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.
The incident occurred early Tuesday morning in Datta Khel region of North Waziristan Agency, which has witnessed numerous missile strikes by US drones over the past few years.
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a paramilitary force's training facility in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing 73 people and injuring over 100 in the first major terrorist attack since Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was gunned down by the United States forces last week.
Amid intelligence inputs that its interests in Afghanistan may be targetted by Taliban and other terror groups in the wake of the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, India has tightened security at its missions and other establishments.
A hushed silence has descended on the terror groups in their hotbed in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt close to Afghanistan after the slaying of the world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden, with US intelligence saying that militant chatter lines had gone dead.
Top US military commander has said that any links, if they exist, between Pakistan's military intelligence and militant outfits were "completely unacceptable".
The Pakistan army has admitted that most of those killed in United States's drone strikes in north-west Pakistan were "hardcore Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists", notwithstanding the government's public posture that such attacks were causing civilian deaths.
"The international community should put effective pressure on Pakistan to implement its stated commitment to deal with terrorist groups within its territory, including members of Al-Qaeda, Taliban's Quetta Shura, Hizb-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and other like-minded terrorist groups," Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said in New Delhi.
Let's see some glimpses of the Afghan war over the decade in PHOTOS.
Dreaded Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is trying to expand its influence in Pakistan, with pamphlets being distributed in Peshawar and border provinces of Afghanistan, seeking support for jihad.
Ten years after the United States launched its war against terrorism, in particular against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban, President Barack Obama has said that America was not and never would be at war with Islam or any other religion. "These past 10 years underscore the bonds between all Americans. We have not succumbed to suspicion and mistrust. After 9/11, President (George) Bush made clear what we reaffirm today: the United States will never wage war against Islam,"he said
Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed has became one of only four terrorist leaders for whom the United States has offered a bounty of $10 million, joining the likes of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar.
The first three months of this year has experienced a sharp decline in the United States drone attacks inside Pakistan's tribal region which is home to Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, a report said.
Terrorists targetted a police van with a roadside bomb in northwest Pakistan's restive Bannu region on Thursday, killing at least two security personnel and injuring five others, a day after a suicide attack on a police station in the same area claimed 20 lives.
United States President Barack Obama has assured Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that Washington has no plans to control Islamabad's nuclear programme.
Four-star General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is expected to succeed chairman Admiral Mike Mullen as the top military man in Pentagon next year, has admitted that the terrorist safe havens that exist in Pakistan are a major strategic vulnerability in achieving success in Afghanistan against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The United States would begin a "responsible, conditions-based" withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, President Barack Obama's Af-Pak review said on Thurday, while acknowledging that the gains achieved in the war-torn country remained "fragile" and "reversible".
Hours before Washington is set to release an assessment of war in Afghanistan, topmost United States military commander has expressed "impatience" with Islamabad over its failure to clear terrorists from havens on the border with Afghanistan.
As external affairs minister S M Krishna travels to Beijing on Tuesday for talks till April 8 with his counterpart, Yang Jiechi, highly placed sources in the establishment confirmed that India and China have been in talks for some time to ban Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Abdul Rehman Makki of the Jamaat-ud Dawa and Azam Cheema of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, under the UNSC resolutions.
US embassy cables released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks reveal that teams of US special forces have been secretly working with Pakistan military in the tribal areas, the Guardian said.
American intelligence agency Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday warned India and Brazil that they face 'emerging threats' from the Al Qaeda and Taliban, though the terrorist outfits are 'on the run' due to extreme pressure exerted on them in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The United States is worried over the safety of Pakistan's nuclear assets and believes that they are 'vulnerable', as the army continues to consider India as a prime threat.
The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday asked Pakistan to act quickly against the terror groups inside the country saying that these extremist organisations are not only posing a threat to the world but also to their own existence.
The Obama administration is apparently committed to alleviating India-Pakistan tensions and consequently influencing the Pakistani army to focus on the internal terrorist threat from the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not India, in order to advance Washington's AfPak agenda.
Christine Fair, an expert on Pakistan-based Jihadi groups, has predicted that even if there is an India-Pakistan rapprochement and a resolution of the Kashmir imbroglio, it will not result in Pakistan reining in these strategic assets that are invaluable to it to wage it proxy wars against India.
Apparently upset with their remarks over alleged link between Inter Services Intelligence, Taliban and Al-Qaeda, the Pakistani spy agency chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha refused to meet visiting US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and American military commander Admiral Mike Mullen.
Osama bin Laden's killing did not mean the end of the war against terrorism, India has said, underlining the need to root out the "syndicate of terrorism", which includes elements of the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. "Without the elimination of terrorist safe heavens and sanctuaries, there can be no end to the global war on terror," India's envoy to the United Nations Hardeep Singh Puri said at a UN counter-terrorism meeting, without referring to Pakistan.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday said that the killing of Osama bin Laden did not end the war on terror and used the occasion to warn the Taliban to detach itself from Al Qaeda and join a peaceful political process in Afghanistan.
The Canadian police have arrested a man on suspicion of terror activities but released him on lack of evidence, a day after terror charges were brought against three men arrested by the same police unit. The arrest comes amid a continuing probe into a group of Canadian citizens allegedly working with an international terrorist organisation on terror plots to make bombs and aid Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
There is no doubt that all terrorist organisations like the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Tayiba are operating with impunity in Pakistan. They may be loosely confederated, but their agendas are being synchronised and India after Afghanistan is their prime target.
The US gave a heads up to India, besides Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the leak of more than 90,000 classified US military documents on the war against terrorism, a senior administration official said.
"From the standpoint of India, India clearly, you know, wants to see that Pakistan is taking steps to bring to justice those people that threaten neighbouring states," State Department spokesman P J Crowley said.
The United States has said that it was not at all surprised by the stunning release of classified documents by the Wikileaks on war against terror, which says there are safe havens in Pakistan and elements in that country's establishment are helping Al Qaeda and Taliban.
Any hasty withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan could have catastrophic consequences and the active cooperation of Pakistan is a must for comprehensively defeating the Al Qaeda and The Taliban, America's point man for the region Richard Holbrooke has said.He stated that achieving success in the war torn country would involve continued American economic and development assistance.On Pakistan's role, he said, "We cannot succeed in Afghanistan without Pakistan."
'They are not following through, and have not followed through, by going after one of the truly great threats that face us here in Afghanistan, which is the coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan of Haqqani fighters,' The Daily Times quoted US Armed Services Committee Chairman, Carl Levin, as saying.
An increasing number of militants of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement fighting for the separation of China's Muslim majority Xinjiang province were "fleeing to Pakistan and settling down there for future plots," a state-run newspaper reported on Monday.According to latest reports, the ETIM has been in close collaboration with the Taliban and Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden," the China Daily said in its lead story on the first anniversary of the bloody riots in Xinjiang.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has claimed that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is dead, but has sought more international aid to expand military operations against Taliban, in areas where Americans believe he may be hiding.
In major swoops across the key federal capital and the southern port city of Karachi, the Pakistani police nabbed 13 suspected terrorists linked to the Al Qaeda, with authorities claiming that this had averted major terror strikes on VVIPs in the country.
For a wannabe terrorist like Faisal Shahzad, accused in the Times Square bombing plot, shopping for help in Pakistan is no problem as the country is like a supermarket with money and weapons freely available for potential jihadists, says Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria.
Biden's remarks could be seen as a setback to the Shehbaz Sharif government's bid to improve ties with the US.
