Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Wednesday visited a teenage rights activist grievously injured by Taliban militants as he warned that the "heinous" attack on the girl had clearly exposed the "extremist mindset" confronting the nation.
The Pakistani police are on the look out for two youths suspected of shooting 15-year-old education activist Malala Yousufzai, and the prime suspect who drove them to the scene, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.
If we really want to prove that we are all like Malala, then we have to stand up for our rights like Malala did, says senior Pakistan journalist Hamid Mir
The United States on Tuesday announced a US $ 100 million humanitarian to Pakistan to counter the appeal of the Taliban among the nearly 2 million civilians displaced by the military operations against the militants in the Swat Valley and adjoining areas.
Yousafzai's marriage to Malik has come as a surprise especially after her recent remarks questioning the institution of marriage for which she faced severe backlash from political and religious leaders in Pakistan.
Militants armed with assault rifles and rockets, who are guarding the troops, have said that the captured men would not be killed.
The suicide attacker detonated his explosives when he was stopped at a check post near the army camp at Kabal town in the Swat valley. Three soldiers at the check post received minor injuries.
Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships fought pitched battles on Friday with pro-Taliban militants in the north-western Swat Valley, where at least 80 militants including a top rebel commander have been killed since Thursday night.
When Pakistan announced that the ten gunmen behind the bloody assault on Malala Yousafzai, who spoke out against Taliban oppression of female education, had been sentenced to 25 years in jail, many thought justice had been served. But that wasn't the case.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday virtually accused the Asif Ali Zardari-led Pakistan government of surrendering to terrorists.Mincing no words over the Barack Obama administration's anger over the Zardari government's striking a deal with the Taliban in Swat Valley, Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists."
Pakistani troops on Sunday killed 17 militants and recovered 22 bodies of suspected Taliban fighters in the country's restive northwest and tribal areas, while an anti-Taliban mayor survived a fifth assassination bid in a town near Peshawar.
"The federal government has set up an investigation team of security agencies and Sufi Mohammad will be formally charged on the basis of its findings," the Dawn quoted North West Frontier Province Law Minister Arshad Abdullah, as saying on Monday.
Pakistani military on Thursday surrounded the Swat valley capital Mingora where around 5,000 armed Taliban fighters were dug in for a long haul with roads being mined and trenches dug and a deadly battle loomed for control of the strategic town.
Former senator Amarjeet Malhotra has been included in the list of suspects involved in the killing of Singh, 52, who was the Special Assistant to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister on minority affairs.
Former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi has ridiculed the recent fears of the Obama administration and the US Congress that the Taliban when they gained control of the Swat Valley -- since recaptured by the Pakistani military -- would get a hold of the country's nuclear arsenal.
Days after the United States Senate approved a $1.5 billion package for Pakistan, including $400 million in military assistance, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik told The Financial Times that his government has put Punjab and Sindh on high alert to avert the possibility that Taliban terrorists, fleeing the military offensive in the Swat valley and Waziristan, may seek refuge in these areas.
Indian intelligence agencies and military experts, who have been watching the developments in Pakistan closely, say the military operation is a lot more complex than it seems to be and in the end, might even result in a direct threat to India.
B Raman on the situation in Pakistan after the death of Baitullah.
Ten people were killed on Monday when militants attacked the home of a provincial legislator's brother in Pakistan's restive north-western Swat valley even as the government banned the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Taliban militants fired a rocket at the home of the brother of Awami National Party legislator Waqar Ahmed Khan in Kabal sub-district, killing his brother, two nephews and seven security guards.
Observing that Islamic law is within the framework of Pakistan, the US has refrained from making any comment on the peace deal between Islamabad and a Taliban-linked group for enforcing Shariah law in the Swat Valley.
Many feel that a humanitarian crisis is imminent as Pakistan is facing its worst refugee crisis since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
Pakistani authorities on Tuesday announced a reward of Rs 1 crore for information leading to the capture of the militants who attempted to kill teenaged rights activist Malala Yousufzai, who was shot and seriously injured in the former Taliban stronghold of Swat.
