US is highly unlikely to relent in its drone campaign since the tactic has proven to be the most effective tool to destroy Al Qaeda's leadership, says Lisa Curtis
Islamabad police chief Bin Yameen said that the police had last week arrested one of the four terrorists who, during interrogation, had confessed to his links with a terror outfit active in North Waziristan tribal region.
In what could be a prelude to a possible operation in North Waziristan against the Al Qaeda militants holed up there, Pakistani military commanders have met with the President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, a move termed by a leading daily in Islamabad as "far from routine".
The Pakistani military on Thursday said it was "under no pressure" to carry out anti-militancy operations in the restive North Waziristan even as it emphasised that US intelligence agencies will not be allowed to conduct any "independent operation" within the country.
Pakistan government will 'think whether there is any need' for a military operation in North Waziristan and not take dictation from anyone on launching a campaign against militants in the tribal region, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said
An unmanned United States spy plane struck a vehicle in the volatile North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan today, killing seven suspected militants.
Stepping up a campaign against militants holed up in Pakistan's tribal areas, a United States drone on Thursday fired two missiles on a house in North Waziristan, killing six suspected insurgents, officials said.
Pakistan has agreed in principle to launch a full-fledged military operation against Taliban militants in North Waziristan. But it will be a tough task for the country's army, as the terrain is believed to be the stronghold of numerous Arab, central Asian, Pashtun and Punjabi militants.The military operation may increase the flow of US aid to Pakistan, but the consequences might be unaffordable for the beleaguered country.
Days after Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani called for an end to drone attacks in his country, unmanned American spy planes today unleashed 10 missiles at a compound in the volatile North Waziristan, killing at least 25 people, including civilians.
The Al Qaeda and Taliban are unclear whether it would be in their interest to work for the defeat of Obama by stepping up acts of terrorism, says B Raman.
Al Qaeda's first comment on the commando-style attack on the United states consulate in Benghazi in Libya has not come from its command and control in North Waziristan in Pakistan headed by its Amir Ayman al-Zawahiri, but from its Yemen branch called Ai Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also referred to as Ansar al-Sharia (Supporters of Sharia).
Over a year after US and Pakistani authorities claimed to have killed Mehsud in a drone strike in North Waziristan, the Pakistan Taliban chief made an appearance in a video footage showing the killing of former Inter-Services Intelligence officer Colonel Sultan Ameer Tarar, commonly known as Colonel Imam on Saturday.
Terrorists targetted a police van with a roadside bomb in northwest Pakistan's restive Bannu region on Thursday, killing at least two security personnel and injuring five others, a day after a suicide attack on a police station in the same area claimed 20 lives.
Refusing to release the abducted journalist Mohammad Rashid, who is associated with the Associated Press, the North Waziristan Taliban has said that Rashid is being interrogated to ascertain his motives behind coming to Miramshah.
Al Qaeda has made jihadi commander Ilyas Kashmiri as its chief military strategist for the region to plan and spearhead terrorist attacks against the West.
Pakistan has said it will not back off from military offensive against militants in North Waziristan in the aftermath of the terror attack at a school in Peshawar that left 141 people, mostly children, dead.
In a major setback to Taliban, missiles fired from US drones have killed its top commander and group's deputy chief Qari Hussain Mehsud, mastermind of many suicide attacks across Pakistan, sources claimed on Friday.
Aware of simmering dissensions within the top echelons of the army, Munir has moved slowly in reshuffling senior generals, observes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W, India's external intelligence agency.
A Taliban commander in Pakistan's volatile tribal belt has broken away from the militant outfit to form his own group, as he is opposed to suicide attacks on mosques and civilians.
In yet another show of its 'barbaric' justice, the Taliban blew up two alleged United States spies in a village near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan in Pakistan.
Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has reportedly been killed in Pakistan, an Afghanistan private television channel has reported.
