The drone fired two missiles at Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's base at Khadezai village in a remote mountainous area of Aurakzai tribal agency, witnesses said. Local residents and witnesses told TV channels that at least 12 militants were killed and more than 15 others injured in the strike.
'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.'
The Pakistan government has banned 25 religious and other organisations, including the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashker-e-Tayiba, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
B Raman on the situation in Pakistan after the death of Baitullah.
Pakistan Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, the alleged mastermind in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto died on Tuesday after protracted illness, a media report has said.
Acknowledging that his government had underestimated the threat from Taliban, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said the terrorist group was present in "huge amounts of land" in the country extending its reach beyond the tribal belt to larger cities like Peshawar.
The coherent strategy of the TTP has not been matched by an equally coherent one from Pakistan Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. He has been struggling to counter the co-ordinated strategy of the TTP with a bits and pieces strategy depending on where the pressure from the TTP comes from.
A former aide of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud has accused him of plotting the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
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.
A top local Taliban leader has dismissed contentions by Pakistani officials that India is helping militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Claiming that 'thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan', chief of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, told The News daily by phone from an undisclosed location. Hundreds of would-be bombers had been 'given suicide jackets and explosive-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces', he said.
Security expert B Raman writes on the alarming rise of Taliban in Pakistan.
The prime suspect in the terror attack on a police academy near Lahore has revealed that all his accomplices were Afghans and information provided by him, a Pakistani Taliban operative, has led to the arrest of some "local facilitators", the investigators said on Tuesday.
In the second major strike in the last four days, American drones on Monday targeted a Taliban hideout in Pakistan's restive Kurram tribal region, killing at least 15 people and wounding several others. The drone fired two missiles at the hideout, where a meeting of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan was being held, TV channels reported. There was no official word on the incident. This was the first such attack in Kurram Agency.
Reacting to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani's invitation for a dialogue, the Pakistani Taliban have said they are prepared to hold talks with the new government provided it 'severed diplomatic relations with the United States' and enforced Sharia in tribal areas. The Taliban leaders said the militants were ready for talks with the government, and their men are observing a ceasefire with the government but would not surrender their weapons.
Ten people were killed on Monday when militants attacked the home of a provincial legislator's brother in Pakistan's restive north-western Swat valley even as the government banned the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Taliban militants fired a rocket at the home of the brother of Awami National Party legislator Waqar Ahmed Khan in Kabal sub-district, killing his brother, two nephews and seven security guards.
Pakistani Taliban has warned that boys and girls of its suicide squad will launch "massive" strikes across the country, including the commercial hub of Karachi, if military operation in Swat and other tribal areas are not halted immediately.
Pakistani police and counter-terrorism forces on Monday raided a house near Lahore, killing four Taliban militants and seizing a large cache of arms as they claimed to have averted a "major terror attack".
Gen Kiyani has already withdrawn regular army troops from South Waziristan as demanded by Baitullah and has lifted the economic blocade imposed against the Mehsuds.
"We continue to urge our partners in Pakistan to go after all terrorist networks operating in their country. We stand ready to help them," said Adam Szubin, Acting Under Secretary on Countering the Financing of Terrorism.
The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday responsibility for the assasination of a prominent Sikh politician who was shot dead by motorcycle-borne gunmen near his home in Pakistan's restive northwest.
Pakistani Taliban's Sindh unit, which had penetrated into various departments of the provincial government, was involved in a foiled terror attack at a Naval dockyard in Karachi in the country's financial capital.
IS-Khorasan was sanctioned for its links with Al Qaeda and involvement in several deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed over 150 people.
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
IS, especially active in northern Sindh and Balochistan, was also behind the abduction and killing of two Chinese nationals last year.
The Pakistan army killed at least 120 suspected terrorists in the North Waziristan tribal region during the Zarb-e-Azb operation.
Five Pakistani soldiers and at least 27 militants, including some foreigners, were killed On Sunday in clashes and air strikes in the restive northwestern tribal belt, where the military has launched a major offensive against the Taliban.
The APG released its much-awaited 228-page 'Mutual Evaluation Report' on Saturday, 10 days ahead of the key Financial Action Task Force's plenary meeting which will give its decision on Pakistan's 'grey list' status.
The US on Tuesday designated Maulana Fazlullah, the chief of Pakistani Taliban, as a global terrorist and slapped sanction against him.
Pakistan police on Saturday claimed to have killed the alleged mastermind of Wagah suicide bombing -- that claimed 61 lives last year -- in an encounter, a media report said.
The Pakistan government has, however, put the JuD on the list of groups being closely watched by the officials.
Taliban militants have publicly beheaded a man for allegedly spying for the security forces in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.
Over 100 Christians have been arrested for allegedly being part of a mob that lynched two men after Taliban suicide attacks on two churches.
Introduced by Republican Congressman Ted Poe and Democratic lawmaker Rick Nolan, the legislation calls for revoking MNNA status of Pakistan, which was granted to it in 2004 by the then president, George Bush, in an effort to get the country to help the US fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Senior police officer Aizaz Ghoraya confirmed that security and intelligence officials recovered Shahbaz from the Kuchlak area on the outskirts of Quetta city.
TTP chief said the blast was in retaliation for killing LeJ chief Chotu, along with three others in an encounter.
Dreaded Islamic State militant group has appointed a breakaway Taliban commander as its chief in Khurasan, a historic name used by militants for an area covering Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India.
Pakistan-based terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed were named on Monday in the Summit declaration of the BRICS countries.
At least 200 religious scholars in Pakistan have issued a fatwa terming suicide attacks as "un-Islamic" and said the Islamic governments are bound to crush rebel groups like the Taliban, ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
British two-time world champion Amir Khan arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday to fulfill his promise of helping the victims who were attacked by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists in a school in Peshawar.
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