Asserting that it cannot be cowed down by "hollow rhetoric" and "aggressive posturing", Pakistan on Tuesday said its armed forces are fully capable of thwarting any threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity, amid escalating tensions with India after the Uri terror attack.
The verdict was announced after the government submitted a 'new summary' to extend the service of 59-year-old Gen Bajwa.
It is important to protect fissile material from extremists in Pakistan more than nuclear bombs because the latter has multi-layer security unlike the former, a senior Pakistani nuclear expert said on Saturday.
Emphasising on building a "peaceful neighbourhood", Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said his country is committed to engaging India for peaceful resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, through sustained dialogue.
Raising questions over the role of Pakistan's powerful military in the Pathankot terror attack, a former ambassador to India has said that the army does not appreciate Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's attempts to decide on the country's policy towards India.
While ruling out the possibility of a military takeover, observers warned that the "military may move in if there is a major public disorder in the country".
Pakistan's new Army Chief has begun setting the stage to act against groups like LeT and JeM
At least 200 people were killed and more than 1,300 others injured today as a powerful 7.5- magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in 10 years --rocked Pakistan, sending severe shock waves as far as Punjab and PoK.
This will be the fifth time that Prime Minister Sharif will pick the top commander of the country's nearly 550,000 ground troops.
'The devious minds across the border will test us to the hilt, but in the course of that will offer us opportunities for which we must be prepared,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), who commanded the Uri Brigade, the Baramulla Division and the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps.
"Pakistan will not compromise if there is any threat to our territorial sovereignty," he said.
'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.
At least 75 people were killed and 115 others injured in the attack.
Swaraj said there is scope to do a lot more and this would be an important element of their deliberations.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif plans to name Pakistan's new army chief weeks before Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's term ends in November to quell speculation about the issue, according to a media report on Monday.
Pakistan honoured the victims of the Peshawar's Army Public School massacre in a sombre ceremony at the school as the country marks the first anniversary of the attack.
'The Modi government will be wasting its time talking to Nawaz Sharif.' 'It would be better if it were to open a direct channel with the Pakistan army,' says Rajeev Sharma.
Central Intelligence Agency chief John Brennan flew to Pakistan last week for a clandestine meeting with army chief Gen Raheel Sharif to discuss a possible military operation against militants in the country's northwest, a media report said on Monday.
'We are not going to let him go free. Justice will be served,' a Pakistan official tells Rediff.com contributor Shahzad Raza in Islamabad.
The blast took place as a bomb placed inside the bus exploded when the vehicle packed with government employees reached Peshawar from Mardan.
Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar, considered a close confidante of army chief Gen Raheel Sharif, was appointed on Monday as the new head of Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
In one his strongest remarks on Kashmir, Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif on Wednesday said it is an "unfinished agenda" of the partition in 1947 and Pakistan and Kashmir are "inseparable".
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.
'Foreign ministry sources in Delhi discount the official version of the story, in which Modi made an impromptu request to stop over at Lahore, during the course of a birthday telephone call to Nawaz Sharif. In fact, this stopover had been carefully considered in Delhi, as a way to galvanise the peace process further.'
Two Army officers and five soldiers lost their lives in a major terrorist attack on Tuesday at an army base near Jammu in the town of Nagrota, just 20 kilometres from the border with Pakistan.
Pakistan Air Force Chief Marshal Sohail Aman said it is better if India showed restraint and solved the Kashmir issue to prevent escalation of tension.
India and China on Monday decided to deepen bilateral defence ties and maintain peace and tranquillity at the Line of Actual Control besides strengthening cooperation against terror, including at the international level.
Dawn's Cyril Almeida said he had triple checked the facts on his story, which reported about the rift between the civilian government and the military in Pakistan.
Civilian government informs military of growing isolation of Pakistan, seeks consensus on several key actions.
Nearly three weeks after students and staff members were mercilessly gunned down by Taliban terrorists at the army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, the doors of the school were reopened on Monday, with classes resuming later this week.
'New Delhi feels that given the internal dynamics in Pakistan and the overwhelming powers wielded by the army, one will have to wait for better times to see any meaningful progress in the India-Pakistan relationship,' says Ambassador G Parthasarthy.
'Jaish e Mohammed has been allowed to resurge through supported terror actions in J&K in a deliberate tactic by Pakistan, if only to reduce the international pressure on the Lashkar e Taiba leadership after 26/11,' points out Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
'It is not difficult for a Pakistan army chief assisted by the deep state to manipulate a situation.' 'Pulwama, Uri and Pathankot, all come to mind,' cautions Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
What does the Taliban chief's death means for various stakeholders?
General Bajwa gets inputs from his senior officers, but he has the final word, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
Pakistan on Monday launched a massive military operation in Punjab province in the wake of the deadly Taliban suicide bombing in Lahore, conducting raids and making several arrests.
Given all the turbulence created by Pakistan Foreign Minister Qureshi's unexpected tirade against Saudi Arabia, it is likely to be business as usual between the two countries, albeit with a bit of caution on the part of both, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
The horrific attack on the Peshawar school is the terrorists's retaliation for the Zarb-e-Azb military operation in North Waziristan.
Security Expert Bruce Riedel, who in an interview with rediff.com shortly after the Pathankot terror attacks began said that the attack underscored the determination of jihadist groups in Pakistan to sabotage any attempt at detente with India, writes in the Daily Beast that despite the US putting the Jaish-e-Mohammad on the terrorist sanctions list years ago, the outfit continues to coddle the Pakistani army.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was one of the key architects of US President Barack Obama's Af-Pak policy during his first term, has called for an offensive strategy against terrorist networks and this includes hitting out at terrorist groups inside Pakistan.
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