The Pakistan Army distanced itself from media reports that its chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had arranged a secret meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the leader of the Haqqani militant network based in North Waziristan.
A hitherto unheard of militant group called the Asian Tigers on Monday issued a video of two top former ISI officials and a journalist whom it claimed to have kidnapped in Pakistan's volatile tribal belt.
Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, the world's most wanted terrorists, are hiding "inside Pakistan", CIA chief Leon Panetta has said and claimed that aggressive US operations against Al Qaeda have disrupted its ability to plan sophisticated attacks.
United States carried out the heaviest bombing so far of Pakistan's lawless tribal belt as a swarm of drones fired a volley of 19 hellfire missiles at the den of the fighters of Haqqani network, killing 31 militants, including two Taliban commanders and several foreign fighters.
A hitherto unknown pro-Taliban group called 'Ansar Wa Mohajir' has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's car bomb attack in Lahore, for which four alleged Indian nationals have reportedly been arrested by Pakistani authorities.
At least 14 Taliban militants were killed in twin US drone attacks in Pakistan's restive northwest on Wednesday while five soldiers and as many militants died in violence, including in a suicide bombing at an army barrack in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
US officials said the message did not amount to an ultimatum but rather it was intended to "prod a reluctant Pakistani military" to go after Taliban insurgents in Pakistan who are directing attacks in Afghanistan.
At least eight people were killed and six others injured when two missiles fired by a suspected US drone hit a 'madrassa' founded by a Taliban leader in Pakistan's restive tribal region. The drone fired missiles at Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani's madrassa located a few kilometres from North Waziristan Agency's main town of Miranshah, late Wednesday night.
The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda and wants its army to pursue the militants into north Waziristan.
NATO on Sunday resumed supplies for its forces in Afghanistan after Pakistan reopened the main supply line, which it had closed to protest the death of its two soldiers in a cross-border raid, even as United States drones killed 7 militants in North Waziristan tribal area in a fresh attack.
Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, an Al Qaeda operative of Libyan origin, died in a missile strike on Thursday, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
14 people, including three women, were killed and 20 others injured in missile strikes by suspected unmanned US drones on a seminary linked to top Taliban Commander Jalaluddin Haqqani in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan tribal region on Monday.
He was once General Pervez Musharraf's blue eyed boy, receiving a cash award of Rs 100,000 in 2000 from Pakistan's then president for killing an Indian Army officer. Eighteen months later, after 9/11, Musharraf declared him a terrorist.
A United States drone fired three missiles on Saturday in Pakistan's troubled northwestern tribal region near Afghan border, killing at least 13 people, including women and children. The drone fired the missiles at the home of a tribesman in a village, located 40 kms from the headquarters of North Waziristan tribal agency, local residents said. In his new Afghan-Pakistan strategy, Obama has stressed that if the US has high-value targets in the region.
A beefed-up campaign of American drone strikes over the last three months has battered Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the tribal area of North Waziristan, says a report in the New York Times.
The Pakistani Taliban confirmed on Tuesday, that its chief Hakimullah Mehsud had died of injuries sustained in a US drone strike, ending weeks of speculation over his fate.Taliban sources based in the Aurakzai tribal region told TV news channels that 28-year-old Mehsud was severely injured in a drone attack in Shaktoi area of North Waziristan Agency on January 14.
Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships pounded militant hideouts in the restive North Waziristan region Friday, killing 18 pro-Taliban militants after rebels attacked a pramilitary post leaving a soldier dead.
Two missiles were fired at a house in the Khushali Torikhel area near Mir Ali town at around midnight, TV channels reported. Among the five persons who died were foreign militants, the reports said.
In the last year since the Indian embassy in Kabul was bombed on July 7, allegedly by the Sirajuddin Haqqani faction of the Taliban based in Pakistan's North Waziristan province, India has well and truly joined in United States president Barack Obama's 'AfPak strategy' that is aimed at jointly looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan as the expanded theatre of war against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
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