US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday said there was a sea change in the attitude of Pakistanis in the last one year and appreciated the military actions being taken by its army against the Taliban militants.
The Taliban on Monday warned the Pakistan government not to release American national Raymond Davis, who allegedly shot dead two men in Lahore in January, saying any official involved in a move to free him would be killed by militants. "Any Pakistani government official playing any role in Davis' release will be killed by the Taliban," said Azam Tariq, spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The Taliban have also demanded that Davis should be executed by the authorities.
Taliban's move came as Pakistani forces stepped up their campaign to retake territory in the districts of Buner, Dir and Swat. The military said they had killed more than 100 militants and lost several soldiers since fighting began on Tuesday.
The school at Badaber, 10 km south of Peshawar, was destroyed when militants set off six explosive devices. Police said at least 40 kg of explosives was used in the attack. No casualties were reported as the school was closed for the summer vacation.
Mullah Akhtar, a close aide of Mullah Omar who served as his deputy for the past three years, was chosen as the new leader.
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.
Pakistan poses a 'bigger' security challenge than Afghanistan for the United States and the rest of the world, a top American diplomat has said. Christopher Dell, who currently runs the US embassy in Kabul, said Pakistani Taliban groups had formed a common front to attack North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops in Afghanistan. "Pakistan is a bigger place, has a larger population, it's nuclear-armed. It has certainly made radical Islam a part of its political life," he said.
The army said that three terrorists were "neutralised while entering the base while the remaining three terrorists have been cornered/isolated due to timely and effective response by the troops".
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba is acting in a more Al Qaeda-like manner after being 'infected' by the ideas of Osama bin Laden's terror network and poses the highest risk to the United States, according to a top American counter-terrorism expert.
Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban strongholds in the volatile South Waziristan tribal region on Friday as the death toll from the series of US drone attacks in the region rose to 13. The warplanes hit targets in preparation for a full scale military operation which Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said would take off as soon as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud was spotted.
After initial hiccups, Pakistani state negotiators and a Taliban-nominated committee met at an undisclosed location on Thursday to frame a roadmap for parleys aimed at ending terrorism and bringing peace to the country.
Security expert B Raman writes on the alarming rise of Taliban in Pakistan.
China and Pakistan have agreed to step up their defence and counter-terrorism cooperation amidst 'challenging times', as Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa held wide-ranging talks with the Chinese military leadership to further cement their all-weather strategic partnership.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second most powerful leader after Osama Bin Laden, might be critically wounded and possibly dead, according to a media report.The CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter, which urgently requests a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The Al Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The Pakistan Army on Wednesday said Faisal Shahzad, arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the failed bombing in New York's Times Square, is the son of a retired Air Vice Marshal.
Ghulam Rasool Khan alias Khan Mirza, the Afghanistani national who was recently arrested in Purnia district in Bihar for his alleged links with the Taliban, holds a Pakistani passport.According to sources, police have recovered a Pakistani passport, issued in 2005, and a diary from Khan. Acting on a tip-off by the IB, the police arrested Khan in Purnia on January 13, and he was brought to Patna for further interrogation.
Several Pakistani security personnel were reportedly kidnapped by Taliban militants, who launched a pre-dawn attack on a security check post-near the Pakistani tribal region killing one personnel, local media reported. Two security personnel were also injured in the attack in Tank district in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, TV channels reported. Express TV reported that the militants attacked a check-post of Frontier Corps at a remote Mulzai area.
Umar Khalid, Maulana Fazlullah and Khan Said alias Sajna are under consideration for the top slot, the report said quoting sources.
With the Afghanistan government in Kabul approaching Islamabad for help in opening "reconciliation" talks with the Taliban, a Pakistani role in shaping the political landscape in Afghanistan is now an uncomfortable likelihood for New Delhi.
'People in Pakistan opened their homes and hearts to me because I was an Indian. I didn't feel alien at all and I felt as if I was in my own country.' 'I believe that there is a strong chance that the Taliban can win over Pakistan. In an era of ideological confusion these people (Taliban) thrive.' 'The Pakistani State is an enemy state not just for India but for Pakistan itself. By funding non-state actors, the Pakistani government is destroying itself.' Film-maker Hemal Trevedi speaks on her experiences when filming a documentary on Pakistani madrasas
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.
Paramilitary Frontier Corps personnel repelled the attack in which Taliban fighters used suicide bombers, rockets and assault rifles to overwhelm the security forces check post in Jansi area of Khyber tribal region.
Taliban militants on Sunday attacked the Central Jail in Bannu and freed several of their comrades, including Adnan Rashid, a convict on death row who had plotted to kill General Pervez Musharraf. Tahir Ali reports
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
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.
Rescuers retrieved more bodies on Sunday from the burnt-out shell of the bombed Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, pushing the death toll from one of the worst terrorist attacks in the country to at least 60, including the Czech ambassador and an American.
General Sharif will meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other civil as well as military leaders during the day-long trip.
Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban foreign minister when the Indian Airlines plane, IC-814, was hijacked from Kathmandu to Kandahar in December 1999, tells Jyoti Malhotra that India should not look at Afghanistan through the Pakistani lens.
Malala was dressed in Pakistani salwar kameez and dupatta. She was smiling and looked happy as he was greeted at the airport.
Pakistan has informed the United States that it is ready to facilitate its peace talks with Taliban, but it must not be blamed in case of failure, as it does not spoon-feed the militant group, a media report said on Sunday.
Hakimullah Mehsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan believes that since all decisions of the Pakistani government are influenced by the army, his organization will only talk with negotiators who represent the military and not the government. Tahir Ali reports
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has urged the Mehsud tribesmen of South Waziristan to leave their homes, claiming that the Taliban is in a state of war with the government of Pakistan.
A Taliban plot to target a flag-hoisting ceremony at the Wagah land border with India was foiled with the arrest of 10 people, including a top militant commander, Pakistani security agencies claimed on Friday.
Terming the Taliban attack on the Mehran naval air base as a 'big security lapse,' Pakistani defence and political analysts on Monday said that 'insiders' were facilitating the militants in their deadly agenda and asked the government and military to wake up to this.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, said 15-year-old Malala would continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary English home before undergoing major reconstructive surgery in a few weeks.
A group of about 40 Pakistani boys, who strayed into Afghanistan during a picnic to celebrate Eid have been kidnapped by Taliban militants, raising fears that they could be turned into suicide bombers.
Where does the religious preacher and theologian want to take Pakistan?
Pakistan's military spokesman said the convoy was targeted with an improvised explosive device when it was traveling from north Waziristan to Bannu, a major city bordering Afghanistan.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, in an exclusive interview to rediff.com's Tahir Ali, has said that the increase in American troops will only provide the Taliban with more opportunities to attack. It has also claimed that the Pakistani Army's operations have done no damage to its strength and that it is as strong as it was earlier.
Ahmed Rashid, perhaps the world's foremost expert on the Taliban, says while it's true that the Pakistani army may be in denial over the internal existential threat of the Taliban and other extremist groups and may be obsessed over the perceived threat from India, it is imperative New Delhi cuts Islamabad some slack.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances