A Taliban commander in Pakistan's volatile tribal belt has broken away from the militant outfit to form his own group, as he is opposed to suicide attacks on mosques and civilians.
A Pakistani Taliban faction linked to terrorist Qari Hussain on Thursday claimed responsibility for the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, saying the 'man who killed him was from among us'."We claim responsibility for the killing of Salmaan Taseer. The Punjab governor was our target and we have planned this programme and the man who killed him was from among us," said Shakirullah Shakir, a spokesman for the Fidayeen group associated with Qari Hussain.
Voicing concern that Pakistan is not doing enough against the Afghan-Taliban, including the Haqqani network, two top US Senators have warned Islamabad that any future terror attack against America or Europe that can be traced back to that country would invite "very serious" consequences.
Terror suspect Faisal Shahzad has been charged with 10 terrorism and weapons counts in the botched Times Square car bombing in an indictment that also accuses him of receiving money and explosives training from Pakistani Taliban.
Nearly three years after she was assassinated, investigators have concluded that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed by the Pakistani Taliban in a gun-and-bomb attack in Rawalpindi. The FIA is expected to submit its report on the investigation to an anti-terrorism court on October 30. The FIA's investigation team was initially reluctant to submit the chargesheet to the court because it could not complete its probe regarding the three accused who are absconding.
US military is looking at options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan if a successful terrorist strike on US soil is traced back to the country, senior Pentagon officials were quoted as saying on Saturday.
As the Pakistani Taliban demonstrated their ability to reach the US with the recent Times Square terror plot, key members of the 9/11 Commission have expressed frustration that more progress has not been made on their recommendations like sharing of vital intelligence.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has issued chilling threats against 10 targets in Britain, America and France to avenge the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
A former leading Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence officer, who claimed to have been a mentor of Taliban, has been killed almost a year after he was kidnapped by militants in the Waziristan tribal region.
"Indeed, nearly all of the jihadi groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, LeT, and others have joined together in an extended terrorist network that shares the same goals, including destabilising Afghanistan and destroying the Pakistani state," said Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
US-led NATO forces are facing a tough time in Afghanistan after Pakistan blockaded the main supply route and the Taliban stepped up attacks on vehicles and oil-tankers carrying essentials with nearly 60 trucks being destroyed in last three days.
The Pakistani military has "significantly degraded" the Pakistani Taliban, but is still reluctant to take action against the elements of Afghan Taliban operating from inside its territory, a top US General said on Wednesday.
The botched car bomb incident at Times Square in New York City indicates the Pakistan Taliban's ambitions are far expanding, says General David H Petraeus, head of United States Central Command, who recently toured Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to contaminate water sources and reservoirs with poisonous materials to pressure the army to stop military operations against them in South Waziristan tribal region. The cantonment boards of Rawalpindi and Chaklala, located near the federal capital, received the threat from the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
FBI agents arrested Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, and his son Irfan Khan, 37, in South Florida on Saturday. Both are US citizens and residents of Miami. Hafiz Khan is the imam of a mosque in Miami.
Pakistan has sent extra troops to its border with India due to rising tensions, the country's high commissioner to the United Kingdom Wajid Shamsul Hasan has said, adding Islamabad had been 'unsettled' by pressure on its eastern border.
An anti-terrorism court on Friday handed down '23 times' death sentence to three militants of outlawed Pakistani Taliban for the 2009 attack on the country's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence's headquarters here that killed 35 people.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on a provincial cabinet minister on Monday. Seven people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up near Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain's residence in northwest Pakistan.Hussain, a vocal critic of the Pakistani Taliban, escaped unhurt in the attack. The bomber, a youth clad in black, detonated his explosive vest when he was stopped by the police.
'They are not following through, and have not followed through, by going after one of the truly great threats that face us here in Afghanistan, which is the coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan of Haqqani fighters,' The Daily Times quoted US Armed Services Committee Chairman, Carl Levin, as saying.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud received splinter injuries to his head and back in an American missile strike in Pakistan's lawless Waziristan tribal region that killed at least 15 militants, according to intelligence officials.Mehsud, who became the Tehrik-e-Taliban chief after the killing of his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud in a drone attack in August last year, was injured in Thursday's United States' missile strike at Basalkot in Shaktoi area.
