Pakistan

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan seems like a Molotov cocktail waiting for a match. Its ruling elite bickers over politics, while out on the streets Taliban insurgents step up their suicide attacks. Its military plays the role of national conciliator even as it worries about Muslim revolutionaries in its own ranks. Meanwhile, the United States, Pakistan’s historic […]

“Leave me for the moment — you can beat me again later,” a 17-year-old girl begs between sobs in a video airing on Pakistan’s private television networks and circulating on the Internet. But the local Taliban commander continues to flog her without mercy as a group of village men watch in silence. These images were […]

MINGORA: Pakistani Taliban are moving into a new area in northern Pakistan, clashing with villagers and police in a mountain valley, police and district officials said on Wednesday. Separately, a Pakistani Taliban commander said the Pakistani military and the United States were colluding in US drone aircraft attacks and the militants would take their war […]

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama’s new strategy is causing serious differences between the United States and Pakistan over how to fight the militants hiding in the Pak-Afghan region. US think-tanks and the media believe that the differences revolve around two major issues: India’s role in Afghanistan and the drone attacks at suspected terrorist targets inside […]

WASHINGTON — Even as the Obama administration launches new drone attacks into Pakistan’s remote tribal areas, concerns are growing among U.S. intelligence and military officials that the strikes are bolstering the Islamic insurgency by prompting Islamist radicals to disperse into the country’s heartland. Al Qaida , Taliban and other militants who’ve been relocating to Pakistan’s […]

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan rejected on Tuesday a US proposal for joint operations in the tribal areas against terrorism and militancy, as differences of opinion between the two countries over various aspects of the war on terror came out into the open for the first time. Highly-informed sources said the move followed a collective decision reached between […]

April 5, 2009 Can Pakistan Be Governed?  (NYT) By JAMES TRAUB TO ENTER the office where Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, conducts his business, you head down a long corridor toward two wax statues of exceptionally tall soldiers, each in a long, white tunic with a glittering column of buttons. On closer inspection, […]

MANSEHRA: Three female workers and a driver of a USAID-funded Project Rise International were killed by unidentified gunmen here at Kund Bangla area on Monday. Local people suspect the involvement of militants in the occurrence which took place in the jurisdiction of Shinkiari police station. The incident took place at around 4.30 p.m near a […]

ISLAMABAD: The government decided on Monday to formulate an integrated national security policy to curb terrorism and extremism. The decision was taken at a meeting, presided over by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, after a thorough review the security situation, the increase in incidents of terrorism, especially suicide attacks in Punjab.  The meeting was […]

She is not the first victim of the Taliban’s barbarity nor is she likely to be the last. But the grainy footage of a 17-year-old girl being publicly flogged in Swat has brought home for many the reality of the living hell that is today’s Pakistan. Pinned to the ground and encircled by onlookers, the […]

LAHORE: Nawaz Sharif has criticised the new US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, telling the FT that it was only slightly different from the disastrous one pursued by George W Bush. “Mr Obama has now come up with a new policy with little changes, very minor changes as compared to the last policy,” said Nawaz. […]

A US drone attack in Orakzai agency has killed 12 recruits of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Baitullah Mehsud, including one local leader. An Arab too has been killed while the family of the man providing them haven, Maulana Gul Nazir, was the only “collateral damage”. The press links the US attack to Baitullah […]