Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Ajit Doval said, "They are threatening us now".'
Dr Sandeep Pandey, a Magsasay award winner, who was part of an Indian delegation that visited Pakistan recently, writes about the situation there.
American officials possess satellite photos that 'purportedly' show Pakistani army trucks picking up Taliban troops, Time said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that his government is ready to start parleys with Taliban, but evaded questions whether the reconciliation would include the Haqqani faction.
A powerful car bomb exploded outside a Shiite imambargah at a busy market.
The timing of these transfers, while being projected as routine, is significant in both strategic and political terms, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
'I am committed to my country if there is respect for democracy and human rights. If not possible then I will prefer to stay in India or any other western country'
Taliban forces in Pakistan have announced a ten-day ceasefire in the restive north western Swat valley, as peace talks between a senior cleric and local authorities are believed to have struck a deal to enforce Shariah laws in some parts of the region.The announcement of the truce came a day after a Chinese engineer, abducted by the Taliban six months back, was set free in Swat as a 'goodwill gesture'.
Expressing concern over violence in the Middle East, Musharraf said dangers loomed large in the region that threatened regional and global peace.
Umar Khalid, Maulana Fazlullah and Khan Said alias Sajna are under consideration for the top slot, the report said quoting sources.
The Obama administration has praised Pakistan for the high-profile arrests it has made in the recent past, in particular those of the top Taliban leaders.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had a secret meeting with a group of senior Taliban operatives in April last year during which he expressed the Pakistan government's "support for their mission", a researcher studying developments in Afghanistan has alleged.
Pakistan may want to undertake a 'false flag' operation in J&K to divert attention from the situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but infiltrating one SSG battalion into J&K and having two SSG battalions waiting to follow suit means war, which Pakistan cannot afford in its current economic crisis, notes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
The Pakistani Taliban have issued a fatwa against the media, declaring it a "party" to the conflict in the country, and drawn up a hit-list of journalists and publishers, a media report said on Thursday.
Amid deepening concerns in China over the regrouping of the ETIM, blamed by Beijing for all the violent attacks in its volatile Xinjiang province and elsewhere in the country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mullah Baradar at Tianjin and sought to prevail on him to build a 'positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits Afghanistan's national realities'.
"China and the Afghan Taliban have unimpeded and effective communication and consultation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing in Beijing.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has never grown into a unified group and by its very nature continues to be a conglomeration of different militant tribal groups that broadly follow similar goals.
The murder of two Sikhs by the Taliban in the restless tribal belt highlights the plight of the minorities there. Rajeev Sharma reports.
A full-fledged training, intelligence and combat module on Taliban, its leadership and their modus operandi is being prepared apart from specific case studies that have taken place in that country and the region, he said.
The US is not in a forgiving mood for being humiliated in such a manner by an insurgent force and made to look 'loser' internationally, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Today, Pakistan and Afghanistan are feeling disturbed because of the Taliban, Yogi said.
Two top leaders of a banned pro-Taliban group, which brokered the controversial Swat peace deal, were killed on Saturday in Pakistan's restive northwest, when militants ambushed a security forces' convoy transporting the detained extremists to a prison in Peshawar.Maulana Muhammad Alam, deputy chief of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e- hariah Muhammadi which is headed by radical cleric Sufi Muhammad, and the group's spokesman Amir Izzat Khan were killed.
'When the Taliban took over there was a genuine fear that they will harm me, but right now that fear is not there.'
Representatives from the United States and Qatar, the UN, China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the EU, Germany, India, Norway, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan joined a regional conclave on Thursday to discuss ways to contain the escalating security situation in Afghanistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are discussing the possible release of Taliban prisoners, including the outfit's powerful commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to boost the Afghan peace process, foreign office spokesman Moazzam Khan said on Friday.
Pakistan's teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, was still on ventilator at a top army hospital, though her condition was satisfactory and her vital organs were "intact and working properly", the military said on Saturday.
Captain Sharan and Flight Engineer Anil Jaggia both confirm that the hijackers seemed to know a lot about flying an aircraft. Without help from the ISI or the Pakistan army, it was impossible, points out Utkarsh Mishra.
There are indications that Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadar has scrapped his longstanding peace agreement with the government of Pakistan, reports Tahir Ali.
The explosion took place at 4 pm at the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl workers' convention in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
Imran Khan knows Pakistan is holding a strong hand and doesn't have to flaunt it while claiming victory. But Pakistan has learned from the experience of the 1990s -- high risk of going out on a limb, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A top Pakistani diplomat in the United States on Saturday said that Islamabad was aware that the peace deal with Taliban in the country's troubled Swat valley would not work but went ahead with it as a tactical move. Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani, in a television interview, said even President Asif Ali Zardari knew about its result from the very beginning of the deal. He also said that such strategy could be repeated in the future.
Pakistani police and counter-terrorism forces on Monday raided a house near Lahore, killing four Taliban militants and seizing a large cache of arms as they claimed to have averted a "major terror attack".
The officials said the freed Taliban leaders include Sheikh Abdur Rahim and Mawlawi Abdur Rashid, who had served as the insurgent group's governors of Kunar and Nimroz provinces respectively during the Taliban administration before it was deposed by the US-led forces in 2001.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban leader freed from a Pakistani jail on the request of the US less than three years ago, has emerged as an "undisputed victor" of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, according to a British media report.
Australian foreign minister Marise Payne and defence minister Peter Dutton will visit India from September 10 to 12 to take part in the dialogue with their Indian counterparts.
After two decades, the SCO appears to be at a cross-roads with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, asserts Srikanth Kondapalli, the leading China expert.
'Afghan people will not accept a governing structure that excludes women and minorities'
Referring to the argument made by the US that F-16 sustenance package is to fight terrorism, Jaishankar had said everybody knows where and against whom F-16 fighter jets are used.
India has sent a team to Kabul to oversee the delivery of India's humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and hold discussions with the Taliban over the aid provided by New Delhi.