Militants clad in military uniforms intercepted a convoy of buses and gunned down 18 minority Shia men on Tuesday in a northern Pakistan region that borders the former Taliban stronghold of Swat.
Two soldiers were killed and as many injured when their vehicle was targeted with a remote-controlled bomb by suspected Taliban militants in Pakistan's restive northwestern tribal region on Sunday. The soldiers were attacked in a mountainous area when they were heading to a check post after fetching drinking water. Initial reports had said the vehicle had hit a landmine. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
'Sincere request to the Nobel winner, to spend some time speaking with the minorities of Pakistan'
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan's troubled Swat valley declared local Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah, his spokesman Muslim Khan and five other aides as "proclaimed offenders", on Wednesday and ordered them to appear before it within a week.
Predicting the "defeat" of Pakistani military in its fight against the Taliban in North West Frontier Province, a top Al-Qaeda commander on Monday warned that if his group takes over Islamabad's nuclear weapons, it will "use them" against the United States.
Richard Holbrooke, the United States Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has asserted that the Obama administration "believes that what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan is of vital interest to our national security and that India is a country that we must keep in the closest consultations with."
Pakistani troops on Friday consolidated their positions in the restive north-western Swat valley and nearby areas in the wake of two attacks by Taliban fighters that killed 14 security personnel, even as militants retaliated by targeting a mosque, leaving 40 dead.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday said his country was 'fighting the war for its survival' and the military operation against the Taliban was the last resort against militants and extremists who challenged the writ of the state. He was talking to a delegation of parliamentarians from Swat and Malakand areas, where security forces are engaged in a major offensive against the militants, a statement from the President's Office said.
As Pakistan pushes ahead with its onslaught against the advancing Taliban militia in the country's northwest, thousands of residents in the region have been left homeless.
This potential jihadist takeover of a nuclear-armed Pakistan poses India with a serious conundrum.
Describing Pakistan as "Somalia of South Asia", Congress today said the terror attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore is a result of Pakistan's long-standing policy of ceding its territory to fundamentalists and the Taliban.
Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry said on Wednesday that Pakistan has become the "ground zero of terrorism" and "security threat" to the United States.
The Taliban forces operating out of Pakistan's Swat region pose a common threat to India and the United States, besides the host country, America's special envoy Richard Holbrooke suggested in New Delhi on Monday. The envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, said he had sought the Indian leadership's assessment of the situation.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh on Thursday expressed concern over attacks on Hindus and Sikhs by Pakistan-based Taliban and asked the government to take up the matter with the neighbouring country "immediately and in full earnest."
A Pakistani legislator was killed in a suicide attack in the northwestern Swat valley on Tuesday. Details awaited.
Pakistani journalists on Thursday condemned the killings of scribes in the Taliban-infested North Western Frontier Province and said that these were attempts to scare them away from the restive region.They termed the killing of a scribe Musa Khankhel in Swat on Wednesday as 'deliberate and cold blooded' so that the happenings there do not reach the outside world.The journalists said they would not be cowed down and would continue to operate in the troubled region.
Nearly 200 boys, some as young as six years, were rescued by Pakistani security forces from Taliban camps in the lawless Swat valley, where they were being 'brainwashed' and trained to become suicide bombers."These children have been brainwashed in a way that now they even want to kill their own parents," he said. Bilour said some children were initially pleased when they were handed over to their parents. But the parents later said their kids were trying to kill them.
A fragile truce in the Swat valley of northwest Pakistan collapsed on Wednesday as troops targeted militant hideouts with artillery and helicopter gunships, killing at least 20 insurgents. The attacks on armed followers of pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah in and around Matta were launched after the militants carried out overnight attacks on police posts near Kabal and Saidu Sharif, officials said.
