'Pakistan has power -- they have the power of terrorism and the reluctance of the world to act against them.'
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud has warned that his fighters were planning orchestrated attacks against the government and the military to wrest control of areas that they had lost in the country's northwest.
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.
Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the spokesperson for the Pakistan Army, is the son of a nuclear scientist who was sanctioned by the United Nations and the US for providing information and expertise to al-Qaeda, according to Indian officials. Chaudhry's father, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, allegedly provided insights into nuclear weapons infrastructure and raised funds for a fundamentalist organization linked to the Taliban. Mahmood was arrested in 2001 after admitting to meeting Osama bin Laden but was later released.
In the wake of the recent hostilities, both sides have moved from weapons to words, with India dispatching several delegations to visit more than 30 capitals across the world. A similar effort by Pakistan is set to start on Jun 2.
Top military officials from India and Pakistan highlighted their views at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, billed as Asia's premier defence forum, amid heightened tensions between the two sides following last month's military confrontation.
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.
Even as the army battles Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's militants headed by Hakimullah Mehsud, the government has decided to adopt another approach to end the spate of terror strikes on its soil. As part of this strategy, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has urged religious scholars to issue fatwas against the Taliban militants, by terming them as kafirs (non-believers).
Speculations are rife in the Pakistani media that 'Pakistan's Switzerland' -- Swat, the principal city in the troubled Waziristan region has fallen to Taliban.
Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud's shift to the hardline Salafi ideology has derailed the peace process with Pakistan, rediff.com's Tahir Ali reports
Pakistani Taliban has warned that boys and girls of its suicide squad will launch "massive" strikes across the country, including the commercial hub of Karachi, if military operation in Swat and other tribal areas are not halted immediately.
'We've moved from thousands killed yearly in Jammu and Kashmir to 127 last year.' 'Cross-border terrorism in Kashmir is being solved. We are winning it.'
The outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has ruled out any negotiations with the government and claimed that it has taken control of most areas of the South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
'It is high time that the 'war on terror' is removed from our diplomatic toolbox.' 'Certainly, our parliamentarians have no role in it,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Taliban is showing its strong discontent as the high hopes given to it by the Pakistani military have been dashed, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
Then 18, Talash crossed the border into Pakistan after Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 before settling in Spain as a refugee the following year. The International Olympics Committee changed break-dancer Talash's life forever by including her in its refugee squad for the Paris Games.
'We are too important to want to be paired with Pakistan but too intensely connected to it to successfully detach ourselves,' asserts Aakar Patel.
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 Pakistani Taliban has said that it will carry out more attacks on "secular" political parties like the ANP and MQM, warning people to stay away from their rallies, a day after a blast outside an ANP gathering injured about 10 people.
The Taliban's main challenge comes on the financial and economic front and there Pakistan doesn't have the capacity to be of any meaningful help, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Conflicting accounts emerged on Wednesday of a possible nascent peace process between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban, with a militant spokesman confirming preliminary peace talks while denying the announcement of a ceasefire.
Three policemen were killed and another injured when Taliban militants attacked a police van in Pakistan's restive northwest on Thursday, officials said. The militants lobbed grenades at the van and then fired at it with automatic weapons in Lakki Marwat area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. District police chief Gulzar Ali confirmed that three policemen were killed and another one injured.
'Pakistan's only concern has been while they were on the FATF watch list was to distance their State institutions and organs from any direct connection with the actual execution of militancy inside Kashmir.'
Hundreds of Afghan protesters, including many women, took to the streets of Kabul on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, in an anti-Pakistan protest chanting 'Death to Pakistan', denouncing Islamabad's interference in Afghanistan as well as airstrikes by Pakistani jets in Panjshir province in support of the Taliban.
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."
"Now we live in a completely independent Afghanistan. The new government will be announced very soon," said Anaamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, reported Tolo News.
Their shared brief: To assert India's case with clarity, rebut hostile narratives, and secure enduring partnerships for global counter-terror cooperation.
Pakistan, in recent months, has been increasingly frustrated by the Taliban government's reluctance to eliminate the terrorist groups, including the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Terrorism and insurgency in J&K had subsided when India demolished East Pakistan -- for the simple reason that Pakistan understands power. We need to follow Chanakya's dictum of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed for strategising against Pakistan, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd). The ground truth is that unless we are prepared to acknowledge our shortcomings, including massive intelligence failures, punish those responsible and take corrective actions, we will continue in the same vein, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
Security expert B Raman writes on the alarming rise of Taliban in Pakistan.
'If Pakistan's army wants to escalate violence in Kashmir, they have an unlimited supply of jihadis they can train and send. That's not an issue for them.'
'I can see the world's concern. I am concerned. I have daughters who play cricket.'
If the Taliban have proved one thing over these two decades, it is that they are way smarter than their big brother, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'It was such a joy for me to return there today -- after 13 long years -- to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins.'
'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.'
'Trump will absolutely back New Delhi on its position that Pakistan must do more to crack down on terrorists that threaten India.'
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has invited the Taliban to play a cricket match in a bid to revive a stalled peace process but his remarks were criticised on social media.
Asim Malik's shift to the important DG, ISI post comes as something of a surprise now, but it indicates the army chief's confidence in him, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
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