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.
Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has urged the United States to strike a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan on the pattern of the Swat pact, saying that the real threat was from the Al Qaeda. "The only way forward is dialogue, which is what (Afghan President) Hamid Karzai is finally saying. You have to start talking to the Taliban," Khan said. He warned that US President Barack Obama's Afghan policy is 'exactly the same way as the mess' made by Bush.
A Pakistani court barred the government from extraditing five Afghan Taliban leaders captured in the country, including Mullah Baradar, and asked the administration to explain its position in the matter on Friday.
While the United States has already shown dissatisfaction over Pakistan's claims that Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who helped the Central Intelligence Agency track down and kill Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, had relation with militants, the Pakistan Taliban have not only rejected the reports of any links with him, but has also said that the imprisoned doctor is 'wajib-ul-qatal' (one that deserve death penalty), as he helped the US to kill bin Laden
Officials said unidentified men attacked a security check-post on Friday night near Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, injuring security personnel.
The revelation was made by ISI officials during a three-hour briefing behind closed doors for the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production on Thursday.
A top commander of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Omar Khalid Khorasani and three other top terrorists have been killed in a mysterious blast in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, a Pakistani media report said on Monday.
The murder of two Sikhs by the Taliban in the restless tribal belt highlights the plight of the minorities there. Rajeev Sharma reports.
TTP released a video of its militants holding a Shoulder Launch Missile, which the militant group claimed to have used in downing a Pakistan military helicopter.
US supplied surveillance jets were the "prime targets" of Taliban militants who possibly received "inside support and help" for their Rambo-style attack on Mehran naval airbase in the Pakistani port city of Karachi
Pakistani authorities on Sunday, announced rewards for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of 11 militant commanders, including a bounty of Rs 50 million for local Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. According to an advertisement issued by the North West Frontier Province government, Maulvi Faqeer Muhammad, the Taliban deputy chief based in Bajaur tribal region, carries a reward of Rs 10.5 million.
Almost 70 Pakistani VIPs, including the current and former chief ministers of North West Frontier Province, leaders of political parties, senior police officials and heads of paramilitary forces, are on the hit list of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, it has emerged.
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".
'Pakistan should evolve a common narrative. The country should have common position in combating all kinds of terrorism and not fight selectively.' 'The main motive was revenge, of course. But the Nobel Prize to Malala Yousufzai also contributed to the Taliban's anger' Bestselling Pakistani author and foreign policy expert Ahmed Rashid speaks exclusively on the Peshawar school attack with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
'It is important to note that American officials were trying their best to use the Taliban for their oil games till December 1997 when Mullah Ghous was invited to America. State Department officials did not show any interest in capturing or killing Osama bin Laden even at that time.'
He was arrested as part of an ongoing crackdown on the "Quetta Shura" or council of the militants led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, the elusive chief of the Afghan Taliban.
Four soldiers and 25 Taliban fighters were today killed in clashes in the restive Mohmand tribal region, where the Pakistani security forces carried out a ground and air offensive to capture a mountain occupied by the rebels.
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.
Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships pounded Taliban positions in the restive Khyber tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and killed 33 militants and destroyed two main bases of the banned Lashkar-e Islam group.
Expressing concern over violence in the Middle East, Musharraf said dangers loomed large in the region that threatened regional and global peace.
'Will Imran compromise with the army? We are all human beings. We all compromise.'
Pakistani officials confirmed the development while the US embassy spokesperson refused to comment, saying the information 'appears to be only hearsay', The News daily reported. Some diplomats in Islamabad were aware of the Taliban operation but were not ready to speak on record. One of the hijacked helicopters had already been sold to an unidentified customer in Afghanistan, the report said.
The bold abduction was carried out when the army and paramilitary forces had suspended operations to break the siege to rescue the trapped personnel, local police officials and TV channels reported. Taliban militants have overrun most of the Swat Valley, called the Switzerland of Pakistan and once the haunt of tourists and rich and this has triggered a massive exodus of residents.
They have also urged the Obama administration to review its decision in this regard.
The Pakistani authorities have deployed large contingents of soldiers and policemen at one of the country's largest nuclear facilities in Dera Ghazi Khan following 'serious' threats from the local Taliban, a media report said on Thursday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has cautioned the United States against any peace talks with the Taliban arguing the terrorist outfit is unlikely to change its behaviour and as reconciliation effort would be a futile exercise.
The Pakistani Frontier Corps has been heavily infiltrated and influenced by Taliban militants, according to classified US documents appeared in a daily in London on Sunday.
Taliban militants based in Afghanistan have threatened to continue attacks on Pakistani security forces and government installations from sanctuaries in Kunar and Nuristan provinces. "We don't care if the (Hamid) Karzai government or North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces decide to launch an operation against us in Kunar and Nuristan as this region has never been in control of the Afghan government and foreign forces," said Pak Taliban spokesperson.
More than 50 clerics associated with the Sunni Ittehad Council and a former Pakistani minister have joined hands against the Taliban and issued a fatwa that declared the attempted assassination of teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai as "un-Islamic".
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on an elite Pakistani army training centre at Mardan in the country's northwest region.The suicide bomber unleashed his lethal payload in the midst of a parade, killing 27 soldiers and wounding 40 others. TTP spokesperson Ihsanullah Ihsan said, "We proudly claim responsibility for the Mardan attack; we sent the Fidayeen (suicide bomber) and he successfully carried out the attack."
Pakistani security forces claimed to have killed 64 Taliban militants in an intensified operation in various parts of the troubled Bajaur tribal region near Afghan border, as the locals continued shifting to safer places. However, independent sources said 11 militants were killed and eight others injured on Sunday in the aerial blitz at Loisam, Rashkai, Tang Khatta and other areas of the violence-hit agency, local daily The News reported on Monday.
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.
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.
At least 60 militants were killed on Wednesday in precision bombing by air force jets on Taliban targets in Pakistan's restive tribal region on the Afghan border, military officials said.
At a time when Pakistani cricket team is in India to play a bilateral series after a gap of five year, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has termed the visit as a 'disgusting gesture', and says that cricketing ties between the two countries are badly effecting the freedom movement of Kashmir.
Over 400 militants attacked the Sararogha fort at midnight and later captured it, military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told reporters. He said 40 to 50 militants and seven Frontier Corps personnel were killed in the fighting.
He said that while Pakistan public opinion favouring Al Qaeda and the Taliban have declined precipitously in the past year, "on the other hand, despite robust Pakistani military operations against extremists that directly challenge the Pakistani government authority, Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Pakistani militant groups continue to use Pakistan as a safe haven for organising, training and planning attacks against the United States and our allies in Afghanistan."
At least eight soldiers and 25 militants were killed on Tuesday in a skirmish that began after scores of Taliban fighters attacked a military post in the restive Kurram tribal region of northwest Pakistan, which has witnessed fierce clashes in recent days.
Ali Ibrahim, a lawyer by profession, said militants should be dealt with full force as people have seen the result of half-hearted efforts in the past. "We should definitely be moving into Waziristan right now. Once you decide to take action, that should be wholehearted and made with a full effort," Ibrahim said.
The United States and the United Kingdom on Sunday said they are confident about Pakistan's control over its nuclear weapons despite an 'increasing threat' to its authority from terrorists, a day after Taliban militants carried out an audacious attack on the Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi.
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