With hardline commander Mullah Fazlullah at its helm, the Pakistani Taliban has vowed to launch a wave of revenge attacks and ruled out talks with the government.
The hearing in the case of Pakistani-Canadian Raja Lahrasib Khan, a 56-year-old cab driver arrested on charges of sending money to Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri, has been fixed for December 12. The case was to be taken up originally on Wednesday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago, but the hearing has now been scheduled for December 12, said Khan's attorney Thomas Durkin.
Over a year after US and Pakistani authorities claimed to have killed Mehsud in a drone strike in North Waziristan, the Pakistan Taliban chief made an appearance in a video footage showing the killing of former Inter-Services Intelligence officer Colonel Sultan Ameer Tarar, commonly known as Colonel Imam on Saturday.
Terrorist David Headley was ready to double cross his comrades-in-arms after his 2009 arrest and had prepared to setup dreaded Al Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri to be targeted in a United States drone strike.
Al Qaeda has made jihadi commander Ilyas Kashmiri as its chief military strategist for the region to plan and spearhead terrorist attacks against the West.
Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has said a probe would be carried out to ascertain whether Aroosa Alam, a Pakistani journalist who has been visiting former chief minister Amarinder Singh for several years, has links with the ISI.
Pakistani troops entered Kotkai, the hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud and his close aide Qari Hussain, also known as trainer of suicide bombers, late on Saturday night after subjecting the village to heavy bombing by fighters and attack helicopters. In the intense battle, 13 militants and two soldiers were killed.
The witness, Bhalol Khan, recorded his statement in the anti-terrorism court (Islamabad), which is holding the trial of seven Mumbai attack accused, including LeT operations commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi.
Disciplinary action is being taken against two officers in the shooting down of the chopper.
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Blaming the Pakistan government for the killing of its chief Hakimullah Mehsud, Taliban has warned that it "will soon start targeting" the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership for its alleged support to the United States in the region.
'The greatest threat faced by India does not come from Pakistan, it comes from terrorism... It is easier to secure the borders of the US; it is not so easy to make India's borders secure,' Pulizer Prize-winning journalist Mark Mazzetti tells Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya.
Militant commander Maulvi Faqir Muhammad declared himself the head of the Pakistani Taliban, saying he was temporarily replacing Baitullah Mehsud, whom Washington and Islamabad have said was almost certainly killed in a drone attack.
Pakistani Taliban elements can be broadly divided into two groups, the 'good Taliban' and the 'bad Taliban'.'Good Taliban' are those who never target Pakistani armies and their focus remains on Afghanistan, while the 'bad Taliban' mainly attack Pakistani government installations and often seek refuge across the border.
Warning that another 26/11 type attack could result in an Indo-Pak war, a former diplomat has highlighted the need for the United States to target the hideouts of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in drone strikes in view of Pakistan's reluctance to act aggressively against the terror outfit.
Even as the Pakistani political and military leadership has reacted strongly to the proposed US drone strikes inside the country, US President Barack Obama has warned that America would launch missile attacks inside Pakistan if it gets actionable intelligence about the presence of top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in a particular area.
Obama lied to Americans about the role of Pakistan special forces in the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden so he could take credit for the mission, an expose published has claimed.
A noted Pakistani journalist, Rahimullah Yusufzai, who had interviewed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden twice in 1998, has said that he believes that the world's most wanted man is alive.Yusufzai, who described Laden as a 'shy and polite' man, said the 9/11 mastermind is alive despite several claims that he has succumbed to injuries sustained during United States' drone strikes.Yusufzai, 56, pointed out that there is no evidence to prove that Laden is dead.
Saturday's audacious attack by Taliban militants in Rawalpindi has shocked the Pakistani establishment and society.
Hakimullah Mehsud appointment would fuel suicide attacks throughout Pakistan's urban areas. During Baitullah's time he said that suicide bombers would hit twice a week in the urban areas of Pakistan.
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.
The Central Investigation Agency-operated Predator drones may strike Laden's hide-out without taking permission beforehand from Islamabad if the US locates him in Pakistan's rugged tribal areas, a source close to the arrangement told the The Washington Times.
"We will wait till January for our offensive since we are stronger during the snowing season," said Hakimullah, who was made chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack in August
Amid escalating tensions at the Indo-Pak border, Pakistan's national security advisor Sartaj Aziz has said it is "too early" to speculate on the timing of his visit to New Delhi to hold talks with his Indian counterpart as agreed at Ufa.
Mehsud, on whom the US has announced a bounty of $5 million, made the claim to the media from an undisclosed location, even as the prime suspect in Monday's assault has said that all his accomplices were from the tribal areas.
'Nobody is sure if Baitullah is dead or alive. For me, he is still alive. He can be considered dead when the national flag of Pakistan is hoisted on the buildings of all the schools in South Waziristan and students celebrate August 14 without any fear.'
Despite the killing of Pakistan's enemy number one Baitullah Mehsud in a United States drone strike, Islamabad has a long way to go in fighting terrorism, Pakistan's Information Minister Kamran Zaman Qaira has said."We have a long way to go. Only killing one leader doesn't mean the other miscreants will go away," he said. A senior Pakistani counter-terrorism official told the paper that Pak-Taliban chief's death may give Pakistan an opportunity to exploit the power vacuum.
A vehicle-borne IED blast was averted as security forces detected a car laden with 45 kg of explosives in Pulwama.
Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban strongholds in the volatile South Waziristan tribal region on Friday as the death toll from the series of US drone attacks in the region rose to 13. The warplanes hit targets in preparation for a full scale military operation which Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said would take off as soon as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud was spotted.
The sources said the Pakistani side, which spoke to the Border Security Force officials in the noon over phone, 'denied any hand' in the killing of Head Constable Narender Singh on September 18.
Former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha has admitted that the deadly Haqqani network was created by it and America's Central Intelligence Agency and claimed that the insurgent group's chief Jalaluddin Haqqani had "in fact been invited to the White House by President (Ronald) Reagan".
Poe alleged that Taliban is still based in Pakistan and it came as no surprise when a US drone strike killed Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor.
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The Pakistani Taliban have contended that those opposed to referring to dead militants as martyrs are like persons who do not want cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar to be praised because he is an Indian.
'If the US-Pakistan relationship continues to suffer, Pakistan may feel it has less to lose and decide that it need not keep a leash on LeT in order to appease America.' 'A tougher US policy toward Pakistan could lead to an emboldened and strengthened LeT and JeM, resulting in more terrorist attacks in India.'
A top Al Qaeda commander, who was reported to have been killed in a US drone strike last year, has appeared in a video warning India of more Mumbai-style terror attacks if it tried to attack Pakistan. 'India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan,' Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, believed to be Al Qaeda's military commander in Afghanistan and ranked behind No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, said in a 20-minute video in Arabic received by the BBC.
The Afghan Taliban is struggling to find a successor to slain chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
The two IEDs he was found with were 'fully ready' and just needed to be activated with a timer, police said. Security was stepped up in the national capital and in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh following the arrest.
The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday named Khan Syed Mehsud alias Sajna as its new chief, a day after a US drone strike killed its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
But why should India be talking to the Taliban in the first place? There is no love lost there. India will never forget or forgive the humiliation to which the Taliban subjected it in the IC-814 hijack, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Following the arrest of a top terrorist who had made a video of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's office, it has come to light that Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad is planning a strike in Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh said on Sunday.
