On January 20, Taliban men armed with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked the landmark Intercontinental Hotel and killed around 25 people, going from room to room searching for foreigners during the more than 12-hour ordeal.
Officials said Umar Mansour, alias Umar Naray, had been killed in the US drone attack in the Bandar area of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province on Saturday.
The Taliban is showing its strong discontent as the high hopes given to it by the Pakistani military have been dashed, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
At least 75 people were killed and 115 others injured in the attack.
Taliban insurgents disguised as police attacked a prison holding hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan with rockets and mortars and have reportedly escaped with 300 prisoners after a gunfight with security forces.
The Taliban is highly pragmatic and would regard it wasteful to resume military offensive to capture Panjshir. The Taliban's preference, historically, has been to keep the military option as the last resort, explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
Taliban cleric Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani was killed in a blast which occured in Afghanistan's Kabul on Thursday, local media reported.
'Every evidence we have in hand shows that IS-K cells have their roots in Talibs & Haqqani network particularly the ones operating in Kabul. Talibs denying links with ISIS is identical/similar to the denial of Pakistan on Quetta Shura. Talibs have learned very well from the master. #Kabul,' Saleh said in a tweet.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has taken responsibility for the attack on NATO supply trucks in Sindh, which claimed 5 lives on Friday. The TTP has warned that such attacks will continue till Pakistan blocks the supply line to Afghanistan for NATO trucks.On Friday, nearly 12 Taliban militants blocked a road at Shikarpur Sindh and stooped the NATO tankers. After chasing away the drivers, they set nearly 35 tankers on fire. Some of the tankers were destroyed completely.
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.
India on Thursday strongly condemned the Taliban attack on a guesthouse in the Afghan capital that killed 14 people, including four Indians.
At least 18 people including 14 foreigners were killed in a bloody Taliban-claimed attack.
In a US-India Joint Leaders' Statement issued after the first in-person bilateral meeting between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on Friday, the two leaders underscored the importance of combating terrorism in Afghanistan.
"I judge by the first day of their control over Kabul. The impressions are good. The situation in Kabul is better now (under Taliban) than it was under Ashraf Ghani," Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov was quoted as saying by Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio station on Monday.
Pakistani law enforcement agencies on Sunday claimed to have made a breakthrough in their probe into the recent three near-simultaneous terror attacks on security facilities in Lahore by arresting a Punjabi Taliban militant, from whom banned literature and 'jihadi' compact discs were also seized.
Three Taliban militants have been given a death sentence by a Pakistani court for attacking trucks carrying critical supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan in 2010.
The Pakistan media has received a warning from the late Baitullah Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is dedicated to overthrowing the Pakistani government, to avoid publishing "anti-Taliban" reports.
The Taliban claimed that they have gained control of several public office buildings.
The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Delhi has come to accept the Taliban takeover in Kabul as a reality and seems increasingly unsure of its dogmatic view of the Taliban as a mere proxy of the Pakistani military and security establishment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, one of Pakistan's largest and oldest seminaries and dubbed as a 'university of jihad' by its critics for helping sow violence across the region for decades, has educated more Taliban leaders than any school in the world and its alumni now hold key positions in Afghanistan, according to a media report.
The Pakistani Taliban on Monday vowed they would again target teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt last year to become a frontrunner for the Nobel Peace prize.
China may accord recognition to the new government in Kabul at an early opportunity, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
Taliban leader Mullah Mansour was killed in a United States airstrike.
There is growing acceptance of the idea in the international community that engaging the Taliban government is a far better approach than ostracising it, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Afghan Taliban have claimed that they killed three persons, including two Indians, and injured seven Afghan soldiers in a missile attack on a United States airbase and an Indian non-governmental organisation's office in eastern Kunar province.The claim was made by Afghan Taliban spokesman Qari Omar Haqqani, who spoke to reporters in Khar in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region on the phone on Sunday. Haqqani claimed the militants attacked the office of the Indian NGO.
Pakistan army retaliated to the deadly Taliban attack at Peshawar school by killing 5 militants in massive airstrikes in the Khyber tribal region where the suicide bombers were reportedly trained.
The Afghan tradition of gaining control of areas does not necessarily involve combat. Most engagements are settled through negotiations and pay-offs before battle is joined. This style of fighting is peculiar to Afghanistan, explains Ajai Shukla, who witnessed such a transaction between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance in November 2001.
India today said none of its nationals was killed in a Taliban attack on a heavily fortified luxury hotel in Afghanistan's capital. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi had said that four foreigners -- one each from New Zealand, Canada, Pakistan and India -- were killed in the attack on Serena Hotel which is used by UN staff and foreign diplomats.
The brazen Taliban attack on a luxury hotel in the Afghan capital Kabul was similar to the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike, according to an American security analyst.
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.
Three soldiers and a civilian were killed and 16 others were injured when a convoy of security forces was ambushed by Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, police said. Taliban fighters attacked the convoy with a remote-controlled bomb near Took Kach area, located between the Kurram tribal region and Hangu district, said Deputy Superintendent of Police Mir Chaman Khan. The convoy was on its way to Alizai area of Kurram Agency from Thall in Hangu district.
The Pakistani Taliban threatened on Tuesday to attack NATO supply trucks if they tried to resume supplies to troops in Afghanistan. Tahir Ali reports.
The explosion took place at 4 pm at the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl workers' convention in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
'The worst case scenario for Pakistan is a full-scale Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.' 'Pakistani militants would be inspired and emboldened and seek to replicate the Taliban's successes in Pakistan.'
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.
Reports coming from the ground confirm that an intense battle between Taliban and opposition forces to control the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, the last Afghan province holding out against the group.
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
A full-fledged training, intelligence and combat module on Taliban, its leadership and their modus operandi is being prepared apart from specific case studies that have taken place in that country and the region, he said.
