The IP (internet protocol) address of the sender has been traced to Pakistan, said the official.
Top Taliban commander Usman Punjabi has been killed during in-fighting within militant groups at the North Waziristan Agency in Pakistan.Talking to rediff.com via phone from North Waziristan's Shakir Dawar, a local tribesman said, "Fighting erupted among two groups of the Punjabi Taliban. Usman Punjabi, along with three companions, and two persons from the rival group were killed on the spot." Punjabi was an active member of the Punjabi Taliban.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has invited the Taliban to play a cricket match in a bid to revive a stalled peace process but his remarks were criticised on social media.
"So, there was no infiltration of any Afghani Taliban... To that effect, we have been able to control (things)," he said.
Pakistan has said it will not back off from military offensive against militants in North Waziristan in the aftermath of the terror attack at a school in Peshawar that left 141 people, mostly children, dead.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Even as the army battles Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's militants headed by Hakimullah Mehsud, the government has decided to adopt another approach to end the spate of terror strikes on its soil. As part of this strategy, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has urged religious scholars to issue fatwas against the Taliban militants, by terming them as kafirs (non-believers).
The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In fact, the Taliban apparently collects about 10 per cent as cultivation tax from opium farmers and 15 per cent as heroin tax from laboratories and smugglers that smuggle narcotics into Pakistan. This, by itself, is a revenue stream estimated at USD 250-300 million.
'We can't be outliers. We can't be bystanders. We have to be players.' 'The Taliban also need India to balance the winners in this game.'
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
Pakistan was waiting for an opportunity to bring the Jammu and Kashmir issue to the global agenda and resorted to the terrorism route to provoke India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Speculations are rife in the Pakistani media that 'Pakistan's Switzerland' -- Swat, the principal city in the troubled Waziristan region has fallen to Taliban.
US-led NATO forces are facing a tough time in Afghanistan after Pakistan blockaded the main supply route and the Taliban stepped up attacks on vehicles and oil-tankers carrying essentials with nearly 60 trucks being destroyed in last three days.
India is apprehensive about the Taliban's return as it would mean loss of access to Baluch rebels and help to the restive tribals of Waziristan. This would be a setback to the Indian strategy of returning the compliments of death by a thousand cuts to Pakistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'We are too important to want to be paired with Pakistan but too intensely connected to it to successfully detach ourselves,' asserts Aakar Patel.
On January 30, a suicide bombing at a mosque in the Peshawar Police Lines area claimed the lives of at least 101 people
'But an overthrow of the Afghan government would really embolden regional militant groups in a big way.' 'LeT and JeM could be emboldened, and prompted to replicate in Kashmir what the Taliban did in Afghanistan.'
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
China may accord recognition to the new government in Kabul at an early opportunity, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
"Now we live in a completely independent Afghanistan. The new government will be announced very soon," said Anaamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, reported Tolo News.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has showed its solidarity with the militants of Indian Kashmir and has said that the Taliban are struggling for implementing Islamic Shariah not only in Pakistan but also in the region including Kashmir.
'Five months after the elections in February 2024, the Pakistan army has not been able to break Imran Khan's resolve and break his political party.'
Pakistani Taliban has warned that boys and girls of its suicide squad will launch "massive" strikes across the country, including the commercial hub of Karachi, if military operation in Swat and other tribal areas are not halted immediately.
The activation of diplomatic channels is likely to yield better results than a simmering hostility, recommends Ajai Shukla.
'We've moved from thousands killed yearly in Jammu and Kashmir to 127 last year.' 'Cross-border terrorism in Kashmir is being solved. We are winning it.'
Police in Pakistan have busted an illegal telephone gateway exchange in Lahore, allegedly being operated by the Taliban to make ransom calls to families of persons kidnapped by them, including the sons of former premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer.
'It was such a joy for me to return there today -- after 13 long years -- to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins.'
Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud's shift to the hardline Salafi ideology has derailed the peace process with Pakistan, rediff.com's Tahir Ali reports
Commander of the Task Force in Afghanistan Major General David Rodriguez also said the Taliban in Afghanistan probably will not stage a spring offensive in the volatile eastern region bordering Pakistan.
The Taliban had promised an 'inclusive' government that represents Afghanistan's complex ethnic makeup, but there is no Hazara member in the cabinet.
Blaming the Pakistan government for the killing of its chief Hakimullah Mehsud, Taliban has warned that it "will soon start targeting" the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership for its alleged support to the United States in the region.
Pakistan is directly helping the Taliban in their fight against the elected government in war-ravaged Afghanistan, a media report said, citing a secret North Atlantic Treaty Organisation document.
'Pakistan's only concern has been while they were on the FATF watch list was to distance their State institutions and organs from any direct connection with the actual execution of militancy inside Kashmir.'
Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province government has announced a bounty worth Rs 10 million for information leading to the arrest or killing of Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the mastermind of the Peshawar school massacre that left 150 people dead, mostly students.
Pakistan on Saturday released former Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, meeting a long-standing demand of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to advance peace efforts in the war-ravaged country.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the 2008 Mumbai terror attack marked a turning point in relations with Pakistan when Indians collectively felt that such behaviour from a neighbouring country could no longer be tolerated. Speaking at Charotar University of Science and Technology, Jaishankar acknowledged India's transformation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the last decade, while Pakistan has remained unchanged, continuing with what he termed as its "bad habits."
'India won't take anything from Pakistan lying down.'
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan's six top commanders on Tuesday pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been vying for supremacy with Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The recent attacks in Pakistan's Punjab should be taken as warning shots of an impending battle which will further destabilise that country and the region.
