In a pessimistic assessment of the Afghan war, a top US military official said on Wednesday that after years of neglect, America is basically "starting over" its battle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, whose alliance is now stronger than ever.
In a major catch, Pakistani Taliban's top spokesman Maulvi Omar has been arrested along with his two associates in the lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan, reports said on Tuesday.
The fighting broke out between Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur-Rehman during a meeting of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan 'shura' or council to choose Baitullah's successor following the outfit chief's reported death in a US drone attack, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday night.
There was no official word on the development. Pakistani authorities rarely confirm US drone attacks or provide details of casualties.
A bench of justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said, "At this stage we do not know whether we could decide this issue or the high court will decide."
Gunmen on Friday kidnapped six oil workers, including an Indian, from a petroleum installation in Nigeria's lawless southern crude-pumping region on Friday, officials said.
More than 70 United States' military advisers, mostly special forces personnel, are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the country's lawless tribal areas.
As the battle in lawless Waziristan intensified, the Pakistan government on Monday raised the bounties on the heads of 19 Tehrik-e-Taliban terrorists, including its chief Hakimullah Mehsud to a whopping Rs 41 crore or USD 5 million.
A top Pakistani tribal leader has vowed to wipe out the feared warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who has pushed Pakistan close to collapse. 30-year-old Qari Zainuddin, the leader of Taliban tribesmen opposed to Baitullah, said he had mobilised 3,000 armed followers and will attempt to wipe out the Pakistani Taliban chief and drive his al-Qaeda supporters from the country.
Over 90 militants were killed in raging battles in Pakistan's lawless northwest, as security forces on Wednesday pounded Taliban positions, to provide crucial back-up to a tribal militia taking on the insurgents. The military said troops had engaged militant positions at Janikhel in Bannu district with heavy fire and a 'clearance operation' was underway in Zaidi Akbar Khan area. There was no official word on the exact number of casualties in fighting in this region.
The BJP, which has been taking potshots at the Akhilesh Yadav government over lawlessness in the state finds itself in no position to take a high moral ground.
Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, said in a sarcastic way that personnel of security forces such as the CRPF, BSF, CISF and the Army are present at convoys of every BJP leader visiting West Bengal.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who at a point was fighting against 'jungle raj' (lawlessness) in Bihar, is now sitting in the lap of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and aiding it.
The BJP, which leads the ruling coalition at the Centre, hit right back, dismissing her allegation as 'baseless' and asserting she will be ousted from power 'democratically' after the assembly elections due next year.
The Republican-majority Senate voted 52-48 to acquit him of abuse of power and 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress, thus preventing the Democratic move to overthrow him, for which they required two-thirds of votes in the 100-member House.
Later, the chief ministers office issued a statement where it was claimed that the comments were an emotional reaction to the incident and not orders.
A young suicide attacker targeted the check post in Khyber region, manned by personnel from tribal militia Khasadar force, at around the time of 'iftar' -- the meal for breaking the daily fast during the holy month of Ramzan.
Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of Pakistani Taliban, who claimed credit for the recent deadly attack on a police academy near Lahore, has links with the country's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), a media report said.
Political activities will now be allowed in Pakistan's Federally Administrative Tribal Areas under a slew of reforms unveiled by President Asif Ali Zardari for the Taliban-infested tribal belt in a bid to extricate the lawless region from the grip of militants. Describing the move as a gift to the nation on Pakistan's 63rd Independence Day, Zardari said people in the seven tribal areas can now have an identity as they will be able to participate in political activities.
Nearly 200 boys, some as young as six years, were rescued by Pakistani security forces from Taliban camps in the lawless Swat valley, where they were being 'brainwashed' and trained to become suicide bombers."These children have been brainwashed in a way that now they even want to kill their own parents," he said. Bilour said some children were initially pleased when they were handed over to their parents. But the parents later said their kids were trying to kill them.
Pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Muhammad, who brokered a now-defunct peace deal between the authorities and insurgents, was arrested on Sunday in northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar for his links to militants and his role in fomenting unrest in the lawless Swat valley. Sufi, who heads the banned Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Muhammadi, was arrested with his sons Ziaullah and Rizwanullah and an accomplice by a large police contingent during a raid in the City Town area of Peshawar.
Pakistan pocketed a cool $953 million cheque while the American establishment still appears to be dim-witted about perceiving the Pakistan army's skullduggery.
In a four-part series, M P Anil Kumar, a former Indian Air Force fighter pilot, looks at the lawless Afghan-Pak region.
The effort made to define the larger picture by focussing on history and the wish not turn differences into disputes and conflicts is welcome. In the obtaining circumstances today, nothing more could have been possible, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
As the sun sets over the charred ruins of what was a bustling neighbourhood till only two weeks ago and the shadows lengthen into night, panic escalates in northeast Delhi's riot-scarred locality of Shiv Vihar.
The Bush Administration has rejected suggestions that the United States is "stage-managing" the internal politics of Pakistan, and defended Islamabad's failure to rein in militants in the country's lawless tribal areas, saying the military was making "real efforts" against extremism.
Describing Pakistan a 'failed state', an influential American lawmaker has underlined the need for the United States to tie aid to Islamabad with the Islamic nation, to ensure that the lawless areas bordering Afghanistan are not used by terrorists to launch attacks like in Mumbai. If Pakistan is not able to do that, the United States itself should go in, Congressman Frank Pallone told a meeting organised by the Indian community to pay homage to the victims of Mumbai terror.
Pence and Trump will challenge Democratic Patry's presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris in the November election.
Adm Michael Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said despite the scale of threat, progress would be slow since Pakistan has been lagging behind in its strategy to eliminate safe havens for terrorists in the lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas
An Iraqi soccer fan shot dead a player of the opposing team as he tried to score an equalising goal in the final minutes of a match, police said on Monday. The shooting on Saturday in Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad, during a match between local teams, underscored the country's propensity to lawlessness even as violence by militant groups falls to lows not seen since mid-2003.
Expressing serious concern over some social media platforms not being able to trace the originator of a message or an online content, a bench of justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said the government must step in now.
"The era of 'lalten' is gone. In the last six years consumption of electricity has increased 3 fold in Bihar," PM Modi said. "Voters of Bihar have taken a resolve that they won't let those who have a history of making the state 'Bimaru' come near them," he added.
In a determined voice, she told rediff.com, "I beckon the people of the state and voluntary organisations to launch a well-concerted protest to counter the injustice meted out to the people of Nandigram. We cannot just sit idle and let a government destroy a state."
A police officer was killed in fresh violence in Sichuan province near Tibet, China said on Tuesday as it struggled to quell the fortnight-long pro-independence protests. Armed with knives and stones, a mob attacked the police officers in Garze prefecture on Monday, killing one of them on the spot and injuring several others, a local official said. China's Minister for Public Security Meng Jianzhu, during his Lhasa visit, vowed stricter management of Buddhist monasteries.
A worn-out fantasy of shallow wisdom and unspectacular effects, perhaps it's time to close the book on the Mowgli legend, feels Sukanya Verma.
On January 1 in 2018, violence erupted at an event to mark 100 years of the Bhima-Koregaon battle, leaving one dead and several injured, including 10 policemen.
'If there is a face-off between the army and people, the leadership may lose control of the army.'
Azad has been restrained from visiting Delhi for four weeks. The court also directed him not to hold any dharna in the national capital till the elections are over.
'Not unlike politicians who gravitate towards whoever is in power, mafia dons too have a great survival streak, switching loyalty to the party in power,' observes Virendra Kapoor a week after gangster Vikas Dubey was slain in an alleged encounter.
St John's church was set ablaze on Sunday night as protesters demanded justice for the killing of Floyd, a 46-year-old man who was pinned to the ground in Minneapolis last week by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck as he gasped for breath.
He said the politicians in the state did not have any vision for higher education, which had seen drastic decline in quality and standard in the recent years.
