The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban forces operating in Afghanistan, is being seen as a dramatic shift in the policies of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, which had hitherto covertly supported some of the organisation's top leaders.But experts warn that by helping the Central Intelligence Agency nab Baradar, the Pakistan government and the ISI will lose the sympathies of Mullah Omer-led Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan on Friday dismissed reports claiming Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar had fled from Quetta to Karachi, with the help of the Inter Services Intelligence, to avoid the possibility of being targeted by United States drones."This is ridiculous to say the least," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters. He said there had been speculations about Omar's presence in Pakistan 'for years'.
A militant commander said five people were killed in the firefight and several were injured "including Mullah Mansoor."
The Pashtu-language message, posted on the taliban website alemara.com, states that the US allegations are merely propaganda through which Washington wants to show that the Taliban are disintegrating and send out the message that the mujahideen are not indigenous but the product of Pakistani secret agencies.
A senior Afghan interim government official on Monday confirmed that strikes in the Afghanistan provinces of Paktika and Khost along the Pakistan border have taken place.
'Ajit Doval said, "They are threatening us now".'
The officials said the freed Taliban leaders include Sheikh Abdur Rahim and Mawlawi Abdur Rashid, who had served as the insurgent group's governors of Kunar and Nimroz provinces respectively during the Taliban administration before it was deposed by the US-led forces in 2001.
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.
These releases are in addition to 26 Taliban detainees freed last year by Pakistan.
China on Monday expressed the hope that the Taliban will stand by its commitment of establishing an "open and inclusive" Islamic government in Afghanistan and will ensure a peaceful transition of power without violence and terrorism.
Pakistan is in 'constant touch' with the Afghan Taliban for safeguarding the country's security interests, a top military official has said.
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.
"Imran Khan is exciting because he is enervating the denervating, actually, the Pakistani polity, particularly the youth," said South Asia expert Professor C Christine Fair, at the Brookings Institution conference on The Future of Pakistan, on Monday.
America's relationship with Pakistan has 'not served' either of the two countries, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday raising questions on the Biden administration's approval of a $450-million sustenance package for F-16 fleet.
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'.
China on Thursday said it is in talks with the Taliban and called for an "objective judgement" on their actions after it seized power in Afghanistan, saying the militant group appears to be more "cleareyed and rational" and hoped that it will deliver on its promises, including protection of women's rights.
"If we have to recognise a government, the first thing is that we will need to wait until the government is formed," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
The explosion took place at 4 pm at the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl workers' convention in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
China will host the third meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan's neighbours in Tunxi, central China's Anhui province, on March 30-31, the spokesperson said.
On January 30, a suicide bombing at a mosque in the Peshawar Police Lines area claimed the lives of at least 101 people
With the Afghanistan government in Kabul approaching Islamabad for help in opening "reconciliation" talks with the Taliban, a Pakistani role in shaping the political landscape in Afghanistan is now an uncomfortable likelihood for New Delhi.
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 Biden administration is quietly pressing Pakistan to cooperate on combating dreaded terrorist groups such as the ISIS-K and Al Qaeda following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, according to a set of leaked documents and diplomatic cables to a prominent US media outlet.
Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has called the leak of classified United States military documents on the Afghan war as 'irresponsible', and insisted that his nation was fully committed to fighting terror groups.Whistle-blower organisation WikiLeaks has released over 90,000 documents called the 'Afghan War Diaries, 2004-2010', which prove fears that Pakistan is aiding the Taliban to organise networks of militant groups that fight against America.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who was on a visit to the US last month, said that America's relationship with Pakistan has "not served" either of the two countries and raised questions on the Biden administration's approval of a USD 450-million sustenance package for the F-16 fleet.
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.
The Biden administration has approved a $450 million F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme to Pakistan to help it meet current and future counterterrorism threats, in Washington's first major security assistance to Islamabad in four years.
Referring to the argument made by the US that F-16 sustenance package is to fight terrorism, Jaishankar had said everybody knows where and against whom F-16 fighter jets are used.
Trust deficit has widen further between Pakistani secret agencies and the Afghan Taliban after reports surfaced that Taliban leader Ustad Yasir has dies in a Pakistani jail. Tahir Ali reports.
United States officials have identified Pakistan as a base of operations or target for numerous armed and non state militant groups, some of which have existed since the 1980s, the independent Congressional Research Service said in the report.
These are obviously not 'organic' desertions but brought about under intense military pressure, post the 9/5 arrests. It seemed as if the party was being dismantled the same way it was brought into power!, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W, India's external intelligence agency.
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
The 13th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team cites a UN Member State as saying that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Deobandi group ideologically closer to the Taliban "maintains eight training camps in Nangarhar, three of which are directly under Taliban control."
Taking part in the first meeting of Foreign Ministers of the neighbouring countries on Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China will provide Afghanistan with 200 million yuan ($31 million) worth of grains, winter supplies, vaccines and medicines as per its requirements, official media in Beijing reported.
Pakistan has released 14 Afghan Taliban cadres, including 'commander' Anwar Haq Mujahid, and may consider a request by Afghan peace negotiators to free Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to kick-start the Afghan reconciliation process. The 14 Afghan Taliban cadres were freed in two phases.
Pakistan may release top Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to boost reconciliation efforts with militants in Afghanistan and to play a larger role in the endgame in the neighbouring country.
The Afghan Taliban have refuted claims that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had written a letter to United States President Barack Obama last year, expressing an interest in holding talks. According to the Afghan Taliban, the claims made by some US officials is merely a ploy to divert people's attention from their "powerful position", which they have attained after fighting an almost ten-year-old "successful war".
"Due to scheduling reasons, it is inconvenient for China to attend the meeting," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told mediapersons.
Close on the heels of the United States advocating dialogue with the Afghan Taliban, the terror outfit has said that peace talks cannot be held unless Washington abandons its "dual-faced policies" on Afghanistan.
On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terror strike, the Afghan Taliban have requested the international community to urge the United States against the "illegal occupation" of Afghanistan for the War on Terror.
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