PESHAWAR: Shop owner Saeed Khan has already buried one child killed in fighting between the Taliban and government forces in northwest Pakistan. He cannot bear to lose another, AFP reports. So the 50-year-old bundled his wife, son and daughter onto a bus in the Taliban-infested town of Mingora in the Swat valley and […]
MINGORA/BATKHELA: Forty-seven militants, 15 security personnel and 36 non-combatants were killed and several others wounded on Wednesday in fierce clashes and explosions in the Swat valley and Malakand region. Sources said security forces killed 30 militants near emerald mines and 15 others in Takhtaband area, in the outskirts of Mingora. The ground forces […]
LONDON: Turbulent Pakistan has replaced Iraq as the place to go for militants bent on striking the West, but the threat of US attacks means al Qaeda recruits may spend more time out of sight in a classroom than on an assault course. Long a favoured destination of British militants of Pakistani descent, Pakistan’s […]
Many young men and soldiers hailing from diverse societies identify with the concept of dying for honour, the latter term referring to a willingness to die in battle. One of the ways of building up such an idea is through the process of indoctrination — as in the case of those who are recruited for […]
China’s updated renewable energy plan China is expected to announce a new blueprint for renewable energy development. The new industry plan will update a long-term industry plan released in 2007. Initial targets for wind, hydro-, solar, and biomass power as specified in the older plan will be raised significantly. The youngest renewable energy blueprint, for […]
Sufi Mohammad, the man on whom the government pinned its hopes after entering into a peace deal with the extremists, has declared that democracy amounts to kufr. Concurrently, referring to the ‘security forces and the rulers of Pakistan’ as the militants’ target, a TTP spokesman has said that the ANP that heads the NWFP government […]
On Monday, April 4, veteran journalist Ahmed Rashid addressed a select crowd at Karachi’s Mohatta Palace Museum. Not surprisingly, the subject of his talk was ‘Afghanistan and Pakistan: Quest for Peace or Recipe for War?’ He argued that Pakistan was facing a major existential crisis: ‘I no longer say that there’s a creeping Talibanisation in […]
As Taliban forces edged to within 60 miles of Islamabad late last month, the Obama administration urgently asked for new intelligence assessments of whether Pakistan’s government would survive. In briefings last week, senior officials said, President Obama and his National Security Council were told that neither a Taliban takeover nor a military coup was imminent […]
MOHRI PUR, Pakistan — The elementary school in this poor village is easy to mistake for a barn. It has a dirt floor and no lights, and crows swoop through its glassless windows. Class size recently hit 140, spilling students into the courtyard. But if the state has forgotten the children here, the mullahs have […]
WASHINGTON — As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities. The officials emphasized that there was […]
After joining the “war on terror” following the attacks on the United States in September 2001, Pakistan saw a significant rise in attacks by tribal movements and groups linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The security forces have borne much of the brunt of the violence but hundreds of civilians have also been killed. 2007 […]
Once again, Karachi is burning, and everyone has a theory. On April 29, at least 34 people were killed in an escalating wave of violence across the port city. Most of the dead were Pathan, though the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) also claimed losses. Even before funeral processions were organised and the last fires […]
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