Pakistan was waiting for an opportunity to bring the Jammu and Kashmir issue to the global agenda and resorted to the terrorism route to provoke India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'The worst case scenario for Pakistan is a full-scale Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.' 'Pakistani militants would be inspired and emboldened and seek to replicate the Taliban's successes in Pakistan.'
The Taliban government in Afghanistan is not going anywhere. That being the case, why is the hesitation to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Taliban? asks Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
The Pakistani Taliban have sacked their official spokesman for issuing threats to Afghan Taliban, signalling internal fissures within the ranks of the terror outfit.
A top leader of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has said that his group will seek mediation by countries like Saudi Arabia if the government offers to hold peace talks.
Two commandos of the special forces were also killed in the rescue operation that was launched after negotiations between the government and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militants to end the hostage crisis failed.
An MI-17 transport helicopter was on its way to Russia for maintenance when it crash landed on August 4 in a Taliban controlled area of Logar province. The rebels made the crew members as hostages.
'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.'
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked US President Donald Trump for acknowledging Pakistan's role in counter-terrorism efforts after the country arrested a wanted terrorist. Trump thanked the Pakistani government for helping arrest "Mohammad Shareefullah", also known as Jafar, who supported and conducted activities on behalf of ISIS-K in support of multiple lethal attacks, including the Abbey Gate attack in 2021. Sharif said the terrorist, an Afghan national, had been apprehended in an operation along the border with Afghanistan.
The possibilities of this serviceable thriller are immense but the makers prefer to play it safe and hold back the daredevil in the diplomat's clothing, observes Sukanya Verma.
At least two policemen were killed and many others injured when Pakistani Taliban militants seized a counter-terrorism centre and took some people hostage in the Bannu district of Pakistan's troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the 2008 Mumbai terror attack marked a turning point in relations with Pakistan when Indians collectively felt that such behaviour from a neighbouring country could no longer be tolerated. Speaking at Charotar University of Science and Technology, Jaishankar acknowledged India's transformation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the last decade, while Pakistan has remained unchanged, continuing with what he termed as its "bad habits."
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
A top local Taliban leader has dismissed contentions by Pakistani officials that India is helping militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The repeated successful raids of the TTP into military establishments underline the poor state of physical security and the likely complicity of insiders with the TTP raiders, says B Raman
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has reportedly released a video apparently showing the severed heads of a dozen Pakistani soldiers.
At least 12 persons, including four children, were killed and 30 injured as two explosive-laden vehicles rammed into the boundary wall of the main cantonment in Bannu in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday while the army personnel neutralised at least six terrorists.
Pakistani Taliban elements can be broadly divided into two groups, the 'good Taliban' and the 'bad Taliban'.'Good Taliban' are those who never target Pakistani armies and their focus remains on Afghanistan, while the 'bad Taliban' mainly attack Pakistani government installations and often seek refuge across the border.
Pakistani Taliban have beheaded 12 soldiers captured during a recent attack on a security check post in the restive Bajaur tribal region and released a video showing their severed heads, a militant spokesman said on Friday.
Following the death of top Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan members, a comparatively weakened Pakistani Taliban are ready to hold peace talks with a government that is increasingly seen at odds with the United States. Amir Mir reports from Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban have released a dramatic video of an attack by militants on a jail in the country's northwest that resulted in the escape of nearly 400 prisoners last month.
Pakistani security forces believe that the new Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is already dead and the terrorist group is using his "lookalike brother" for media interviews to give an impression that he is alive, media reports in Islamabad claimed.
The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for a devastating suicide attack on a mosque in Khyber Agency that killed over 50 people, saying it was carried out in retaliation for local resistance against the militants.
The Pakistani Taliban has staged a bloody comeback in Malakand division by killing three peace committee chiefs, reports Tahir Ali.
The dreaded Al-Qaeda is trying to install one of its commanders as the new "chief" of Pakistani Taliban, which it fears is in disarray, following the reported slaying of group's leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US missile strike.
Pakistani Taliban militants based in Afghanistan have threatened fresh attacks in Pakistan that will target anyone supporting the United States and promoting American interests in the region.
Will Gen Kayani's increasingly conservative soldiers fight the Waziri militants, who have long been lauded as a sword arm of Pakistan, asks Ajai Shukla.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik has rejected offer of a ceasefire by the Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban's spokesman outlined conditions for a ceasefire, which said the country must stop its involvement in the war pitting Afghan insurgents against the Kabul government and refocus on a 'war of revenge' against India.
The Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for a botched car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010, on Tuesday denied any role in the bombings at the Boston Marathon in the US that killed three people and injured over 140.
The Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for a botched car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010, today denied any role in the bombings at the Boston Marathon in the US that killed three people and injured over 140.
Taliban's supreme commander Mullah Mohammad Omar, now in hiding, has put pressure on his groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan to form a new grouping which has pledged to stop targetting Pakistani security forces and instead focus attention on US-led troops in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military has "significantly degraded" the Pakistani Taliban, but is still reluctant to take action against the elements of Afghan Taliban operating from inside its territory, a top US General said on Wednesday.
Militant commander Maulvi Faqir Muhammad declared himself the head of the Pakistani Taliban, saying he was temporarily replacing Baitullah Mehsud, whom Washington and Islamabad have said was almost certainly killed in a drone attack.
A United States drone crashed in the restive South Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan on Sunday, with the Taliban claiming that its militants had shot down the unmanned spy plane.
Angered by the coverage of its attempt to assassinate teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai, the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has drawn up plans to target Pakistani and international media organisations across the country.
Pakistani Taliban commanders have contacted cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan to broker peace talks with the Pakistani government, but he said he would act as a mediator only if authorities give their consent.
The Taliban militants, who kidnapped Robin Singh, a Sikh in Peshawar, have demanded a ransom of Canadian $1,25,000 from his family in suburban Brampton in Ontario. The Pakistani Taliban are suspected to be behind the kidnapping, but according to Robin's father Bishan Dass, "I can't say whether they are Taliban. But they are terrorists.'
The Pakistani Taliban confirmed on Tuesday, that its chief Hakimullah Mehsud had died of injuries sustained in a US drone strike, ending weeks of speculation over his fate.Taliban sources based in the Aurakzai tribal region told TV news channels that 28-year-old Mehsud was severely injured in a drone attack in Shaktoi area of North Waziristan Agency on January 14.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command in the Al Qaeda, has urged the citizens of Pakistan to join a Jihad to thwart 'America's attempts to divide Pakistan'.Zawahiri's statement comes in the wake of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud's death in an American missile strike and an intensive operation launched by the Pakistan army to flush out Taliban militants from the Swat valley.
"The operation will continue till the last Taliban militant is eliminated," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told media persons at the Islamabad airport on his return from the US. Malik's remarks come as Pakistani army and fighter jets resumed their pounding of Taliban positions after a nine hour pause ordered to lead the trapped civilians reach safer areas.
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