The Barack Obama administration's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has admitted that the United States is getting battered by the Taliban in the information war in the Federally Administered Tribal Area and the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan. He warned that the 'success' in the US-led assault on these militant groups would ring hollow if there is no propaganda victory against these extremists."We are losing that war," he said.
The arms that Pakistan has requested includes new helicopter gunships, including AH-1W and the Apache-64-D; armed helicopters, such as the AH-6 and MD-530 Little Bird; and utility and cargo helicopters, such as the UH-60 Black Hawk, the CH-47 D Chinook and the UH-1Y Huey, The Washington Times reported on Wednesday.
As part of efforts to convince Pakistan to abandon its policy of using extremist elements as a strategic tool, the US has warned it that there is "no good terrorist" whom it can count on and asked it to take more steps against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.
The Pakistani Taliban have released a dramatic video of an attack by militants on a jail in the country's northwest that resulted in the escape of nearly 400 prisoners last month.
Three Inter-Services Intelligence operatives were on Wednesday killed and another injured after Taliban militants fired at a vehicle carrying them in Pakistan's restive northwest, media reports said.
At least five persons were killed and over 70 others injured on Sunday when a Shia procession was targeted with a bomb at Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's restive northwest, the second such attack in the city in as many days.
Authorities on Monday removed four senior officials over the escape of 384 prisoners in a jailbreak in Pakistan's restive northwest and launched a probe to find out whether militants who attacked the prison had any link to the Taliban siege in Afghanistan.
The drone fired two missiles at Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's base at Khadezai village in a remote mountainous area of Aurakzai tribal agency, witnesses said. Local residents and witnesses told TV channels that at least 12 militants were killed and more than 15 others injured in the strike.
At least 51 terrorists and four soldiers have died in Pakistan's restive northwest after security forces backed by combat jets launched a major offensive a week back, officials said on Sunday.
"They should remember that there is no article 370 in Pakistan. Here in India they atleast enjoy democracy but they would not have the same freedom there," Prasad warned. He cautioned those journalists who were writing in favour of Kashmiris being allowed to seceed from India must answer if they would support similar response from other states demanding freedom like the ULFA in Assam," the BJP spokesperson said.
The Al Qaeda's second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, was the main target of the United States drone strike that killed 15 militants in Pakistan's lawless Northwest on Monday and US officials said they were "optimistic" the Libyan had not survived
The attack surprised political observers, as the JUI is perceived as being pro-Taliban.
The unusually heavy barrage of three missile strikes in a span of 12 hours, targeting militant hideouts in north and south Waziristan took one of the largest death toll in the controversial unacknowledged air campaign.
American drones carried out one of their deadliest strikes in Pakistan's troubled northwest firing 18 missiles to hit multiple Taliban targets, including terrorist training camps, hideouts and vehicles killing 15 militants.
In a warning to anti-Taliban tribesmen, two suicide bombers disguised as policemen targeted a gathering of tribesmen and pro-government elders killing at least 50 people and injuring 120 others on Monday in Pakistan's unruly northwest.
Over 3,100 terrorists have been arrested in Pakistan in the last three years and a majority of them were nabbed from the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the country's northwest.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on an elite Pakistani army training centre at Mardan in the country's northwest region.The suicide bomber unleashed his lethal payload in the midst of a parade, killing 27 soldiers and wounding 40 others. TTP spokesperson Ihsanullah Ihsan said, "We proudly claim responsibility for the Mardan attack; we sent the Fidayeen (suicide bomber) and he successfully carried out the attack."
If viewed as a part of the Al Qaeda's radicalisation effort to produce jihadists out of discontented Muslim youth in India, the call could well have a much larger dimension, both in the near as well as long term, directly impacting on national security, says Bibhu Prasad Routray.
Heavy monsoon showers hit the flood-hit regions of Pakistan on Sunday, worsening the flooding and impeding relief operations, compounding a humanitarian crisis that has affected over 14 million people across the country and claimed nearly 1,700 lives so far.
