Through its early days to the 1980s, Pakistan sought to expand its sphere of Islamic influence through Afghanistan to Central Asia and got Pakistani citizens recruited in the Afghan government institutions in the 1990s when the Taliban were power. Now, it is looking eastward through India to Bangladesh and Myanmar to establish an imaginary caliphate.
Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, who was involved in a series of terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and was one of the released terrorists in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in 1999, has been designated as a terrorist by the Union government.
Countries in the region like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Maldives face serious existential threats from a mix of terrorist groups active in the region and elsewhere
The National Investigation Agency has arrested two close aides of gangster Chhota Shakeel for allegedly handling the illegal activities and financial transactions of the crime syndicate controlled by fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, and for indulging in terror financing in the western suburbs of Mumbai, an official said on Friday.
US special forces came away with hard drives, DVDs and a trove of documents from the Abbottabad safe house of Osama bin Laden which might tip American intelligence to Al Qaeda's operational plan and lead the manhunt to his presumed successor Ayman al Zawahiri.
Senior analyst B Raman notes that newly appointed Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zahawiri may further advocate for a global jihadi Intifada against 'crusaders and Zionist regimes.'
Months before his killing in May 2011, Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was "utterly" focused on striking the United States in its "heartland".
"The fight against impunity is critical to the larger pursuit of securing peace and justice. The Security Council must send an unambiguous and unequivocal message on this count," External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the 15-nation UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine 'Fight against impunity'.
Three persons, including the president and general secretary of the Assam Miya Parishad, have been detained for their alleged association with terror outfits, police said.
Concerns that Afghanistan and India became too close in the post-2001 period was one reason why Pakistan was reluctant to act against Taliban and Al Qaeda, according to a report, which recommends engagement with the militants to end the conflict in the restive nation.
One of the most dreaded terrorists in the world is now a member of the Taliban cabinet.
Stung by a stunning leak of classified records indicating links between the Inter State Intelligence and the Taliban-Al Qaeda network, the White House came out in defence of Pakistan, insisting that the US-Pak alliance has led to significant blows against the Al Qaeda leadership since 2009.
The US drone strike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri has raised questions over Pakistan's possible role in the raid amid reports suggesting that the country's airspace could have been used for carrying out the precision strike on the Al Qaeda chief's safe house in Kabul.
'No one in this administration, not the President nor anyone on the national security team, would suggest that the Taliban are respected and valued members of the global community'
The demand for action by Pakistan was made through a joint statement issued after the 2+2 ministerial attended by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Pakistan Army on Friday said it has arrested nearly 100 terrorists and foiled an imminent jailbreak attempt to free top Al Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death for the murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002.
As far as India is concerned, the danger is the potential of the IS to create mischief rather than its actual capability as of now, says Rajiv Kumar
The UN report stated that China has committed to "other predominantly Muslim communities" in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will inspire terrorists and trigger an "explosion" of extremism and security challenges for the world, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned on Thursday.
CIA Director Leon E Panetta said: "The bottom line here is that the war on terrorism is not just about Al Qaeda. It is a series of terrorist groups that are basically confronting us and it is the kinds of changes that we see in their methods of approaching the United States that I think represents the very important threat that we have to pay attention to."
EU special representative for human rights Eamon Gilmore said on Friday that in his meetings with the Indian government he has discussed issues such as the use of sedition and anti-terrorism laws, condition of minorities, communal violence and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
The scale of crisis in Iraq with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham overtaking each town in the country and vowing to continue their bloodshed till the time they take over Baghdad, has left everyone with the one question they thought they would never have to: Would Iraq have been more stable if Saddam Hussein had been in power?
The Al Qaeda has claimed its role in the failed attempt to blow up a US-bound plane, carrying 278 passengers from Amsterdam to Detroit, on Christmas, American monitors have said.
The concern about such an explosive hidden in a laptop or an electronic device prompted the US and the UK to prohibit travelers flying out of 10 airports in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa from carrying laptops and other large electronic devices aboard planes.
US President Barack Obama, who made a surprise visit to Kabul and met President Hamid Karzai, has vowed to deny the Al Qaeda safe haven and reverse Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan.
The United States is going to retain a laser focus on its counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said on Friday, and warned the Taliban of a forceful response to any attack on American forces or disruption of its operations at the Kabul airport.
The United States has launched a separate and secret drone campaign managed jointly by the CIA and Special Operation Forces in Syria to target the leaders of the dreaded ISIS in Syria, a media report has said.
'Hakimullah Mehsud was specifically chosen by Al Qaeda to succeed Baitullah Mehsud because he was considered most allied to it. His role in facilitating the attack on the American base in Afghanistan showed how much trust Al Qaeda had vested in him,' the New York Times reported quoting US officials.
Afghan refugees in New Delhi protest against the Taliban and Pakistan's interference in Afghanistan.
The Al Qaeda has warned vengeance. The dreaded terror group has reportedly threatened Chinese interests in Africa in retaliation to the deaths of Muslims in the riot-hit Urumqi recently, according to a risk analysis firm, reports China Asia.
A 56-year old British cleric has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in US after being convicted of 11 terror-related charges, including providing material support to Al Qaeda and conspiring to establish a terrorist training camp in the US.
Biden's remarks could be seen as a setback to the Shehbaz Sharif government's bid to improve ties with the US.
The United States has adopted a "completely new approach" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a top Obama Administration official has said, stressing al Qaeda will be denied a safe haven in the region.
'What America could figure out is that this finally was an American with an American passport operating in Pakistan who had access to Al Qaeda. Now the prime objective of that time was the capture of bin Laden. This is three years before Abbottabad, the only thing that the US intelligence agencies were thinking about was how do they decapitate him, how do they cut the head off of Al Qaeda and here was this tantalising, untrustworthy, difficult, hard to control, psychopathic individual, who was American,' Adrian Levy, co-author of the book The Siege: The Attack on the Taj, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
An influential US Senator has asked the Obama Administration to explain how sending more troops to Afghanistan would help in defeating al-Qaeda when its top leaders have moved to Pakistan's unruly tribal areas.
Within 24 hours over the weekend, two major terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists occurred in different parts of the world. In Kenya, military forces are still fighting terrorists holed up in a shopping mall in Nairobi, where nearly 60 civilians already have been killed. In Pakistan, over 80 were killed in a dual suicide bomb attack following a Sunday morning church service in the northwest city of Peshawar.
Saad bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader's third-oldest son, is believed to have been killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a US Predator drone 'sometime this year', National Public Radio reported, quoting unnamed officials.
'Congrats to our team @USUN for their work in negotiating JEM's Masood Azhar's #UN designation as a terrorist,' Pompeo tweeted.
The Looming Tower reveals the bitter CIA-FBI turf battles that led to the worst terrorist attack in America's history.
'Underwear bomb' creator Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, perhaps the best bomb maker in the world, has been the most high-profile recruit of the Islamic State. And the ability of his bombs to go unchecked through the most stringent security setups has left the US and UK very worried. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances