US embassy in Kabul, said Pakistani Taliban groups had formed a common front to attack North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops in Afghanistan. "Pakistan is a bigger place, has a larger population, it's nuclear-armed. It has certainly made radical Islam a part of its political life," he said.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf marches through time to trace the bitter history between Russia and its West European neighbours.
The Libyan government on Monday said that strongman Muammar Gaddafi was "unharmed" in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's heaviest attack on his compound as his forces bombarded the besieged western city of Misurata with rockets, giving the town no respite.
Two policemen were killed and seven other security personnel, including two officials of an intelligence agency, were injured in a crackdown on Taliban militants in Karachi that resulted in the arrest of over 79 suspects. The crackdown followed media reports over the past few months about the steady inroads made into Karachi by the Taliban. The militants had recently warned transporters in the city not to ferry supplies for troops from United States and NATO.
Just a few days Operation Odyssey Dawn, the collective international action under United Nations authority to protect the Libyan people, has already derailed Gaddafi's bloody assault on rebel-held territories.
At least six people were killed and 27 tankers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation were set on fire during an attack by suspected militants on an oil depot close to Islamabad. According to the BBC, dozens of tankers were being filled with fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan when the attack took place on Monday morning."Between 10 to 12 men armed with automatic weapons stormed the depot from two sides. They opened indiscriminate fire on the tankers," said an official.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has announced plans for a large-scale airlift of relief supplies from Europe for the survivors of the devastating floods in Pakistan, as donors pledged more assistance after a slow start of aid efforts.
A top United States General has said Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is probably hiding in the remote mountainous regions of Pakistan, even though no one known where he actually is.
The Taliban has intensified the war strategies for its forces as evident from the latest directive issued by its leader Mullah Omar.
United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday said having a large footprint in Afghanistan can be "counter-productive" in the long run and that it was time to pull back troops and turn attention to domestic woes, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance agreed on a 2014 end to the Afghan mission.
The man at the centre of the storm, Newsweek magazine, reported was Mullah Gul Agha Akhund, who is an in-law and long time confident of Mullah Omar. Akhund is brandishing a handwritten letter from Mullah Omar to claim to be the new second-in-command of the Afghan Taliban. But, his claim is being hotly contested by top military commanders of the outfit.
A suicide car bomb attack near a hospital and army recruitment centre killed at least 20 civilians in Kabul on Tuesday morning, and injured scores of others.According to reports, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's troops were the target of the attack that took place during rush hour in the western part of the Afghan capital. A NATO convoy was passing the area at the time of the attack, said reports.No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.
And for any solution to work, Pakistan could not be excluded, the writer Tahir Ali said, not least because a great many Pashtuns, who live within Pakistan but don't recognise the Afghan-Pakistan border, would be up in arms. The Pakistan military would be a key player in any decision taken on Afghanistan -- along with Iran, Russia and China.
The designation means that Pakistan will join an exclusive club of nations that are given preferential treatment by the US in areas of foreign aid and defence cooperation.
Amidst a war of words between the two countries, the US came out in defence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai calling him a valuable partner and said American officials need to be sensitive while making comments on the war-torn country. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said General Stanley McChrystal, who is the head of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-led troops in Afghanistan, had excellent relations with the Afghan President.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has admitted that the killing of eight schoolboys in a night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan was carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence. "Knowing what we know now, it would probably not have been a justifiable attack. We don't now believe that we busted a major ring," The Times quoted NATO sources as saying.Ten children and teenagers died when troops stormed a remote mountain compound near the border with Pakistan in December.
The US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces are all set to roll out an "intensive 18-month" ground campaign in Afghanistan to stamp out Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, top US generals have said warning the insurgents that Marjah offensive was just the start.
Pakistan army does not expect the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-led inquiry into the last month's deadly air strike to be transparent and did not see any tangible result coming out of the probe that it had refused to be part of.
"Foreign troops should at once leave Afghanistan, and then the institutions they created should be dismantled. Unless this happens, war will heat up further. It will not recede," the one-eyed Omar said.
David Petraeus, considered to be one of the best war-time generals and who till recently was commander of US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan, was on Tuesday sworn in as the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, hours before arriving in New Delhi, was circumspect when asked if US intelligence had warned India that a deadly terror attack in Mumbai is likely, as reported by the media, which is quoting unnamed counter-terrorism officials.Rice said that "We've been through that in the United States. It's a tough business, particularly, for a democracy, and so I have to tell you, I have a lot of empathy for what they're going through."
"The external affairs minister will be visiting Moscow to attend the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers' meeting which is scheduled on September 10," spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivstava said at an online media briefing.
The United States has put on hold all its military-to-military engagements with Russia, attributing the move to Russia's intrusion into Ukraine.
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