Tired of the alleged "double game" being played by Islamabad, American lawmakers have announced to hold a Congressional hearing next week to discuss whether Pakistan is a "friend or foe" of the US in the war on terror.
The United States on Tuesday issued a global travel alert, including on visiting India and Pakistan, for its citizens in view of the increasing threat from terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Bruce Riedel, who spearheaded President Obama's strategic review of Afghanistan and Pakistan, spoke to rediff.com on Tuesday and said the Afghanistan elections played a huge role in maintaining credibility for the US, and that leaving the fight against Taliban abruptly would only mean victory for jihadism and a renewed nightmare for India.
Suspecting that the Pakistan government and the Inter-Services Intelligence have backed United States in its operation against Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, extremist organisations have decided to avenge the killing. There's no stopping the Taliban and more attacks similar to the one at the Karachi naval base are expected, fears the Pakistan media. Tahir Ali reports.
Bruce Riedel, senior National Security Council official in the Clinton Administration, who spearheaded President Obama's strategic review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told rediff.com that for all the Pakistani leadership assurances that the ISI has severed its links with terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Taliban, the ISI's association with them is as entrenched as ever.
The United States has begun to squeeze the funding and flow of money to terrorist organisations in the Af-Pak region including the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network and Laskhar-e-Tayiba, and keeping a tab on 'hawala' transactions, a top Obama administration official has said.
Pakistani security agencies on Thursday arrested two suspects involved in the car bomb blast outside the house of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind and chief of the banned Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) Hafiz Saeed, an official said.
The UN Security Council members on Monday reaffirmed the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities and violence in Afghanistan and that for any acceptance and legitimacy, there needs to be a political settlement that fully respects the human rights of women, children and minorities, India's Permanent Representative to the UN and President of the Security Council Ambassador T S Tirumurti said.
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.
FBI agents arrested Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, and his son Irfan Khan, 37, in South Florida on Saturday. Both are US citizens and residents of Miami. Hafiz Khan is the imam of a mosque in Miami.
Ahead of taking charge as the head of the American Key Central Command, General David H Petraeus on Wednesday said turning things around in Afghanistan and Pakistan will require taking away militant sanctuaries and strongholds, which he expected the insurgents would defend tenaciously. 'Certainly in Afghanistan, wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult,' Petraeus, who would be directly in charge of fighting in both the countries, said.
At least 38 people, including a former parliamentarian, were killed and nearly 50 others injured in a suicide attack on a mosque and two bombings across northwest Pakistan on Monday, marking a spurt in militant violence after a relative lull over the past few weeks.
US-Pakistan relations are poised to touch a qualitatively new level under the Biden administration, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In a major crackdown to eliminate the terrorists' sanctuaries, Afghanistan has carried out three air strikes within a week in Kunar province, bordering Pakistan, inflicting heavy casualties on Lashkar-e-Tayiba terror group.
Imran said the previous Pakistani governments "should not have pledged what they could not deliver."
Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists in police uniforms on Wednesday gunned down 47 Shia Ismaili Muslims, including 16 women, shooting them in the head as they attacked their bus in Pakistan's volatile Karachi city in the latest sectarian violence claimed by the dreaded Islamic State terror group.
It is understood that he was confirmed positive for coronavirus on Thursday night.
''The avoidance of the 'P' word had less to do with reality and more to do with the politics -- domestic and international -- of Mr Modi and his efforts to both appear statesman-like (vis-a-vis Pakistan) and rid himself of the taint of being some kind of Muslim-baiting hardliner.'
So far, almost every positive development in terms of the bilateral ties has been overtaken by innate hostility that is often driven by popular sentiments.
Poe alleged that Taliban is still based in Pakistan and it came as no surprise when a US drone strike killed Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor.
An ISIS suicide bomber was responsible for the explosion outside the Kabul airport, Politico reported citing US officials.
Addressing the annual Vijayadashmi rally at Reshimbagh ground in Nagpur, Bhagwat made a pitch for a review and reformulation of the National Population Policy keeping the next 50 years in mind.
'While the US-Pakistan relationship has been stabilised, it's still mired in uncertainty.'
Yasin was also responsible for the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.
Suicide bombers on Friday struck Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence, hitting its operational headquarters in the north-western city of Peshawar, and a nearby police station in Bannu, killing 20 people, including seven personnel of the spy agency. The strike on the spy agency and the police station left 85 people injured and came as 30,000 troops intensified their operation against the Taliban and foreign militants in lawless Waziristan.
The resolution, drafted by France and Tunisia, 'demands a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations on its agenda and supports the efforts undertaken by the Secretary-General and his Special Representatives and Special Envoys'.
'Who has given them the right to decide that I am not a Hindu like them'
Pakistan army retaliated to the deadly Taliban attack at Peshawar school by killing 5 militants in massive airstrikes in the Khyber tribal region where the suicide bombers were reportedly trained.
Senator Saxby Chambliss, member on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee asked America's top intelligence chief how any reconciliation with the Taliban was possible considering the group was resilient and continued to enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan. Aziz Haniffa reports.
The US said that it sees positive indicators in Pakistan, but...
Slamming Pakistan for not taking action against the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, a United States report on counter-terrorism on Wednesday said India remained severely affected by and vulnerable to terrorism, including from Pakistan-based groups.
For two decades the US paid in blood and blood money for dependence on Pakistan to carry out one president's boast. Now, having been defeated by its proxies, another president will go into Rawalpindi's embrace to satisfy his constituents, predicts Shekhar Gupta.
Utilising a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump, issued on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary, the treasury department sanctioned over two dozen individuals and entities from 11 terrorist groups, including Pakistan-based Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
A grieving Pakistan's policy shift towards the Taliban has comes at a great cost, says Shahzad Raza.
Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar has left for the US on his maiden visit to hold talks with top American officials on regional security, counter terrorism and intelligence issues.
According to a report in 'The Guardian', the recent arrests in Pakistan, which appear to have sparked security alerts in Britain and the US, followed months of work against Al Qaeda suspects in the region.
With the controversy over 'love and narcotic jihad' remark by Pala Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt refusing to die down, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday engaged in a fresh round of verbal sparring.
In a stern warning to Pakistan, President Barack Obama on Tuesday asserted that his administration will not allow "safe havens" for Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists operating with "impunity" in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. "My bottom line is that we cannot allow Al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region," Obama said in his first press conference after assuming office on January 20.
The attack is claimed by the Taliban.
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