Pakistani authorities executed two men convicted for attacks on the army headquarters and former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on Friday night, days after Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty.
Pakistan's top military commanders have discussed the likely implications of the leaked report of the Abbottabad Commission which has made a series of stinging remarks against the country's powerful security establishment.
'Once accession to Pakistan appeared unlikely, the British instituted Operations Gulmarg and Datta Khel respectively to foil possible accession to India.'
Official said the crackdown would be intensified in the coming days as government had resolved to eliminate militancy.
General Qamar Javed Bajwa, an expert in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir affairs, on Tuesday took over as Pakistan's new army chief succeeding General Raheel Sharif and promised to improve the tense situation at the Line of Control soon.
Pakistan army chief says Islamabad will continue to support the people of Kashmir on the 'diplomatic and ethical' fronts.
Pakistan's powerful military has expressed serious concern over the prevailing political turmoil in the country with the government of embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif locked in a showdown with protesters.
The new ISI chief Lt Gen Mukhtar possesses a vast experience in the field of intelligence and has headed the counter-terrorism wing of the spy agency in Islamabad. He was commissioned in the Armoured Corps regiment in 1983.
Pakistani authorities claimed to have foiled a plot to target Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by busting a terror network planning to launch suicide attack on his residence in Raiwind on the outskirts of Lahore.
Is Nasir Khan Janjua's appointment as Pakistan's national security advisor the first step in suborning the elected civilian government?
Rediff.com lists a few other dramatic and frightful hostage situations that sent governments and security agencies into a tizzy.
During a war, there are just four possibilities a soldier faces. One: Victorious and safe. Two: Wounded. Three: Killed in action. Four: Prisoner of War. It was my fate to face the fourth, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) on the year spent as a prisoner of war in Pakistan during the 1971 War.
The Pakistan army, which is alleged to have huge business interests, "must acquire" a television channel for dissemination of propaganda to counter the growing penetration of Indian TV and news channels in the country, a senior army officer has suggested.
Even as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif headed to the United States for the 70th session of the UNGA and for bilateral meetings to be held on the sidelines of the multilateral summit, back home all that is expected of him is to internationalise the Kashmir issue, or as Pakistan puts it, the 'Kashmir dispute'.
A group of Russia-backed Cossack militants has been held responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, near the village of Chornukhine, some 80 kilometers north-west of Donetsk.
By weakening Sharif, the corps commanders could have a final say in important matters like relations with India, dealing with Taliban militants, interacting with Americans and once again achieving strategic depth in post-NATO Afghanistan. Which is why they may be behind the unrest in Pakistan led by Imran Khan and Dr Tahirul Qadri, says Shahzad Raza.
The State Department and the White House too said that the US expects Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorists operating from its soil.
The India card is now almost obsolete. There are more pressing challenges. People of Pakistan are fed up with years of bad governance, corruption and broken promises of successive governments. However, the politicians and former generals are still provoking sentiments on what is happening on the Line of Control for petty political gains, says Shahzad Raza.
'This army has lost Pakistan's territory, ideology, financial and intellectual capital, ruined its institutions, democracy, the respect for its passport and, like it or not, reduced its status to a globally acknowledged university of jihad,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Already, there is talk of a possible extension for Raheel Sharif in the context of his perceived sterling, but incomplete work in the war against terror, as also the cleansing of crime and extortion networks in Karachi,' says Rana Banerji.
The counter-insurgency operation on the Indo-Myanmar was under planning for the last three months. The June 4 ambush that killed 18 Indian soldiers only hastened the attack. Sheela Bhatt provides exclusive details of the planning for the operation.
Indian policymakers must incorporate in their nuclear doctrine a realistic response to tactical nuclear warheads, says Ajai Shukla.
'India has already suffered in the raid of January 2, and taken punishment. If comparable or higher retribution does not visit Pakistan, there is no reason why it should not undertake such a misadventure again,' says Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
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.
Indian intelligence agencies have often claimed that left-wing extremists are trying to make inroads in the militancy-hit regions of north-east to foment further unrest. But Jaideep Saikia, noted terrorism and conflict analyst, claims, "People who speak of Maoism taking roots in the north-east have not read history".
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