One of the two terrorists arrested during audacious terror strikes on two mosques of the minority Ahmedi sect in Lahore has told investigators that the attackers had received training in the lawless Waziristan tribal belt and were working at the behest of the Pakistani Taliban's Punjabi wing.
A man who allegedly helped terror suspect Faisal Shahzad travel to Pakistan's tribal belt to attend bomb-making camps was arrested on Thursday.The arrested suspect has admitted to being an accomplice of Shahzad, who was arrested at New York's JFK airport for plotting a terror attack on Times Square. He also has links with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.The latest arrest confirms the fears of the US administration that the Pakistani Taliban plotted the failed bomb plot.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has written a letter to the sister of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani convicted for attempted murder by an American court, promising to carry out a 'memorable attack against the United States".The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief "threatened a memorable response against the United States" in the letter he wrote to Fouzia Siddiqui nearly two months ago, Dawn News channel reported.
Pakistani Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah had been injured in an attack or surrounded by troops, which intensified operations and pounded militants' hideouts, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said today.
Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who was reportedly killed in a United States drone strike in January, has vowed to attack the US in a new video dated early April."The time is very near when our fidayeen will attack the American states in the major cities," SITE quoted the Taliban leader as saying.Mehsud was reportedly killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan in January. Pakistani intel officials and the US administration have never confirmed his death.
The Pakistani Taliban on Monday warned all international organisations and individuals to leave the country or face violence as it was in a "state of war". Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said that Pakistan had buried the desire of its people for peace in the North Waziristan tribal region and launched a military operation to make its western backers happy.
United States intelligence agencies believe Pakistani Taliban's new leader Hakimullah Mehsud has died in a gun battle with a rival faction weeks ago.
Faisal Shahzad, the man behind the failed Times Square bombing plot, is seen in a new video footage along with Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, with the two shaking hands and hugging each other. After his arrest, the Pakistani American had claimed that he had met Mehsud and a host of other radical leaders, but investigators had then said they were yet to verify his claims. The video that has emerged shows a man who appears to be Shahzad shaking hands with Mehsud.
'Where we differ, of course, is the treatment of the groups who are attacking our troops in Afghanistan,' she was quoted as saying by a newspaper.
Pakistani security forces believe that the new Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is already dead and the terrorist group is using his "lookalike brother" for media interviews to give an impression that he is alive, media reports in Islamabad claimed.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has died due to injuries sustained in a United States' drone attack, the state-run television reported on Sunday, though the government said there was 'no verifiable information' about his death. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief had died in the home of his father-in-law due to wounds sustained in a drone strike earlier this month, PTV quoted local sources in Aurakzai tribal region as saying.
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.
Life has come a full circle for Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.
Making a distinction between some violent extremist groups and others is counterproductive, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday told Pakistan that the Taliban's safe havens along the Af-Pak border have to be eliminated or both nations would suffer "more lethal and brazen attacks".
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud on Saturday issued a new audio recording saying he was alive and well, dismissing reports that he was killed in a United States' drone attack in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. The recording was provided by the Taliban to the media in northwest Pakistan a day after another audio message -- in which Mehsud said he was alive but did not mention Thursday's drone strike in Waziristan tribal region -- triggered reports of his death.
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.
A Jordanian suicide bomber who blew himself up at a US base in Afghanistan killing eight, including seven CIA operative, has said the 'jihadists' must carry out revenge attacks inside and outside the US to avenge the killing of Pak-Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Pakistan Peoples Party chief Bhutto, 54, was killed in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi shortly after she had addressed an election rally on December 27, 2007.
Pakistani Taliban commanders have contacted cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan to broker peace talks with the Pakistani government, but he said he would act as a mediator only if authorities give their consent.
The Pakistani Taliban on Thursday dismissed the military's claims that their chief in the Swat valley was 'critically' wounded, asserting that he was healthy and unhurt in the army operations in the restive region, where troops killed at least two militants in the latest fighting. The Taliban's response came in the wake of the military's recent statement that they had 'credible' information about Maulana Fazlullah being injured in the offensive against militants.
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