Pakistan

Islamabad, Nov 16: A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a police station in Peshawar on Monday, killing at least five persons and injuring 20 others in the latest in a wave of deadly terrorist attacks in northwest Pakistan.

The attacker targeted a police station at Badabher on the outskirts of the provincial capital at 7.45 a.m, local residents said.

A mosque and a house located near the police station were reduced to rubble by the powerful blast, they said.

Peshawar, November 16: A pickup truck laden with explosives blew up in front of a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 3 people in an area that has become the focal point for militant retaliation against a recent army offensive.

Suspected militants have killed more than 300 civilians and security personnel in the last month in an attempt to weaken the country’s resolve to continue the military operation in the tribal area of South Waziristan, where al-Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding.

Islamabad, November 15: Suicide attacks, car bombings, shootings in the capital and fighting in the mountains Taliban guerrillas are dragging Pakistan into a war deadlier than in Afghanistan and mimicking the carnage of Iraq.

Militant attacks killed at least 320 people in nuclear-armed Pakistan last month alone, including 170 civilians slaughtered in market bombings in the northwestern city of Peshawar, according to tallies from police and medics, and the bloodshed has continued in November.

Islamabad, November 15: The evidence regarding Indian involvement in Balochistan will be presented at “a suitable time”, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Sunday adding that “the country’s nuclear assets are safe”.

Speaking to reporters in Multan, Gilani said the issue had been taken up during his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and was made part of the joint statement.

Gilani said: “The evidence will be presented at a suitable time.”

Islamabad, November 15: More than a dozen militants opened fire on the house of an anti-Taliban mayor in northwestern Pakistan today, but security guards repelled the attack, killing three assailants who had disguised themselves by wearing women’s burqas, police said.

Militants have staged a wave of attacks in northwestern Pakistan in recent weeks in retaliation for an army offensive launched last month in the tribal area of South Waziristan, where al-Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding.

Islamabad, November 15: The evidence regarding Indian involvement in Balochistan will be presented at ‘a suitable time’, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Sunday adding that ‘the country’s nuclear assets are safe’.

Speaking to reporters in Multan, Gilani said the issue had been taken up during his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and was made part of the joint statement.

Gilani said: ‘The evidence will be presented at a suitable time.’

New Delhi, November 15: An alleged Pakistani spy has been arrested from the Indira Gandhi International airport here by security agencies.

“One Pakistani spy was arrested at IGI airport yesterday,” Union Home Secretary G K Pillai told PTI without giving out any further details.

Official sources said that security agencies have seized some documents and photographs from him.

They said his interrogation is on and the investigators are trying to find out his contacts and the places visited by him.
–PTI

Peshawar, November 14: A blast occurred in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Saturday, police said. Reports said 7 people were killed in the blast. Police said a car bomb targeting a security force checkpoint killed seven people in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Police official Irfanullah Khan said the explosive-laden car hit the police checkpoint on the outskirts of the city on Saturday.

Islamabad, November 14: Some Western diplomats are attaching dummy bombs to their vehicles to test the alertness of Pakistan police amid deteriorating security caused by suicide attacks, a media report said Friday.

The interior ministry said an ‘unidentified object’ found recently in the vehicle of Danish embassy security advisor Chris John turned out to be a fake bomb, the Daily Times newspaper reported.

John told police he was conducting a ‘mock exercise’ to determine the efficiency and alertness of the police, the paper said. The Danish embassy was bombed in June 2008.

Islamabad, November 14: The hearing of the Mumbai attack case involving seven suspects, including LeT operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, has been rescheduled for Monday in a Pakistani anti-terror court as the judge who was to take up the matter today was on leave.

There was no hearing today as the judge, Malik Muhammad Akram Awan, was on leave, Shahbaz Rajput, the lawyer of some of the accused, told PTI.

The next hearing has been scheduled for November 16, he said.

Lahore, November 13: Two Pakistani journalists arrested for allegedly misappropriating a press club’s funds have claimed that authorities are “teaching them a lesson” for helping reporters trace the family of Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive during the Mumbai terror attacks.

The arrested journalists – Rab Nawaz Joya and Javed Kanwal Chandru – belong to Depalpur sub-division in Okara district of Punjab province, where Kasab’s hometown of Faridkot is located.

