Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that his government is ready to start parleys with Taliban, but evaded questions whether the reconciliation would include the Haqqani faction.
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.
'It appears on the face of it that the Taliban of 2021 is not the same Taliban of 2001. There appears to be some difference. They are making mature statements. That is something we have to take note of,' former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha said
The Pakistani Taliban has said it will target journalists and media organisations for "fabricating" the statement of its spokesperson asking news outlets not to pay tribute to cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar on his retirement.
The Taliban is highly pragmatic and would regard it wasteful to resume military offensive to capture Panjshir. The Taliban's preference, historically, has been to keep the military option as the last resort, explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
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.
Expressing concern over violence in the Middle East, Musharraf said dangers loomed large in the region that threatened regional and global peace.
Taliban forces in Pakistan have announced a ten-day ceasefire in the restive north western Swat valley, as peace talks between a senior cleric and local authorities are believed to have struck a deal to enforce Shariah laws in some parts of the region.The announcement of the truce came a day after a Chinese engineer, abducted by the Taliban six months back, was set free in Swat as a 'goodwill gesture'.
A journalist working for Voice of America Pashtu radio was shot dead by gunmen claiming to be belonging to Tehrik Taliban Pakistan in Mohmand Agency on Tuesday.
A powerful car bomb exploded outside a Shiite imambargah at a busy market.
'Even during the worst days during the 1990s, India was dealing with the Taliban.'
Pakistan is making efforts at multiple levels for the Taliban government to have a soft landing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan-India bilateral relations remained frozen for the fourth year over the vexed Kashmir issue but analysts hope the strained ties could be repaired if Nawaz Sharif becomes the prime minister for a record fourth time in the general elections in February in the absence of his main challenger Imran Khan who is in jail in multiple cases.
The Obama administration has praised Pakistan for the high-profile arrests it has made in the recent past, in particular those of the top Taliban leaders.
'All Pakistan army chiefs follow a consistent line as far as India is concerned.'
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had a secret meeting with a group of senior Taliban operatives in April last year during which he expressed the Pakistan government's "support for their mission", a researcher studying developments in Afghanistan has alleged.
The murder of two Sikhs by the Taliban in the restless tribal belt highlights the plight of the minorities there. Rajeev Sharma reports.
At least 200 religious scholars in Pakistan have issued a fatwa terming suicide attacks as "un-Islamic" and said the Islamic governments are bound to crush rebel groups like the Taliban, ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Two top leaders of a banned pro-Taliban group, which brokered the controversial Swat peace deal, were killed on Saturday in Pakistan's restive northwest, when militants ambushed a security forces' convoy transporting the detained extremists to a prison in Peshawar.Maulana Muhammad Alam, deputy chief of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e- hariah Muhammadi which is headed by radical cleric Sufi Muhammad, and the group's spokesman Amir Izzat Khan were killed.
'I am committed to my country if there is respect for democracy and human rights. If not possible then I will prefer to stay in India or any other western country'
The army said that three terrorists were "neutralised while entering the base while the remaining three terrorists have been cornered/isolated due to timely and effective response by the troops".
'Pakistan should evolve a common narrative. The country should have common position in combating all kinds of terrorism and not fight selectively.' 'The main motive was revenge, of course. But the Nobel Prize to Malala Yousufzai also contributed to the Taliban's anger' Bestselling Pakistani author and foreign policy expert Ahmed Rashid speaks exclusively on the Peshawar school attack with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
A top commander of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Omar Khalid Khorasani and three other top terrorists have been killed in a mysterious blast in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, a Pakistani media report said on Monday.
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The Pakistani Taliban have contended that those opposed to referring to dead militants as martyrs are like persons who do not want cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar to be praised because he is an Indian.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are discussing the possible release of Taliban prisoners, including the outfit's powerful commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to boost the Afghan peace process, foreign office spokesman Moazzam Khan said on Friday.
Pakistan's teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, was still on ventilator at a top army hospital, though her condition was satisfactory and her vital organs were "intact and working properly", the military said on Saturday.
The timing of these transfers, while being projected as routine, is significant in both strategic and political terms, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's chief Hakimullah Mehsud has severely criticised the Pakistani justice system and its 'pro-American policies'. In a recently released video, he also vowed that the TTP will continue its struggle until Islamic Shariah is implemented in the country.
Rescue officials on Tuesday recovered the severed head of the suspected suicide bomber who they believe blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers during the afternoon prayers on Monday in the high-security zone in Pakistan's restive northwestern Peshawar city.
There are indications that Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadar has scrapped his longstanding peace agreement with the government of Pakistan, reports Tahir Ali.
Pakistan Peoples Party chief Bhutto, 54, was killed in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi shortly after she had addressed an election rally on December 27, 2007.
Around 14 policemen are among 25 injured. The condition of four policemen is stated to be critical.
A top Pakistani diplomat in the United States on Saturday said that Islamabad was aware that the peace deal with Taliban in the country's troubled Swat valley would not work but went ahead with it as a tactical move. Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani, in a television interview, said even President Asif Ali Zardari knew about its result from the very beginning of the deal. He also said that such strategy could be repeated in the future.
"China and the Afghan Taliban have unimpeded and effective communication and consultation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing in Beijing.
A full-fledged training, intelligence and combat module on Taliban, its leadership and their modus operandi is being prepared apart from specific case studies that have taken place in that country and the region, he said.
The US is not in a forgiving mood for being humiliated in such a manner by an insurgent force and made to look 'loser' internationally, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Today, Pakistan and Afghanistan are feeling disturbed because of the Taliban, Yogi said.
'When the Taliban took over there was a genuine fear that they will harm me, but right now that fear is not there.'
Representatives from the United States and Qatar, the UN, China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the EU, Germany, India, Norway, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan joined a regional conclave on Thursday to discuss ways to contain the escalating security situation in Afghanistan.
The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has welcomed as a "good omen" the decision of the country's political parties to hold talks with it and other militant groups.
