After a 7-year hiatus, Pakistan Monday showcased its growing military might, including tactical nuclear missiles and fighter jets, at a joint tri-service parade to celebrate the National Day in a symbolic show of strength in the war against the Taliban.
Three senior officers of the Pakistan navy have been penalised after a court martial found them guilty of negligence and dereliction of duty during a deadly Taliban attack on a key naval airbase in Karachi last year, which also destroyed two US-made surveillance aircraft.
Terrorist outfit Al Qaeda is training a 12-member team of westerners in Pakistan for a special mission including plotting attacks on return to their home countries, a media report has said.
The United States has begun to squeeze the funding and flow of money to terrorist organisations in the Af-Pak region including the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network and Laskhar-e-Tayiba, and keeping a tab on 'hawala' transactions, a top Obama administration official has said.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai made a torrid attack on the Pakistani leadership in a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and demanded that Islamabad produce top Taliban leaders to negotiate with him. Karzai confronted the Pakistanis at an official delegation-level talk on Thursday in Islamabad between the two countries on the sidelines of a trilateral summit meeting of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Accusing Pakistan of harbouring Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, a top Afghan official on Monday said the global community is committing a blunder by embracing it as a strategic partner despite the fact that terrorism emanating from the region is affecting India, United Kingdom and others. "Unfortunately, the military-intelligence establishment of one of our neighbours still regards Afghanistan as its sphere of influence," Rangin Dadfar Spanta said.
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 Pakistani delegation is visiting the US to brief US lawmakers, officials, academics and other members of the American society on the state of religious schools in Pakistan.
The Al Qaeda network is not located in Afghanistan, but clearly headquartered in Pakistan, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen told Congress Thursday, and warned that if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan again, it would mean the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan to plan and plot attacks against the US reminiscent of 9/11.
Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking abolition of the death penalty saying that the "right to life and liberty is not absolute" in the constitution.
As the battle in lawless Waziristan intensified, the Pakistan government on Monday raised the bounties on the heads of 19 Tehrik-e-Taliban terrorists, including its chief Hakimullah Mehsud to a whopping Rs 41 crore or USD 5 million.
Fingers are pointing to radical terror groups in Pakistan for Afghanistan's first major sectarian assault on Tuesday since the fall of Taliban regime 10 years ago, raising fears among United States officials that more such groups may now be operating in the strife-torn country.
Pakistani intelligence agencies have warned that the local Taliban, the Jandullah group and other banned militant groups have plans to target foreigners, embassies and Shia clerics and worship places in major cities in Pakistan, including capital Islamabad.
Pakistan's Punjab province' home department has directed concerned agencies to provide extra security cover to the banned Jamaat-ud-Daawa chief Hafeez Muhammed Saeed, following intelligence reports that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is planning to target him.
Pakistan on Wednesday reacted angrily to a leaked NATO report that accused its security services of helping the Afghan Taliban just as Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar began a visit to Kabul, saying the allegations were "frivolous".
The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday asked Pakistan to act quickly against the terror groups inside the country saying that these extremist organisations are not only posing a threat to the world but also to their own existence.
Millions of Pakistanis will go to the polls on Saturday to vote for a landmark democratic transition of power after a bloody campaign, marred by Taliban violence that killed over 100 people, forced key parties to abandon rallies and large gatherings.
The use of a woman suicide bomber by the Taliban to target a United Nations aid centre in Pakistan's restive tribal belt represents a fresh challenge as security forces will have to find ingenious ways to avert more such attacks, experts said on Sunday.
Pakistan and its spy agency Inter Services Intelligence is supporting the United States' war in Afghanistan simply to ensure that Indians do not get strategic 'advantage' in the war- ravaged country
'Foreign ministry sources in Delhi discount the official version of the story, in which Modi made an impromptu request to stop over at Lahore, during the course of a birthday telephone call to Nawaz Sharif. In fact, this stopover had been carefully considered in Delhi, as a way to galvanise the peace process further.'
Amid intense US pressure to deliver on the war on terror, the chief of Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence has been shunted out of Islamabad and replaced by Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, considered close to the reform-minded Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
'As long as the military and the madrassas rule just across the border, Afghanistan will never find peace,'says Chris Patten.
He also sought setting up of a global fund to contain terrorism.
Talking tough, Afghanistan has alleged Pakistan had advance knowledge of the plot to assassinate former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and said Islamabad was refusing to cooperate in investigations of the crime.
In an "important breakthrough", three men have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the near-fatal attack on teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai in Swat, a former stronghold of the Taliban in northwest Pakistan, police said on Friday.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai might have described Pakistan and Afghanistan as 'co-joined' twins, but experts believe that there is underlying tension simmering between both nations.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will visit Britain this week to meet teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who is being treated at a United Kingdom hospital after being shot in the head by Taliban militants.
The US, the official said, is monitoring the situation carefully in Pakistan and expects some progress.
The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins is stepping down, Secretary of State John Kerry today said amid a political crisis in the war-torn country.
Two influential Congressional sub-committees will hold a joint hearing on Pakistan's commitment in the fight against terrorism
Currently placed on the FATF'S 'grey list', Pakistan has been scrambling in recent months to avoid being added to a list of countries deemed non-compliant with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations by the FATF.
An increasing number of militants of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement fighting for the separation of China's Muslim majority Xinjiang province were "fleeing to Pakistan and settling down there for future plots," a state-run newspaper reported on Monday.According to latest reports, the ETIM has been in close collaboration with the Taliban and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden," the China Daily said in its lead story on the first anniversary of the bloody riots in Xinjiang.
As external affairs minister S M Krishna travels to Beijing on Tuesday for talks till April 8 with his counterpart, Yang Jiechi, highly placed sources in the establishment confirmed that India and China have been in talks for some time to ban Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Abdul Rehman Makki of the Jamaat-ud Dawa and Azam Cheema of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, under the UNSC resolutions.
Teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai, shot in the head during an assassination attempt by the Taliban, continues to be on ventilator in a military hospital and the next 48 hours were critical for her recovery, a military spokesman said on Friday.
The US is committed to not allowing either Pakistan or Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists from where they can attack the US and its allies, said the senior Trump administration official.
The United States has given Pakistan a deadline till July to launch a military offensive in the restive North Waziristan tribal region for capturing five most wanted al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and Ilyas Kashmiri.
After the recent suicide attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas, which left at least 100 people dead, the Pakistan army, with US help, is reportedly set for a major military offensive in the area.
Singh said Jammu and Kashmir was not an issue as it was an integral part of the country.
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