The Pakistani military on Monday rejected the regret expressed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief for a cross-border air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and warned that the action could have "grave consequences".
The temporary suspension of the crucial North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply route to Afghanistan by Islamabad last year in response to incursions by allied forces and the Davis Raymond episode reflects the fragile nature of the United States-Pakistan relationship, the Obama administration said in a new report.
Washington and Islamabad are looking more like enemies than allies in a war, thus threatening the US-led war on terror, says Amir Mir
Rejecting General David Petraeus' claim that thousands of Afghan Taliban have either 'laid down' their arms or moving towards doing so, Mullah Omer-led Taliban vowed continuing their war until the establishment of Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has refused to budge from its position seeking a United States apology for a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air strike that killed 24 of its soldiers last year, saying this is necessaryfor ending a six-month blockade of vital supply routes for foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan missed a valuable opportunity to create goodwill with the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members when it failed to announce a reopening of NATO supply routes to Afghanistan at the summit held Sunday and Monday in Chicago, says Lisa Curtis.
United States President Barack Obama is at loggerheads with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, refusing to meet him apparently over blockage of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply lines into Afghanistan, an issue which continues to strain ties between two nations, American media reports said on Monday.
As Nato leaders assemble in Chicago to discuss Afghanistan, the Taliban have issued a 14-point agenda to its leaders, with a succinct message: Get out now, reports Tahir Ali
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari played a key behind-the-scenes role in negotiations that helped end a stalemate in Pakistan-US ties over a deadly cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack and paved the way for Islamabad's participation in a crucial summit on Afghanistan, official sources said.
The United States may keep a combat force of around 10,000 in Afghanistan, including a small counter-terrorism force after 2014 as a contingency against re-emergence of the Al Qaeda.
Pakistan may earn $365 million annually under an agreement with the United States, following the reopening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes for American troops in Afghanistan.
Launching another broadside against Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday said the Taliban, that has launched some audacious attacks in his country will not be able to "move a finger without Pakistani support."
A high-level group of Afghan, Pakistani and American officials will meet on Thursday for the first time since September last year for talks on the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, including efforts to involve the Taliban in negotiations.
The Taliban once again made their intentions clear on Sunday, with spectacular coordinated attacks which resulted in an 18-hour battle with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan forces. With the looming political uncertainty, whispers of a civil war, the insurgents are well positioned to fill in the vacuum.
Afghan security forces have killed all the Taliban attackers who unleashed a wave of coordinated suicide attacks targetting diplomatic area, NATO bases and the Parliament in Kabul, a top official said on Monday.
Heavily-armed Taliban suicide attackers on Sunday struck Afghanistan capital Kabul, with several explosions and gunfire rocking the diplomatic enclave as the militants took over a hotel and tried to enter the parliament.
Outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat leader Ahmed Ludhianvi played a cat-and-mouse game for almost six hours with the police and paramilitary forces who were trying to prevent them from entering the Pakistani capital.
Pakistan is inching towards a decision on reopening North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply routes, which were closed following a cross-border air strike in November, though it is expected to impose "tough conditions" like a hefty transit fee for the movement of container trucks and oil tankers. The issue of allowing the United States and its allies to resume using Pakistani routes for transporting supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan figured at a meeting of leaders.
Terrorists torched 10 tankers carrying oil for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan in southern Pakistan, injuring five persons including the vehicles' drivers, police and witnesses said on Monday.
The Taliban is ready to completely disown the Al Qaeda, and is willing to work with the United States to improve security in Afghanistan, a major report has disclosed.
The United States is set to give control of a controversial prison having nearly 3,000 Taliban rebels and terror suspects to the Afghan authorities.
The United States has asked Pakistan's interior ministry to conduct a probe into Pakistani jihadis, including Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives, joining militant groups in Afghanistan to attack North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and allied forces, a media report said on Tuesday.
Pakistan on Thursday said that the United States probe report on the last month's North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers is "not based on facts".
The expression of remorse by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was enough to break the deadlock that had led to the blocking of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes for the last seven months, following the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border NATO strike at the Salala check-post in November last year.
Making sure nothing sensitive is left behind, American forces set on fire all their redundant and useless equipment before abandoning the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwest.
The Pakistani military will shoot down any United States drone that intrudes the country's airspace under a new defence policy in which troops have been given greater liberty to respond to incursions by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to a media report.
A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air strike destroyed buildings inside Muammar Gaddafi's office in the capital Tripoli on Monday as forces loyal to the embattled leader pounded western Misurata, despite the regime announcing halt to operations in the besieged city.
As United States finalises its plan to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, Indian authorities are getting ready to train nearly 30,000 Afghan troops in the next three years. The US has urged other countries to join hands with it to train Afghan troops, which will take over the duties of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's forces after they leave in 2014. Incidentally, the Pakistan government had expressed its interest in training Afghan troops.
Asserting that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers was a "military engagement", the United States has said it is carrying out a crucial investigation to determine the circumstances that led to the tragic incident but Islamabad has refused to participate in the probe.
With a deadly North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air raid sparking outrage in Pakistan, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said it was time for the country "to review its relations" while demanding "complete clarity" from the international community on Islamabad's sovereignty.
General Stanley McChrystal, who was sacked last year as the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commander in Afghanistan after publication of an article that quoted him as criticising the Obama administration, has been cleared of wrongdoing by the Pentagon.
Islamabad's cooperation is crucial to ongoing American successes in the Pak-Afghan border region, but the fragile bilateral ties don't leave much room to be undermined by disruptive developments such as the latest NATO attack, says Amir Mir.
Pakistan has formally communicated to the United Nations its protest and condemnation of the air-strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that killed 24 soldiers and has strained ties between Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah Hussain Haroon has written a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, informing him of the NATO attack of November 26 "on Pakistan's border posts (that) resulted in the martyrdom of 24 officers".
Pakistan on Saturday claimed that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation helicopters from Afghanistan fired on a military check post in northwest tribal region, killing eight soldiers and wounding four others.
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday pounded the besieged western town of Misurata amid growing differences among the international community over the military campaign in Libya. Ahead of a key North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting in Berlin, Britain and France mounted pressure on the alliance to help defeat the Libyan regime.
In a fresh jolt to United States-Pakistan ties, the Pentagon on Monday said it is withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan for a "short period of time", after talks failed to lift the six-month blockade of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes to war-torn Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made a clear break with the past on UK-China relations as he declared that the "so-called golden era" of bilateral ties is over in the face of the "systemic challenge" posed by the Chinese regime to British values and interests.
The 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has announced to take over all the international operations in Libya, including military operations to enforce no-fly-zone, enforcement of arms embargo and the civilian protections.
Pakistan will soon reopen the ground lines of communication to Afghanistan, which were shut down last November following the death of 24 soldiers in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's strike, the White House has said. "We continue to work with Pakistan on this issue. We did not anticipate that the supply line issue was going to be resolved prior to the summit. And our teams continue to meet and we are making diligent progress," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
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