Amid accusations by Pakistan that America deliberately sabotaged peace talks by killing Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, the Unites States on Sunday said the militant group has a "symbiotic relationship" with the Al Qaeda and provided "safe haven" to terrorists.
Mullah Fazlullah, the militant commander who ordered the assassination of teenage activist Malala Yusufzai, was today named by the Pakistani Taliban as its new chief to replace Hakimullah Mehsud, killed in a US drone strike last week.
Pakistan's powerful army chief General Raheel Sharif has asked the United States to target the hideouts of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan terrorists and their chief Mullah Fazlullah in Afghanistan.
The explosion took place at 4 pm at the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl workers' convention in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
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.
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.
Slamming Pakistan for not taking action against the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, a United States report on counter-terrorism on Wednesday said India remained severely affected by and vulnerable to terrorism, including from Pakistan-based groups.
TTP released a video of its militants holding a Shoulder Launch Missile, which the militant group claimed to have used in downing a Pakistan military helicopter.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan on Friday claimed the Taliban's decision to hold talks under Pakistan's Constitution has exposed the lobby that was deliberately maligning him with labels such as "Taliban Khan".
Pakistani fighter jets pounded militant hideouts in the lawless North Waziristan Agency killing at least 15 militants, official sources on Thursday said, as peace talks with the Taliban remained in limbo.
The Pentagon has praised India's significant contribution in the peaceful development of Afghanistan, aimed at securing a stable region and facilitating economic corridors into Central Asia.
A senior Taliban commander, wanted in connection with an assassination bid on Malala Yousafzai's life, has been found using networking site LinkedIn, listing his skills as "jihad and journalism".
Blaming the Pakistan government for the killing of its chief Hakimullah Mehsud, Taliban has warned that it "will soon start targeting" the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership for its alleged support to the United States in the region.
Less than two days after the Taliban announced the launch of their official website hosting videos, a magazine, and its leaders' interviews and statements, it was taken down on Monday.
Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, who has been replaced as ISI chief, will remain in the forefront of Pakistani initiatives in Afghanistan as also in the peace talks with the Tehrik e Taliban, Pakistan. He will also get a year plus to serve in a corps command, remaining in the race for selection as the next army chief when General Bajwa retires in November 2022, explains Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing.
Six militants involved in the brutal massacre of over 150 people, mostly school children, at a military-run school in Peshawar have been sentenced to death while one has been handed down life imprisonment by military courts, the Pakistan army announced on Thursday.
"We are still in a state of shock at the martyrdom of our deputy chief and there is no change in our decision of not talking to the government," Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said.
Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Tehrik-e-Taliban could target Indian installations near the border areas, said Aditya Mishra, Inspector General (Frontier) of the Border Security Force.
The US State Department, in its Congressional mandated annual Country Reports on Terrorism for the year 2018, on Friday said even though the Pakistani government voiced support for political reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban, it did not restrict the terror group and the Haqqani Network from operating in Pakistan-based safe havens and threatening the US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban on Monday vowed they would again target teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt last year to become a frontrunner for the Nobel Peace prize.
In a blunt message to Pakistan, the United States has said that continued existence of terror safe havens in the country and its inability to take action against them affects their bilateral ties including security assistance.
In a significant climbdown, the Pakistani Taliban on Wednesday said it is ready for a ceasefire and peace talks if the government stops arresting its fighters and killing them in fake police encounters.
Hizbul Mujahideen leader Mast Gul, involved in the 1995 siege of Charar-e-Sharief shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, was behind a suicide attack on Shias in Peshawar that killed nine persons, a Pakistani Taliban commander has said.
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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.
Amid growing perception that he is batting for the Pakistani Taliban, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said he is neither anti-US nor anti-India but was against "their policies".
Security agencies have alerted the home ministry about a new outfit called the Tehreek-e-Taliban Hindustan. This outfit has been floated on social networking sites using the slogan Ghazwa e Hind (destruction of India) something that was coined by al Qaeda commander, Ilyas Kashmiri.
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.
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.
Pervez Musharraf's lawyers on Wednesday said the Pakistani Taliban had threatened them with beheading if they continued to represent the former military dictator and called for a change in the venue of his high-profile treason trial.
No one should be allowed to use Pakistan's territory to import or export terrorism, says Hamid Mir.
With friends who are now turning away rather than recognise them on the street, Pakistan is also trying to prepare itself for inevitable domestic leadership changes, says Aditi Phadnis
The move is a critical step in the transition to full Afghan control by the end of 2014 as announced by US President Barack Obama at a NATO summit in Lisbon last year, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted its sources as saying.
Central Intelligence Agency chief John Brennan flew to Pakistan last week for a clandestine meeting with army chief Gen Raheel Sharif to discuss a possible military operation against militants in the country's northwest, a media report said on Monday.
India strongly condemned the 'barbaric' terror attack by the Taliban on a school in Pakistan that killed 141 people, mostly children, as United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council called for perpetrators of the blood-curdling attack to be brought to justice.
IS-Khorasan was sanctioned for its links with Al Qaeda and involvement in several deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed over 150 people.
Pakistani negotiators on Monday cancelled a scheduled meeting with the Taliban after the insurgents claimed they had killed 23 soldiers kidnapped by them in 2010, dealing a severe blow to the fledgling peace process.
Amid efforts by the concerned governments to hold peace talks with them, the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban have said they would continue their "struggle" till "the Western inspired systems" of governance in both countries are overthrown.
Pakistan on Saturday accused the US of deliberately trying to sabotage its peace process with militants by carrying out the drone attack that killed Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, saying it would review the entire gamut of bilateral ties and cooperation.
'Pakistan will try to escalate covert operations through terrorism,' says Dr Shalini Chawla.
Cut off from the world and having to contend with an orthodox and repressive Taliban government, Afghans are facing the brunt of Pakistan's decades old policy of nurturing militant groups, note Harsh V Pant and Kriti M Shah four months after the Taliban took Kabul.
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