Pakistan's main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said that the government should hold talks with the Taliban as part of its efforts to tackle the menace of terrorism. "If Washington says it is prepared to talk to the Taliban who are willing to listen, then a similar initiative should also come from Islamabad. We should not only see what decision they (the Western countries) will make about our fate. We should decide our own fate," said Sharif.
The Pakistani military has "significantly degraded" the Pakistani Taliban, but is still reluctant to take action against the elements of Afghan Taliban operating from inside its territory, a top US General said on Wednesday.
Pakistan has granted some concessions to key Afghan Taliban leaders in its custody, including Mullah Omar's deputy Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, shifting them to "roomier facilities" and allowing them to make telephonic contact with their families.
Taliban commander Mullah Nazir has been killed in a United States drone strike in South Waziristan agency.
India abstained in the United Nations General Assembly on a draft resolution introduced by Pakistan and co-sponsored by China on Islamophobia, asserting that the prevalence of 'religiophobia' against Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and other faiths facing violence and discrimination must also be acknowledged rather than singling out just one religion.
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.
The official in question has not served in India before.
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 army said that three terrorists were "neutralised while entering the base while the remaining three terrorists have been cornered/isolated due to timely and effective response by the troops".
With a little more than a month to go for Pakistan's general election, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud has described democracy as a system of 'kafirs' (non-believers) and vowed to wage jihad to implement Islamic law in the country. In a video message issued on
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.
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.
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.
Officials said unidentified men attacked a security check-post on Friday night near Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, injuring security personnel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 also faces an insurgency in Baluchistan, which Pakistan has also not been able to resolve physically," Wood said.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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'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.
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.
Parkash, a 2022 graduate of Abbottabad International Medical College, serves as the general secretary of the PPP women's wing in Buner.
The United States embassy in Pakistan has warned about a possible terrorist attack against American citizens at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and prohibited American staff from visiting the five-star facility, an official statement said.
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.
The impoverished tribesmen in Pakistan's lawless areas have borne the brunt of the government's attempts to combat militancy, says Tahir Ali
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.
At least 75 people were killed and 115 others injured in the attack.
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.
