Rescue officials on Tuesday recovered the severed head of the suspected suicide bomber who they believe blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers during the afternoon prayers on Monday in the high-security zone in Pakistan's restive northwestern Peshawar city.
United States officials have identified Pakistan as a base of operations or target for numerous armed and non state militant groups, some of which have existed since the 1980s, the independent Congressional Research Service said in the report.
The Pakistan military believes that American and British military will withdraw from Afghanistan -- and when they do, they will need old Taliban friends such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin to minimise the influence of India in its Afghan backyard.Although Pakistan's military chiefs have been talking about an 'imminent' assault since last June, all the evidence has pointed to deep reluctance to launch a massive ground offensive.
Pakistan on Friday dismissed reports claiming Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar had fled from Quetta to Karachi, with the help of the Inter Services Intelligence, to avoid the possibility of being targeted by United States drones."This is ridiculous to say the least," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters. He said there had been speculations about Omar's presence in Pakistan 'for years'.
The advance on Mehsud tribal positions began on Saturday morning after a go-ahead was given by the government for starting an offensive on Taliban stronghold at a meeting attended by the top political and military leadership.
Pakistan is being selective in its action against Taliban while cracking down on elements which it feels are causing trouble inside the country, but avoiding a campaign against other factions, according to the US congressmen.
The Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday threatened they would launch a guerrilla war once security forces entered the whole of the South Waziristan tribal region, where a military operation is currently underway.
The blast occurred in the mosque in the Police Lines area around 1.40 pm when a suicide bomber present in the front row during the Zuhr (afternoon) prayers blew himself up, security officials said.
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.
The 13th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team cites a UN Member State as saying that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Deobandi group ideologically closer to the Taliban "maintains eight training camps in Nangarhar, three of which are directly under Taliban control."
A top Pakistani tribal leader has vowed to wipe out the feared warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who has pushed Pakistan close to collapse. 30-year-old Qari Zainuddin, the leader of Taliban tribesmen opposed to Baitullah, said he had mobilised 3,000 armed followers and will attempt to wipe out the Pakistani Taliban chief and drive his al-Qaeda supporters from the country.
Over 100 Taliban fighters crossed over from Afghanistan and attacked military posts in Upper Dir area of northwest Pakistan, triggering clashes that left eight soldiers and 15 militants dead, officials said on Monday.
Pakistan-based outlawed groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have supported Taliban and Al Qaida in destabilising the country, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.
The Taliban killed 14 security personnel and beheaded all but one of them before displaying the heads of two soldiers on wooden poles in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan, security officials said on Monday.
A Pakistani Taliban commander claimed the militants captured the two security personnel on Sunday night while troops were conducting a raid in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency.
Pakistan's powerful army chief General Raheel Sharif has asked the United States to target the hideouts of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan terrorists and their chief Mullah Fazlullah in Afghanistan.
Officials said unidentified men attacked a security check-post on Friday night near Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, injuring security personnel.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that terrorism, not India, is the greatest "threat" to his country, a significant shift in Islamabad's view of its neighbour that provoked controversy back home.
Taliban militants on Sunday attacked the Central Jail in Bannu and freed several of their comrades, including Adnan Rashid, a convict on death row who had plotted to kill General Pervez Musharraf. Tahir Ali reports
Pakistani forces were close to overrunning all three Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan as they killed 18 terrorists in fierce fresh battles in the lawless region and adjoining areas over the last 24 hours.
Afghan forces backed by air support from Nato aircraft have launched a broad sweep of the country's northeast borders killing 59 Taliban insurgents in a major offensive in a province that serves as a militant supply route from Pakistan.
At least 10 people, including five soldiers, were killed on Monday in a Taliban suicide attack at a market close to Pakistan's military headquarters in Rawalpindi, a day after one of the deadliest attacks on security forces killed 20 troops.
Six Pakistani security personnel and 17 Taliban militants were killed in an overnight gun fight in the restive Kurram tribal region of northwest Pakistan, security officials said on Wednesday.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan on Saturday claimed responsibility for kidnapping a group of over 30 boys, who had strayed into Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province as reports said some of them had escaped and reached back to their homes.
At least 25 security personnel were killed in a fierce gunbattle that erupted after hundreds of Taliban fighters from Afghanistan crossed into northwest Pakistan and attacked a remote security check post on Wednesday.
Claiming that 'thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan', chief of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, told The News daily by phone from an undisclosed location. Hundreds of would-be bombers had been 'given suicide jackets and explosive-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces', he said.
At least 75 people were killed and 115 others injured in the attack.
Pakistan has said it would not hinder the proposed United States-driven initiative to open peace talks with Taliban in Qatar, refuting reports that it had blocked some key Taliban figures from flying to Doha to participate in the process.
"Pakistan also faces an insurgency in Baluchistan, which Pakistan has also not been able to resolve physically," Wood said.
The arrest of four militants, including two young suicide bombers, in Karachi has once again highlighted the dangerous trend of how the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is using local maulvis and handlers to poison the mind of innocent youngsters and send them to the tribal Waziristan mountainous region to become suicide bombers.
Pakistan will not initiate a dialogue with the local Taliban unless they lay down their arms and give up terrorism, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday amid reports of secret negotiations between the government and militant groups.
Top Taliban leader Mullah Omar was sheltered by Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter-Services intelligence after the outfit's leadership fled from Afghanistan in 2001, according to an email received by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton during her tenure.
A group of about 40 Pakistani boys, who strayed into Afghanistan during a picnic to celebrate Eid have been kidnapped by Taliban militants, raising fears that they could be turned into suicide bombers.
Taliban insurgents disguised as police attacked a prison holding hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan with rockets and mortars and have reportedly escaped with 300 prisoners after a gunfight with security forces.
The impoverished tribesmen in Pakistan's lawless areas have borne the brunt of the government's attempts to combat militancy, says Tahir Ali
The Pakistan government is supporting Islamist groups close to the Taliban in its attempt to suppress tribal insurgency in Balochistan, a leading international think tank has alleged. In its report Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistan, the International Crisis Group said that the Musharraf regime relies on divide-and-rule policies. It supports Pashtun Islamist parties like the JUI-F, a key patron of the Afghan Taliban, in a bid to counter secular Baloch forces.
Militant commander Syed Muhammad was gunned down in the mountainous Elaum area in Buner district on Sunday, officials said
After intense pressure from the United States, Pakistan has reportedly agreed to launch a full-scale offensive against the Taliban and other extremist organisations in their stronghold North Waziristan, but has also clarified to the Obama administration that the timing of the military offensive would be decided by it.
A powerful explosion ripped through a market in Bajaur tribal region of northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing eight persons, including two anti-Taliban tribal elders, and injuring 12 others.
Pakistan has informed the United States that it is ready to facilitate its peace talks with Taliban, but it must not be blamed in case of failure, as it does not spoon-feed the militant group, a media report said on Sunday.
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