Police and paramilitary troops set up security posts and bunkers protected by sandbags in Kabal, a small town near Maulana Fazlullah's stronghold at Imamdheri.
Almost 70 Pakistani VIPs, including the current and former chief ministers of North West Frontier Province, leaders of political parties, senior police officials and heads of paramilitary forces, are on the hit list of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, it has emerged.
Two employees of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission were injured when the vehicle they were traveling in was targeted with a roadside bomb in the country's troubled northwestern region on Tuesday. The blast occurred in Lakki Marwat district of the North West Frontier Province, officials were quoted as saying by the Geo News channel. A technician and the vehicle's driver were injured in the attack, they said. Both men sustained minor injuries.
The ripples of Lal Masjid crackdown were felt mostly in tribal areas of NWFP like Malakand Agency and Bajour.
A Pakistani-origin Iranian Consulate official was shot dead by unidentified gunmen within the army cantonment in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday, police and witnesses said. Syed Abul Hassan Jaffri, spokesman for the Iranian consulate in the capital of the North West Frontier Province, was attacked by two gunmen when he emerged from his home in Gulberg Colony on Thursday morning.
In one of the deadliest terror attacks in Pakistan, at least 95 people were killed and over 200 injured on Wednesday when a powerful car bomb ripped through a packed market in Peshawar, hours after the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan on her maiden official visit.
Terrorists struck on Friday in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar for the second straight day as a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a police station near a mosque, killing at least 11 people and injuring 16 others.
'The citizen jihadis see no television, Internet and video players which they regard as evil. They are being influenced by what they hear on the hundreds of FM radio stations operating in the tribal areas.'
At least 28 people were killed and over 40 injured on Monday in a suicide attack in a market in northwest Pakistan's restive Malakand area, the latest in a series of terror strikes that have rocked the country.
At least six people were killed and over 20 others injured in a car bomb attack in a busy commercial area in the provincial capital of Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on Saturday. A car laden with explosives blew up outside a seven-storey building housing the offices of several banks. The intensity of the blast was so severe that it also damaged other buildings in the area and destroyed nearly a dozen cars.
Maj Hamza of the Inter-Services Intelligence and his assistant Subedar Saeed were killed when their car came under attack in Rashakai area by suspected pro-Taliban militants.
The two boys were brainwashed into believing that there was no need for educational qualification as they were destined to go to paradise.
Thousands of weapons of prohibited bore, including sub-machine guns, have been issued in Pakistan in an irregular manner and in violation of rules, which has run the Pakistan government into trouble.
Pakistan on Monday said its anti-Taliban operations in Swat had entered the final phase with troops having "totally dismantled" the militants' infrastructure, even as over 30 rebels and 16 soldiers were killed in fresh fighting in the unruly North West Frontier Province and Waziristan.
United States President Barack Obama is sending a team of officials led by Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, to visit refugee camps housing lakhs of people who have been displaced by the military offensive in Swat and adjoining areas of the North Western Frontier Province. Holbrooke is expected to have a first hand assessment of the situation and then recommend how best the US can accelerate relief measures.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Wednesday indirectly blamed the Taliban for the daring suicide attack on the Inter Services Intelligence's provincial headquarters in Lahore. "It appears to be a fall-out of the ongoing military operations in Swat, Dir and other areas of the North West Frontier Province," Malik said and warned that there would be no let up in the crackdown on these 'anti-national elements'.
The report did not name the leader but said it was addressed by the "supreme commander" of the organisation, a title with which Hizb Chief Sayed Salauddin was referred to by the outfit.
Mehsud, on whom the US has announced a bounty of $5 million, made the claim to the media from an undisclosed location, even as the prime suspect in Monday's assault has said that all his accomplices were from the tribal areas.
A suicide bomber struck at a hotel in a busy market in the restive North West Frontier Province on Thursday, killing at least 11 people and injuring over 20 others, most of them militants opposed to Pakistan's top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.The bomber struck at a hotel at the busy Jandola Bazar in Dera Ismail Khan, while scores of anti-Taliban militants were just beginning their meals. They were members of the 'Turkestan Bittani' group.
