Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, one of Pakistan's largest and oldest seminaries and dubbed as a 'university of jihad' by its critics for helping sow violence across the region for decades, has educated more Taliban leaders than any school in the world and its alumni now hold key positions in Afghanistan, according to a media report.
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.
Two people were arrested in Ahmedabad on Monday for allegedly passing on confidential information related to the Indian Army's base in Bhuj to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, said the police. Sirajuddin Ali, 22, and Mohammad Ayub, 23, both residents of Jamalpur, have been charged with espionage. While Ali used to supply eggs to the army canteen, Ayub is a student, said the police.
Badruddin Haqqani, the key operational commander of the Al Qaeda linked Haqqani network, and top Pakistani Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah are believed to have been killed in US drone and air strikes in the tribal region of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A senior leader of the Haqqani network, blamed for a string of deadly attacks in Afghanistan, was among the three militants killed in a United States drone strike in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region. Jalil Haqqani, a close relative of Haqqani network leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, was among those killed, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The drone fired two missiles at a compound in a village north of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan Agency.
The United States has given Pakistan a deadline till July to launch a military offensive in the restive North Waziristan tribal region for capturing five most wanted al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and Ilyas Kashmiri.
While the United States is demanding that Pakistan launch an offensive against the Haqqani network, the Inter-Services Intelligence is instead wooing the terrorist group to join nascent Afghan peace talks, according to a newspaper report.
Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has rubbished media reports of him organising a secret meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Haqqani network commander Sirajuddin Haqqani in Kabul last month.
Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Sirajuddin Qureshi, India's leading meat-exporter to the world and president of the India Islamic Cultural Centre, said being at the summit "was a unique experience."
The Pakistan military believes that American and British military will withdraw from Afghanistan -- and when they do, they will need old Taliban friends such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin to minimise the influence of India in its Afghan backyard.Although Pakistan's military chiefs have been talking about an 'imminent' assault since last June, all the evidence has pointed to deep reluctance to launch a massive ground offensive.
The Biden administration expects the Modi government to continue to remain as its loyal camp follower even as Washington continues to act in self-interests, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Former Pakistan President General Parvez Musharraf has conceded that his country's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains link with militant commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, suspected of having masterminded the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.
Russia and China are tight-fisted and Iran is broke and none of them has the political will or capacity to bankroll the Afghan economy, which only the US can, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
At least eight people were killed and six others injured when two missiles fired by a suspected US drone hit a 'madrassa' founded by a Taliban leader in Pakistan's restive tribal region. The drone fired missiles at Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani's madrassa located a few kilometres from North Waziristan Agency's main town of Miranshah, late Wednesday night.
Tamil Nadu thrashed Punjab 5-0 and qualified for the semi-finals of the 70th Santosh Trophy Senior National Football Championship in Nagpur on Wednesday.
'One reason given for the failure of the Congress in Assam was due to the alliance with the AIUDF.'
In the last year since the Indian embassy in Kabul was bombed on July 7, allegedly by the Sirajuddin Haqqani faction of the Taliban based in Pakistan's North Waziristan province, India has well and truly joined in United States president Barack Obama's 'AfPak strategy' that is aimed at jointly looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan as the expanded theatre of war against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Thimpu apparently didn't think it necessary to take Delhi into confidence. Bhutan is loathe to getting dragged into the geopolitical rivalry between India and China. And for Beijing, this was too good an opportunity to be missed to thumb its nose at the powers-that-be in Delhi, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Class XI 'highly intelligent' student belonging to a good family was planning to exit the country to join the IS and become a suicide bomber.
A small group of ethnic Indians, mostly Hindus, held a peaceful protest in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday appealing for an end to demolition of Hindu temples by local authorities.
The prime accused in the multi-crore fake stamp-paper case Abdul Karim Telgi on Friday sought protection for his daughter from four co-accused held with him in jail, who, he claimed, may kidnap her.
According to the 'victim's' lawyer, Gabriela Palacios, her client 'never said that her complaint of rape was untrue'.
'I have been going through hell with the local and foreign media chasing me all the time since the incident,' the South African national said in an interview.
The 27-year-old woman and the accused Sirajuddin Desai were in Mumbai to attend WSF in Mumbai.
India's first high-speed Shatabdi train will run on the Delhi-Bhopal section at a speed of 150 kilometer per hour from January next year.
The Indian Railways on Thursday said it will enter a new era of speed with the introduction of a New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabadi express to be run at the speed of 150 kilometer per hour, from June this year.
Abdul Aziz Haqqani, a top leader of Pakistan-based dreaded Haqqani network, has been named 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' by the United States for his involvement in planning and carrying out attacks against Afghanistan.
Jalaluddin Haqqani was closely tied to Al Qaeda leaders and had played a key role in supporting the terror group in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Support for the dreaded Haqqani network across the militant group's historical stronghold in eastern Afghanistan is gradually turning into "resentment" as local leaders say the Haqqani supremo's war is for "Pakistani rupees and power" and they cannot follow him "blindly".
The main Opposition parties in Assam -- Asom Gana Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party and All India United Democratic Front -- have come down heavily on the Congress government in Assam for presenting an 'election-oriented populist' interim budget for the year 2014-15.
Gloom and pall have descended on mutton and other meat vendors as the strike in UP has forced people to turn vegetarian.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi led the delegation. She said Modi government was 'shutting down' people's voices and bringing legislations which are not acceptable to them.
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.
Mullah Akhtar, a close aide of Mullah Omar who served as his deputy for the past three years, was chosen as the new leader.
Pakistan has ordered a probe into the killing of the eldest son of the chief of the dreaded Haqqani network that has been blamed for attacks on the Indian Embassy and American forces in Afghanistan, a report said on Friday.=
The citizens' register in Assam does not get to the bottom of things.
"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.
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