Karzai has steadfastly opposed direct talks between the US and the Taliban, wanting Afghan ownership of the "reconciliation process", as the reintegration of the Taliban into the mainstream is referred to.
Almost all mosques in villages in Buner district are being used by the Taliban to recruit local residents for their cause of enforcing Sharia or Islamic law in the Malakand division, which includes Swat, and the rest of the country, media reports said on Monday.
The much anticipated peace talks between the Taliban and the United States might not happen as well, a US official said, as the Special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan left Qatar without any talks with the Afghan insurgent group.
The United States has said that Taliban is not an enemy of America, a move seen as the latest effort of the Obama administration to send an olive branch to the terrorist outfit that ruled Afghanistan before 9/11.
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.
A confidential Spanish defence ministry report has alleged Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped arm the Taliban in 2005 for assassination plots against the Afghan government, media reports said. The confidential report, obtained by Cadena Ser radio and posted on the station's Web site, also alleges the Inter Services Intelligence helped the Taliban procure roadside bombs.
The US on Tuesday designated Maulana Fazlullah, the chief of Pakistani Taliban, as a global terrorist and slapped sanction against him.
Taliban chief Mullah Omar is dead, the Afghan government announced tonight, "confirming" reports about the one-eyed extremist leader who ruled the country with an iron fist between 1996 and 2001.
It's intriguing that the prime minister now wants his American partner to help protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. That's conceding to the Americans a pre-eminence India has always contested, resented and feared, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'The Indian government is better prepared this time and has reached out to all contenders and not putting all eggs in one basket.'
The shocking footage of the shooting incident, which took place a few days back near the border of Orakzai tribal agency, was made available to a Pakistani media outlet on Friday.
There have been conflicting reports about whether Taliban's supreme council was consulted or not on the election
Just two soldiers are known to have survived unscathed after the attack on the base.
Pakistan-India bilateral relations remained frozen for the fourth year over the vexed Kashmir issue but analysts hope the strained ties could be repaired if Nawaz Sharif becomes the prime minister for a record fourth time in the general elections in February in the absence of his main challenger Imran Khan who is in jail in multiple cases.
The reaction came a day after Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that India is providing funds for Taliban fighters located along the Afghanistan border for creating chaos in Pakistan.
India on Monday rejected the charge that it was fomenting unrest in Pakistan by funding Taliban fighters based along the border with Afghanistan.
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.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was among six militants killed in a US drone strike on Friday in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
A top local Taliban leader has dismissed contentions by Pakistani officials that India is helping militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Against the backdrop of a spate of attacks on election meetings and campaign offices ahead of the landmark May 11 polls, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud has said his group is focussed on ending the country's democratic system.
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.
The decision to target the Pakistani Taliban comes at a time when the UN is seeking to encourage the Afghan Taliban to pursue peace talks with the government there, a prelude to a US withdrawal from the war-ravaged country.
Barack Obama has said that he had ruled out involving Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout because it was an "open secret" that certain elements inside Pakistan's military, and especially its intelligence services, maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaeda, sometimes using them as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India.
A Pakistani journalist has petitioned the Supreme Court to bar the civilian government and the military from making any contacts or conducting negotiations with the Taliban, saying such an act is forbidden by the Constitution.
Some commanders have refused to pledge allegiance to Akhundzada, according to interviews with Taliban commanders and officials.
Acknowledging the killing of its leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the Afghan Taliban have announced Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada as his successor.