Pakistan on Wednesday headed for a political showdown as opposition leader Nawaz Sharif vowed to defy restrictions and go ahead with his planned massive 'Long March' to Islamabad on Thursday, even as authorities arrested hundreds of politicians and activists to thwart the protests.
Camps continue to be run despite the government's denial.
Taliban militants, who had kidnapped a top civil official in the restive Swat valley in North West Frontier Province on Sunday, released him only in exchange for two militants, raising question marks over a peace deal stuck between the militant group and the government. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said the official, Kushal Khan, and his guards had been released in exchange for two militants who were arrested in Peshawar last week.
Four days after a peace pact was inked between religious hardliners and the North West Frontier Province government, leading cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad is yet to make Taliban leaders accept the deal, to enforce Islamic laws in the violence-hit Swat valley.Mohammad, who has been holding talks with Taliban leaders, on Friday met its commander Maulana Fazlullah, who is his son-in-law, for direct talks as reports said the Taliban was demanding the withdrawal of security forces.
Twenty-eight people, including a leader of the ruling PPP, a woman councillor and 25 militants, were killed in separate incidents of violence in Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province and nearby tribal belt.
The seeping unhappiness among soldiers unable to reach out to their families affected by the disaster is not only likely to affect its counter-insurgency performance, but it would also add to the sympathy for the Taliban in the lower ranks.
Hardening its stance, the Pakistani Taliban have announced the boycott of negotiations on Friday with the North West Frontier Province government unless it releases all its detained members under a deal signed last month.
Matchboxes featuring Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's photograph and offering a reward of US$ five million for information about him are being circulated in Pakistan's tribal North West Frontier Province. Postal and email addresses for sending information on the Al Qaeda chief are printed on the matchboxes. A leaflet within the matchboxes, containing 30 match sticks, says bin Laden is wanted by the US government on charges of killing 220 innocent citizens.
Pakistani security forces on Thursday launched a crackdown against tribesmen, arresting nine of them in the Khyber Agency, after they failed to trace the country's ambassador to Afghanistan, who is believed to have been kidnapped in the region on Monday.The authorities defended the action, saying the tribesmen were taken into custody under the collective responsibility law as the ambassador had gone missing from a main road in their area.
At least 23 people were killed when a suicide bomber struck during a protest organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, hours after a blast outside a police-run school killed a young boy.
Fifteen-year-old Aitezaz Shah, who was arrested from Dera Ismail Khan town of the North West Frontier Province, identified the bomber as a man named Bilal who belonged to the South Waziristan tribal region, Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said.A team of investigators has gone to South Waziristan to meet Bilal's family to get more information about him. Reports said that the investigators had shown a photograph of the suspected bomber to Aitezaz Shah, who identified him.
The militants equipped with rocket launchers and grenades, took the children hostage after storming a school following a gun battle with police at Domail village in Karak district of the NWFP.
The United Nations has closed all its offices and suspended its operations in this northwestern Pakistani city due to security fears in the wake of an audacious terrorist attack on the US consulate. All UN offices in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, will remain closed for two days because of the security situation.
The available details regarding the fidayeen attack on the United States consulate in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan on Monday, are still confusing.However, certain aspects of the attack are clear: It was a single target swarm attack, meant to penetrate the US consulate in a manner similar to the penetration of the General Headquarters of the Pakistan army in Rawalpindi in October last year.
The alleged killer of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has been identified. And he is dead.
No one was injured in the pre-dawn blast damaged the building in Yakatoot area of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province.
The army is currently conducting a major operation in the Swat valley of NWFP against militant followers of pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah in which nearly 300 rebels have been killed and about 200 arrested.
At least five people were killed and several others injured in a suicide attack on an army facility in northwest Pakistan on Saturday.
The foreign secretary arrives in Pakistan Saturday,two days before the second round of the composite dialogue process.
A suicide bomber struck a convoy of buses near a market in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 15 others, including women and children.
Militants have stepped up attacks against security forces in Pakistan, mostly in the troubled tribal regions and parts of the NWFP, in recent months.
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