External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said India will continue to extend all support to the Afghanistan as a contiguous neighbour, in a clear reference that the Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir belongs to India.
The diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and Afghanistan deepened on Sunday after Kabul announced that it will withdraw its ambassador and other senior staff from Islamabad after the abduction and torture of the daughter of its envoy to Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban is struggling to find a successor to slain chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
The United States on Friday said that Pakistani leaders must take action against rapidly expanding Taliban militants who now pose an 'existential threat' to Islamabad. "I think that some of the leaders certainly understand that (threat posed by the Taliban), but it is important that they not only recognise it but take the appropriate actions to deal with it," United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters during his visit to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
'Anybody can claim anything,' Pakistan army spokesperson Major General Athar Abbas said. 'I do not think the Pakistani Taliban has the capacity to carry out attacks overseas because the army has destroyed their facilities.'
Biden's remarks could be seen as a setback to the Shehbaz Sharif government's bid to improve ties with the US.
Expressing concern over the situation in Afghanistan, a group of eminent persons, including former ministers K Natwar Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Mani Shankar Aiyar, on Wednesday urged the government to continue engaging with the Taliban and not allow any political party to use the developments in that country to communally polarise Indian society for electoral gains.
New Zealand Cricket officials have commissioned international security consultant and expert Reg Dickason to visit Pakistan later this week to carry out a thorough security and COVID-19 assessment before advising them whether they should send their team to Pakistan.
Afghanistan will remain a frontline state for Washington for a foreseeable future in terms of the potential threats to US national security from terrorist groups, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who played a stellar role in beginning India's dealings in Afghanistan in 1994.
Trump disclosed that he was to meet the Afghan President and senior Taliban leaders on Sunday at his Camp David retreat.
With commercial flights from Kabul airport yet to resume, media reports said the Afghanistan team had been looking to travel to Pakistan by road and fly to Colombo via Dubai.
'We have been bold and innovative on recognition in the past and we do not need to rush,' advises Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
It seems that the West is sending a signal to India that it can return to old hostilities unless India toes their line on Russia. It is no surprise that India is being compared with Putin's Russia in terms of targeting 'dissidents' as the West calls these Khalistani terrorists, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Security has been beefed up across Pakistan to fend off a looming threat by Taliban to launch the "biggest attack" on some unspecified important installation, officials said on Monday.
For Afghans in India, including medical tourists from the war-torn country as well as migrants and refugees staying here much longer, the safety of friends and families is the biggest concern - particularly for those linked to the now collapsed government or who have had work ties with the US.
Tahir Ali reports on the growing presence and activities of Taliban militants in Pakistan's largest city Karachi
Australian cricketers are on edge barely a month before their first tour of Pakistan in 24 years, amid an uptick in terror attacks in the Asian nation.
A spokesperson of the Karachi Police confirmed in a statement that the Karachi police chief's head office had come under attack.
"We have removed the leader of an organisation that has continued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and coalition forces, to wage war against the Afghan people, and align itself with extremist groups like Al-Qaeda," the US president said in a statement.
Police in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said on Monday that an initial probe has suggested that the banned terrorist group Islamic State is behind the suicide attack on a political convention of a hardline Islamist party that killed at least 46 people and injured over 100.
Pakistan-India bilateral relations remained frozen for the fourth year over the vexed Kashmir issue but analysts hope the strained ties could be repaired if Nawaz Sharif becomes the prime minister for a record fourth time in the general elections in February in the absence of his main challenger Imran Khan who is in jail in multiple cases.
The army chief's comments on Wednesday, at the Raisina Dialogue, on engaging with Taliban were first such public remarks by a senior functionary of the government.
'India would not like to see Pakistani domination and tutelage of Afghanistan against Indian security and economic interests.'
A militant commander said five people were killed in the firefight and several were injured "including Mullah Mansoor."
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has decided that the outfit will now focus on jihad inside Afghanistan, reports Tahir Ali
'It has been 14 years since I began living in exile and it's shocking that the situation in Balochistan has only worsened rather than improved.'
Afghanistan witnessed a series of terror attacks in the last few weeks as the US aimed to complete the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan by August-end, ending a nearly two-decade of its military presence in the war-ravaged country.
"We've been told every time that... (the phone call) will happen, it's technical reasons or whatever. But frankly, people don't believe it," he said. "If a phone call is a concession, if a security relationship is a concession, Pakistan has options," he added, refusing to elaborate.
Malala was dressed in Pakistani salwar kameez and dupatta. She was smiling and looked happy as he was greeted at the airport.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has appointed a new spokesperson, who will work as deputy to main Taliban spokesperson Azam Tariq.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told the Pashto-language Khyber Television channel that the bodies of the slain Frontier Constabulary personnel had been dumped at Spin Tul, an area near North Waziristan Agency.
The Pakistani military may shortly give Imran Khan the boot, substituting him with another puppet, predicts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Counter-terrorism experts from India, Pakistan and other member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on Monday deliberated on boosting cooperation in combating various regional security challenges at a meeting hosted by New Delhi.
'Washington is well aware that the Haqqani group was responsible for terrorist attacks on the Indian diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan.' 'But today US self-interest dictates that Sirajuddin Haqqani's mainstreaming in Afghan political life and a potential elevation eventually to a leadership role at the national level is useful and necessary, since he can deliver peace,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, a top Afghan Taliban leader who backed the peace process and a former aviation minister in the pre-2001 Taliban regime, has been appointed as the new chief of the insurgent group, as Taliban confirmed the death of its longtime supremo Mullah Omar.
'All Pakistan army chiefs follow a consistent line as far as India is concerned.'
Amid efforts by the concerned governments to hold peace talks with them, the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban have said they would continue their "struggle" till "the Western inspired systems" of governance in both countries are overthrown.
The Pakistani Taliban has announced a month-long ceasefire to facilitate the resumption of peace talks suspended by the government over the recent execution of 23 troops.
The US drone strike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri has raised questions over Pakistan's possible role in the raid amid reports suggesting that the country's airspace could have been used for carrying out the precision strike on the Al Qaeda chief's safe house in Kabul.
There has always been a risk-taking edge to Imran Khan. Like him or hate him, it had to be someone like him to finally threaten to demolish the Pakistani establishment, explains Shekhar Gupta.
