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.
"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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
'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.'
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.
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
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.
Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province government has announced a bounty worth Rs 10 million for information leading to the arrest or killing of Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the mastermind of the Peshawar school massacre that left 150 people dead, mostly students.
Police in Pakistan have busted an illegal telephone gateway exchange in Lahore, allegedly being operated by the Taliban to make ransom calls to families of persons kidnapped by them, including the sons of former premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer.
The maiden meeting between the Pakistan government and a Taliban-nominated committee to frame a roadmap for peace talks was postponed on Tuesday, with representatives of the banned group claiming state negotiators had pulled out under "pressure".
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has decided that the outfit will now focus on jihad inside Afghanistan, reports Tahir Ali
On January 30, a suicide bombing at a mosque in the Peshawar Police Lines area claimed the lives of at least 101 people
Pakistan is in 'constant touch' with the Afghan Taliban for safeguarding the country's security interests, a top military official has said.
After initial hiccups, Pakistani state negotiators and a Taliban-nominated committee met at an undisclosed location on Thursday to frame a roadmap for parleys aimed at ending terrorism and bringing peace to the country.
The Taliban has its backers, notably Pakistan and China. Their purpose is to have a monstrous entity near India's northern borders to keep democratic, secular India off-guard, observes Amulya Ganguli.
'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.'
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
'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.
'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 recent incident has eroded trust and Chinese social media reflects growing anxiety, with calls for stricter security measures to protect Chinese lives.
The lawyer of Sarabjit Singh, who is on death row in a Pakistani prison, on Saturday said he had received a death threat from the Taliban for pursuing the case of the Indian national.
'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.'
The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday named Khan Syed Mehsud alias Sajna as its new chief, a day after a US drone strike killed its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
'Trump will absolutely back New Delhi on its position that Pakistan must do more to crack down on terrorists that threaten India.'
At least two policemen were killed and many others injured when Pakistani Taliban militants seized a counter-terrorism centre and took some people hostage in the Bannu district of Pakistan's troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
In his Ramzan message, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan commander Hakimullah Mehsud has called upon mujahideen's to put aside their differences. Tahir Ali reports from Islamabad.
'I can see the world's concern. I am concerned. I have daughters who play cricket.'
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.
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."
Singh, the joint secretary heading the division for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran in the ministry of external affairs, held talks with Taliban's foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Thursday.
The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan have created a Facebook page to recruit persons to write for a planned quarterly magazine and to work on tasks like video editing and translation.
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).
'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.'
Pakistan has too much at stake to allow even an iota of rapprochement between India and the Taliban, says Vivek Gumaste.
'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.'
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