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'.
China's Ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yu and Acting Minister of Refugee Affairs of the Afghan caretaker government Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani attended the handover ceremony at the airport.
A powerful car bomb exploded outside a Shiite imambargah at a busy market.
Umar Khalid, Maulana Fazlullah and Khan Said alias Sajna are under consideration for the top slot, the report said quoting sources.
'It appears on the face of it that the Taliban of 2021 is not the same Taliban of 2001. There appears to be some difference. They are making mature statements. That is something we have to take note of,' former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha said
Amid India's concerns that Afghanistan's territory might be used for anti-India activities under the Taliban regime, the terror group has said that it has the right to raise its voice for Muslims anywhere, including in Kashmir. However, it added that the group does not have a policy of raising arms against any country.
The remarks by China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Geng Shuang, came during an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan on Monday after the sudden and rapid takeover of the Afghanistan government by the Taliban insurgents.
The Taliban is highly pragmatic and would regard it wasteful to resume military offensive to capture Panjshir. The Taliban's preference, historically, has been to keep the military option as the last resort, explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
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.
'If they aim to remain aligned with the public sentiment, as any democratic government should, then they must respond. Why else would the prime minister have cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia? And why would he have instructed the home minister himself to travel to Srinagar to assess the situation firsthand? This suggests that something is indeed being planned. I am quite certain of that, although the exact form it will take remains to be seen.'
'Even during the worst days during the 1990s, India was dealing with the Taliban.'
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.
'Women have 100 per cent inclusion in the health sector. They are also teaching in the education sector. They are working in each and every one of those sectors where they are required'
Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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.
"The 'red bag' belonged to one of the hijackers, it contained explosives, and possibly, real passports, too.
The murder of two Sikhs by the Taliban in the restless tribal belt highlights the plight of the minorities there. Rajeev Sharma reports.
South Africa Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie said he supported calls for a boycott of Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy in Pakistan next month.
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.
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.
A Pakistan Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque packed with worshippers during afternoon prayers in the high-security zone in Peshawar, killing at least 61 people and wounding more than 150 others, mostly policemen.
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.
'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'
The police also said that an initial probe has suggested that the banned terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is behind the suicide attack that injured over 100 people in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
There are indications that Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadar has scrapped his longstanding peace agreement with the government of Pakistan, reports Tahir Ali.
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.
A powerful suicide blast ripped through a mosque in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province on Friday, killing at least 52 people and injuring over 50 others gathered to celebrate Prophet Muhammad's birthday, authorities said.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
'When the Taliban took over there was a genuine fear that they will harm me, but right now that fear is not there.'
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.
Two Sikhs, abducted by Taliban, have been rescued by security forces in the restive Khyber tribal region in northwest Pakistan, a week after two members of the community were beheaded by the militants, a military spokesman said on Monday.The two abducted Sikhs--Surjeet Singh and Gurvinder Singh--are safe, a spokesman said.
Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a former defence minister in the Taliban's Majlis-e-Shura or executive council, was recently arrested along with two Afghan nationals by intelligence agencies in Lahore, the Daily Times reported.
