Faced by an impending offensive by the Pakistan military on its stronghold of Waziristan, the Pakistani Taliban have curtailed infighting amongst them only by coming up with a leadership power-sharing formula. Under the formula, 28-year-old Hakimullah Mehsud has been chosen as chief of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, while his rival claimant Wali-ur Rehman would continue to control the organisation's affairs as he did in Baitullah's time, The News reported.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has urged the Mehsud tribesmen of South Waziristan to leave their homes, claiming that the Taliban is in a state of war with the government of Pakistan.
Pakistani security agencies have informed the government that the Taliban have plans to attack foreign election observers, foreign journalists, important candidates and officials of the Election Commission during the May 11 polls, according to a media report on Thursday.
Blaming the American private military company Blackwater and Pakistani secret agencies for the suicide attacks in International Islamic University in Islamabad and the deadliest attack in Khyber bazaar in Peshawar that claimed a number innocent of lives, Qari Hussain, commander of Tehrik Taliban Pakistan said that it is an attempt to malign the Taliban and warned that militants would avenge 'the killing of innocent people within few days.'
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has taken responsibility for the attack on NATO supply trucks in Sindh, which claimed 5 lives on Friday. The TTP has warned that such attacks will continue till Pakistan blocks the supply line to Afghanistan for NATO trucks.On Friday, nearly 12 Taliban militants blocked a road at Shikarpur Sindh and stooped the NATO tankers. After chasing away the drivers, they set nearly 35 tankers on fire. Some of the tankers were destroyed completely.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, in an exclusive interview to rediff.com's Tahir Ali, has said that the increase in American troops will only provide the Taliban with more opportunities to attack. It has also claimed that the Pakistani Army's operations have done no damage to its strength and that it is as strong as it was earlier.
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 assassination of 69-year-old Taliban critic Bashir Ahmed Bilour is a reminder of the violent relationship between the terror group and the Awami National Party. Tahir Ali reports
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud and three others were killed in the US drone attack in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border on Friday.
A top leader of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has said that his group will seek mediation by countries like Saudi Arabia if the government offers to hold peace talks.
The Pakistani Taliban have rejected Interior Minister Rehman Malik's demand that any peace talks should be preceded by a ceasefire, saying any truce will follow the dialogue process.
Stepping up their attack on militants, a US Drone fired missiles hitting a Taliban hideout killing eight militants, including two foreign terrorists, as 159 insurgents surrendered to the army in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan Frontier Province region on Monday.
At least 75 people were killed and 115 others injured in the attack.
The Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attempt on the life of senior journalist and television anchor Hamid Mir, saying they would carry out more attacks on anyone "pursuing a secular agenda".
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.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack at Mardan military training center in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday.
The visit comes two days after Pakistan officials shared with the Chinese embassy the preliminary findings of their investigation into the attack.
Pakistani Taliban militants based in Afghanistan have threatened fresh attacks in Pakistan that will target anyone supporting the United States and promoting American interests in the region.
Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban strongholds in the volatile South Waziristan tribal region on Friday as the death toll from the series of US drone attacks in the region rose to 13. The warplanes hit targets in preparation for a full scale military operation which Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said would take off as soon as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud was spotted.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan on Saturday claimed responsibility for kidnapping a group of over 30 boys, who had strayed into Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province as reports said some of them had escaped and reached back to their homes.
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
In fact, the Taliban apparently collects about 10 per cent as cultivation tax from opium farmers and 15 per cent as heroin tax from laboratories and smugglers that smuggle narcotics into Pakistan. This, by itself, is a revenue stream estimated at USD 250-300 million.
'We can't be outliers. We can't be bystanders. We have to be players.' 'The Taliban also need India to balance the winners in this game.'
Talks between Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Pakistan government are at standstill position, as both the parties blame each other for 'non-serious' attitude during the much-awaited peace negotiation.
The jets targeted militant hideouts in Ghaljo and Dabori areas of Orakzai tribal agency, officials were quoted as saying by TV news channels.
Taliban militants on Sunday attacked the Central Jail in Bannu and freed several of their comrades, including Adnan Rashid, a convict on death row who had plotted to kill General Pervez Musharraf. Tahir Ali reports
India is apprehensive about the Taliban's return as it would mean loss of access to Baluch rebels and help to the restive tribals of Waziristan. This would be a setback to the Indian strategy of returning the compliments of death by a thousand cuts to Pakistan, notes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has held both India and Pakistan responsible for the 'unrest in Kashmir' and has vowed to liberate and establish Islamic Shariah there.
'But an overthrow of the Afghan government would really embolden regional militant groups in a big way.' 'LeT and JeM could be emboldened, and prompted to replicate in Kashmir what the Taliban did in Afghanistan.'
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.
The coherent strategy of the TTP has not been matched by an equally coherent one from Pakistan Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. He has been struggling to counter the co-ordinated strategy of the TTP with a bits and pieces strategy depending on where the pressure from the TTP comes from.
China may accord recognition to the new government in Kabul at an early opportunity, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
A Taliban plot to target a flag-hoisting ceremony at the Wagah land border with India was foiled with the arrest of 10 people, including a top militant commander, Pakistani security agencies claimed on Friday.
The activation of diplomatic channels is likely to yield better results than a simmering hostility, recommends Ajai Shukla.
During a secret meeting held at Asad Khel village in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region, Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud allocated Rs 25 million for attacks targeting the PAF base in Lahore and offices of the ISI, Military Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau and Counter-Terrorism Department.
The Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday threatened they would launch a guerrilla war once security forces entered the whole of the South Waziristan tribal region, where a military operation is currently underway.
With former prime minister Imran Khan in jail, Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is tipped to emerge as the single largest party in the elections.
As authorities in Islamabad asserted that the militants on the country's soil were in disarray, Pakistani Taliban on Saturday announced Hakimullah Mehsud as their new chief, days after reports claimed that he was killed in a duel with a rival claimant.
Pakistan on Tuesday said it had freed 26 Afghan Taliban prisoners, including former ministers Mullah Nooruddin Turabi and Maulvi Allah Dad, since last month as part of its efforts to give impetus to the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
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