"If we have to recognise a government, the first thing is that we will need to wait until the government is formed," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
In a blunt message to Pakistan, the United States has said that continued existence of terror safe havens in the country and its inability to take action against them affects their bilateral ties including security assistance.
Describing the resurgence of Taliban and the Al Qaeda as 'real challenge,' India on Wednesday asked the international community to put 'effective pressure' on Pakistan to implement its commitment to deal with terror groups in its territory, failing which the region could be catapulted into spiral of violence.
Nearly three-fifths of the people of Pakistan believe that India poses a greater threat to their country than those from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a latest survey results released on Wednesday said.
'The main leadership of the Taliban that is allied with Al-Qaeda is in Pakistan. Now, they send people across the border. They help to fund the Taliban extremists who are, you know, more associated with Al-Qaeda than indigenous groups,' Clinton told ABC News in an interview.
The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Both the Taliban and the Al Qaeda have rejected claims regarding their involvement in Wednesday's Peshawar bomb blast which killed 95 persons and injured over 200.
'Don't be fooled. There is nothing more moderate about the revived Taliban government'
'No one in this administration, not the President nor anyone on the national security team, would suggest that the Taliban are respected and valued members of the global community'
Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda is in its worst financial state in several years, while the Taliban's funding is flourishing as they rely on a range of criminal activities to fund attacks on US-led forces in Afghanistan, a senior US Treasury Department official has said.
'Hakimullah Mehsud was specifically chosen by Al Qaeda to succeed Baitullah Mehsud because he was considered most allied to it. His role in facilitating the attack on the American base in Afghanistan showed how much trust Al Qaeda had vested in him,' the New York Times reported quoting US officials.
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan may want to undertake a 'false flag' operation in J&K to divert attention from the situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but infiltrating one SSG battalion into J&K and having two SSG battalions waiting to follow suit means war, which Pakistan cannot afford in its current economic crisis, notes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
The activation of diplomatic channels is likely to yield better results than a simmering hostility, recommends Ajai Shukla.
Amid accusations by Pakistan that America deliberately sabotaged peace talks by killing Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, the Unites States on Sunday said the militant group has a "symbiotic relationship" with the Al Qaeda and provided "safe haven" to terrorists.
A 32-year-old man chargesheeted in the deadly terror attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district five years ago has died of a heart attack in the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu, officials said.
A confidential Spanish defence ministry report has alleged Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped arm the Taliban in 2005 for assassination plots against the Afghan government, media reports said. The confidential report, obtained by Cadena Ser radio and posted on the station's Web site, also alleges the Inter Services Intelligence helped the Taliban procure roadside bombs.
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.
Taliban has come under tremendous pressure following Pakistan's military action against the militant group in Swat valley and adjoining areas, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday.
A change in the name of the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) magazine 'suggests a refocusing' of the terror group from Afghanistan to Kashmir, a United Nations report has said.
Amid deepening concerns in China over the regrouping of the ETIM, blamed by Beijing for all the violent attacks in its volatile Xinjiang province and elsewhere in the country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mullah Baradar at Tianjin and sought to prevail on him to build a 'positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits Afghanistan's national realities'.
The decision to target the Pakistani Taliban comes at a time when the UN is seeking to encourage the Afghan Taliban to pursue peace talks with the government there, a prelude to a US withdrawal from the war-ravaged country.
The botched car bomb incident at Times Square in New York City indicates the Pakistan Taliban's ambitions are far expanding, says General David H Petraeus, head of United States Central Command, who recently toured Pakistan.
Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a former defence minister in the Taliban's Majlis-e-Shura or executive council, was recently arrested along with two Afghan nationals by intelligence agencies in Lahore, the Daily Times reported.
Barack Obama has said that he had ruled out involving Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout because it was an "open secret" that certain elements inside Pakistan's military, and especially its intelligence services, maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaeda, sometimes using them as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India.
A top United States military official on Friday said that the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership are trying to gain access to nuclear weapons.
Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud's shift to the hardline Salafi ideology has derailed the peace process with Pakistan, rediff.com's Tahir Ali reports
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said that the door was still open to peace talks with Afghanistan's Taliban so long as it renounces violence and distances itself from international terrorism.
In a significant policy statement on the Taliban which is making big gains in its offensive in Afghanistan, China has asked it to make a "clean break" from all terrorist forces, especially the Al Qaida-backed Uyghur Muslim militant group ETIM fighting for the volatile Xinjiang province's independence.
During a special briefing on Afghanistan, Deputy Ambassador to the UN Manjeev Puri said the security situation in Afghanistan remains fragile as demonstrated by a number of high-profile terrorist attacks over the last two months.
The Taliban had promised an 'inclusive' government that represents Afghanistan's complex ethnic makeup, but there is no Hazara member in the cabinet.
The Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for the 'attack' in Binghamton, New York, where a gunman went on a shooting spree at the American Civic Centre on Friday, killing 13 people before turning the gun on himself.Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud told Reuters from an undisclosed location, "I accept responsibility. They are my men who attacked New York." The 'attack' was in response to US drone strikes in Pakistan.
Taliban have banned polio vaccination at North Waziristan Agency following the incident of Dr Shakeel Afridi who with the help of fake polio vaccination campaign traced Osama Bin Ladin and his family. The Al Qaeda chief was later on killed by US marines in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2, 2011.
'The negotiation was a result of -- based on the judgment that we weren't winning the war and therefore time was not on our side and better to make a deal sooner than later'
At least six suspected militants were killed on Wednesday in a United States drone strike in Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan tribal region, amid reports that Taliban's No 2 commander in the country, Waliur Rehman, was among those dead.
Amid India's concerns that Afghanistan's territory might be used for anti-India activities under the Taliban regime, the terror group has said that it has the right to raise its voice for Muslims anywhere, including in Kashmir. However, it added that the group does not have a policy of raising arms against any country.
Commander of the Task Force in Afghanistan Major General David Rodriguez also said the Taliban in Afghanistan probably will not stage a spring offensive in the volatile eastern region bordering Pakistan.
'It's waging an offensive with no seeming precedent.' 'The fact that it's now entering cities, as opposed to remaining massed around their perimeters, is a game changer.'
Reflecting a subtle change in America's stance towards the Taliban, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the US is 'willing to work' with the militant group if it renounces its ties with the Al Qaeda and commits itself to the constitution of Afghanistan. "Under certain circumstances, we do," Clinton told a Russian news channel during an interview, responding to a question on whether she accepts the idea of working with the Taliban.
