The Taliban government in Afghanistan is not going anywhere. That being the case, why is the hesitation to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Taliban? asks Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
Blinken said the US will continue to act against those who threaten the country, its people and its allies.
The United States of America sought Pakistan's help in 1998 to prevent Osama bin Laden from launching an Al Qaeda attack against it, with then President Bill Clinton asking Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to personally use his influence to prevail over the Taliban in averting the imminent strike.
If viewed as a part of the Al Qaeda's radicalisation effort to produce jihadists out of discontented Muslim youth in India, the call could well have a much larger dimension, both in the near as well as long term, directly impacting on national security, says Bibhu Prasad Routray.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has cautioned the United States against any peace talks with the Taliban arguing the terrorist outfit is unlikely to change its behaviour and as reconciliation effort would be a futile exercise.
"We should not underestimate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda nor fight terrorism with any less military and political determination than in the immediate post-2001 days after terrorist attacks on the United States," India's UN Ambassador Nirupam Sen told the Security Council on Wednesday.
The US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has said that a part of Pakistan has become a safe haven for terrorists organisations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban and this would be one of the main challenges for the incoming Obama Administration.
Al Qaeda remains "very capable" and focused on attacking the United States, a top American military official said on Sunday, adding the situation in Afghanistan is "serious" and "deteriorating" as the militants have found a "safe haven in Pakistan."
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.
'The shift of militants to Afghanistan this year suggests that Al Qaeda and its allies, armed with new tactics honed in Iraq, are coming full circle five years after US-led forces ousted the Taliban mullahs,' says the Los Angeles Times.
'The United States loves working with dictators' 'Because then you don't have to worry about public opinion and you don't have to worry about the media anymore'
A Congressional Committee in its budgetary proposals for the year 2013 has prohibited economic and security assistance to Pakistan till it co-operates with the United States in the fight against terrorism and takes action against groups such as Haqqani Network, Taliban, Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
America's CIA is running a 3,000-strong covert army to hunt down key leaders of Taliban and Al Qaeda in not only Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan.
'We have leaders who would rather that we cohabit with the Indian Mujahedeen than fight terror, as long as the payoffs are there in the next polls... Obviously, we are not headed down the best route to keep terror at bay,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Two Indian brothers are among four men who have been indicted by a US federal court on charges of providing material support to slain Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, prosecutors said.
Stating that the Al Qaida was able to establish an unprecedented safe haven along the Pakistan-Afghan border in the past 18 months, the Central Intelligence Agency chief has warned that the situation there presented a clear danger to the two nations, as also to the United States. General Micheal Hayden termed the 2006 peace deal between Pakistan government and the pro-Taliban tribals in North Waziristan as absolutely disastrous.
Afghanistan is "heading towards civil war" and terror group Al Qaeda "will probably come back" as the security situation in the region continues to deteriorate, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Friday.
Having steered clear of North Waziristan for years, Pakistan army is contemplating an offensive into the restive area fearing that it may have become a "witches brew of jihadi groups".
India abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution regarding Afghanistan, citing the need for a balanced approach that combines incentives and disincentives, and calling for new initiatives to address the humanitarian crisis.
The warnings by the intelligence agencies have been circulated by the interior ministry, which said they could be carried out as reprisals as Taliban, al Qaeda and other foreign militant elements, who have suffered badly in ongoing operations by the security forces in the tribal areas. According to official figures, more than 1,500 Taliban cadres have been killed in the army operations carried out in the Bajaur agency and Swat valley.
Ahmed Javed Khwaja is the second Pakistani doctor to be arrested on suspicion of having links with the banned outfit.
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.
Jamaat-ud-Dawah, the frontal organisation of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which is blamed for the Mumbai attacks, has written to the United Nations claiming that it was not associated with the Al-Qaeda and Taliban and that the Security Council's sanctions on it were 'unjustified'.
With regard to the sale of the new 18 F-16's that Pakistan has requested -- the C/D block 50/52s combat aircraft, he said, "We have not come to a final decision on how to proceed with this, and I know your body is looking at it very carefully," Holbrooke told Congressman Gary Ackerman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia.
The Associated Press, in a story widely reproduced in the US media, cites top US military commanders as saying that Pakistan's tribal areas are the new Ground Zero in the battle against global terrorism -- even more so than Iraq.
'China is a friendly country and we welcome it for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan'
Eight members of an Al Qaeda suicide squad, including their local handler, have been arrested by Pakistani security agencies in past week, officials said.
'Shock, confusion, and paralysis reigned.' 'Pakistan was caught in a most embarrassing situation. It could neither claim credit for the operation nor admit to a dismal intelligence failure and lack of army preparedness.'
The key Biden administration included the CIA's deputy director David Cohen and the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan, Tom West.
But why should India be talking to the Taliban in the first place? There is no love lost there. India will never forget or forgive the humiliation to which the Taliban subjected it in the IC-814 hijack, notes Shekhar Gupta.
But tactics adopted by them are similar to terrorism!!!
Sections in the US State Department and Pentagon have always felt more comfortable dealing with all powerful Pakistani generals instead of elected civilians, points out Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Dreaded Islamic State militant group has appointed a breakaway Taliban commander as its chief in Khurasan, a historic name used by militants for an area covering Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India.
'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 rulers on Tuesday banned university education for women nationwide, as they took decisive steps to crush their right to education and freedom.
'India is a major target for ISIS and Al Qaeda because it has a very large Muslim Diaspora, regular conflicts with a Muslim country and experiences violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims on a regular basis.' 'This provides for a very stable breeding ground for jihadist radicalisation and recruitment.'
Concerns that Afghanistan and India became too close in the post-2001 period was one reason why Pakistan was reluctant to act against Taliban and Al Qaeda, according to a report, which recommends engagement with the militants to end the conflict in the restive nation.
The remarks by China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Geng Shuang, came during an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan on Monday after the sudden and rapid takeover of the Afghanistan government by the Taliban insurgents.
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan's six top commanders on Tuesday pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been vying for supremacy with Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
'We never talk about cut of trade ties with any countries. Rumor about this news has been a propaganda. It is not true'