In a major blow to Pakistan's counter-terrorism credentials, China has for the first time publicly acknowledged the existence of terrorist camps within the territory of its 'all-weather' ally.
The cargo service operates once a week and the frequency would increased to daily flights, based on freight volume, Wang Yongzhi, an official with the Kashgar which is a known as Kashi Prefecture government, told Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency.
At least 34 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a suicide bomber targeted members of an anti-Taliban militia who were attending a funeral in Pakistan's restive northwest region on Wednesday. The bomber targeted the funeral prayers of the wife of Hakeem Khan, a leader of the 'peace committee' or anti-Taliban militia of Adezai, a tribal area near Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
A suicide attack on a procession organised by Shia students and subsequent firing by protesters at Quetta in southwest Pakistan on Friday killed over 50 people and injured more than 100 others, hours after two terrorist attacks left as many persons dead in the northwest.
More than 800 people have died and at least one million affected by flash floods triggered by the worst monsoon rains in Pakistan in eight decades, officials and the United Nations said on Saturday.
A prominent Hindu legislator in Pakistan's troubled northwest on Thursday condemned the kidnapping and killing of members of minority communities and appealed to the government to provide adequate protection to them.
The Northwest Frontier Province government has expressed its inability to host the match in the wake of Moharram.
A senior police officer was among the 12 people killed when a bomb went off near a police vehicle in Pakistan's troubled northwest on Tuesday. The bomb, believed to be hidden in a rickshaw, exploded as the police van passed through an area on the outskirts of Dera Ismail Khan city in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, TV news channels quoted police sources and witnesses as saying. Over 10 others were also injured in the blast.
"The operation will continue till the last Taliban militant is eliminated," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told media persons at the Islamabad airport on his return from the US. Malik's remarks come as Pakistani army and fighter jets resumed their pounding of Taliban positions after a nine hour pause ordered to lead the trapped civilians reach safer areas.
Taliban appears to be nearing collapse as in another blow to the group, Pakistani authorities have captured Mulla Abdul Kabir, a member of the Quetta Shura and the shadow governor of Afghanistan's eastern Nangahar province.
The dip in the air quality can be attributed to low wind speed and temperatures which allowed accumulation of pollutants.
To this end, India has recently committed USD 400 million in steel to construction of the railway connecting Chabahar and Zahedan, near Afghan border, the report said.
President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday offered peace talks to militants in Pakistan's troubled northwest even as security forces claimed to have killed more than 50 rebels in an operation in the tribal belt.
soon after its release, social media users lambasted its makers for exploiting the tragedy.
Over 90 militants were killed in raging battles in Pakistan's lawless northwest, as security forces on Wednesday pounded Taliban positions, to provide crucial back-up to a tribal militia taking on the insurgents. The military said troops had engaged militant positions at Janikhel in Bannu district with heavy fire and a 'clearance operation' was underway in Zaidi Akbar Khan area. There was no official word on the exact number of casualties in fighting in this region.
While the minimum was 14 degree Celsius at Mahableshwar, it was 11.6C in Mumbai.
A young Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up outside a crowded government office in Pakistan's restive northwest killing 26.
The release of Pakistan's envoy to Afghanistan was part of a deal between the government and the local Taliban, under which they will swap about 330 prisoners after signing a formal peace agreement in the restive northwest tribal areas. The Taliban wanted 250 militants, currently in the government's custody, to be swapped with 80 soldiers and government officials, who had been taken hostage by the rebels. Azizuddin was handed over by militants to authorities at Razmak.
The World Meteorological Organisation/Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Panel on Tropical Cyclones, at its twenty-seventh session held in 2000 in Muscat, Oman, agreed to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.
Three Chinese astronauts on Thursday entered the country's new space station after their spaceship successfully docked with it, just over seven hours after the launch from the Gobi Desert, in a major milestone for the Communist giant's space exploration plans and its bid to become a leading space power.
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