Islamabad, November 13: Suicide bombers today struck an office of the ISI and a police station in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 10 people and injuring 40 others in the latest in a wave of audacious terrorist attacks across the country.

A suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the gate of the Inter-Services Intelligence office within the cantonment of Peshawar city at 6.40 am, killing at least eight persons and injuring 30 others, police and rescue service officials said.

Peshawar, Nov 13: At least seven people were killed and 35 others injured on Friday when a powerful explosion ripped through the headquarters of Pak intelligence agency ISI within the cantonment in Peshawar city, in the latest in a series of terrorist attacks across Pakistan.

District administration chief Shahibzada Anees told reporters that five bodies and 30 injured people had been taken to the Lady Reading Hospital and a military hospital after the attack at 6.40 am.

The intelligence agency office that was targeted is located on Khyber Road within the cantonment.

Islamabad, November 13: A car bomb exploded Friday outside the office of a Pakistani intelligence agency in the north-western city of Peshawar, killing at least four people, officials said.

Up to 16 people were wounded in the blast that took place in the city’s Khyber Road area at around 6:45 a.m., said Abdullah Khan, a duty officer at the emergency department of the state-run Lady Reading Hospital.

“We have so far received four bodies and injured people are still pouring in,” Khan said.

Islamabad, November 12: The Al Qaeda ‘could be supporting’ the Pakistani Taliban that has left the country bloodied and bruised through a string of terror strikes, says a leading Pakistani daily.

‘It seems as if there is some other force helping the local Taliban and from the pattern of suicide bombings, it could well be the Al Qaeda network,’ the Daily Times said in an editorial.

‘It is quite apparent that the TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) is getting massive funding from some source and proper training to carry out successive terror attacks all over Pakistan.

Islamabad, November 12: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari allegedly received millions of dollars in kickbacks for the purchase of three French submarines for the Pakistani Navy in 1994, a French daily has reported.

Citing documents acquired by it, the daily ‘Liberation’ in Tuesday’s edition claimed Zardari received USD 4.3 million in kickbacks from the sale of three Agosta-90 submarines for 825 million euros (currently USD 1.23 billion).

Islamabad, November 12: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari allegedly received millions of dollars in kickbacks for the purchase of three French submarines for the Pakistani Navy in 1994, a French daily has reported.

Citing documents acquired by it, the daily ‘Liberation’ in Tuesday’s edition claimed Zardari received $4.3 million in kickbacks from the sale of three Agosta-90 submarines for 825 million euros (currently $1.23 billion).

Islamabad, November 11: At least 10 soldiers were killed and 10 more went missing in two separate attacks by Taliban militants in Pakistan’s restive tribal region, officials said Wednesday.

A spokesman for the country’s paramilitary Frontier Corps, Fazal-ur-Rehman, said a security vehicle hit a landmine in Mohmand Agency, a tribal district that borders Afghanistan.

‘Our eight soldiers were martyred and two were injured. The blast completely destroyed the vehicle,’ the spokesman said.

Islamabad, Nov 11: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has listed a graft as well as a criminal case against President Asif Ali Zardari for hearing on November 16 and 17, raising fresh questions about his fate.

Both cases, titled ‘Asif Ali Zardari vs the state’, have been added to the apex court’s ‘Cause List’ and will be taken up by a two-member bench.

Notices have been issued to lawyers, including Mehr Khan Malik and Deputy Attorney General Chaudhry Akhtar Ali in connection with these cases.

Islamabad, November 11: Militants Wednesday bombed some shops selling Compact Discs (CD) in the restive North West Frontier Province, a media report said.

Shops in Dir Bala area of NWFP were targeted, Geo TV said.

No casualties have been reported.

The Taliban is known to be against various forms of entertainment, including film songs and movies.

Islamabad, November 11: President Asif Ali Zardari has urged the United States to remove conditions placed in the Defence Authorisation Bill, and said that these would create difficulties for the joint anti-terrorism efforts.

‘Recently placed conditions on Coalition Support Fund reimbursements and the Pakistan Counter-Insurgency Capability Fund created difficulties in the joint counter-terrorism operations,’ President Zardari told a US congressional delegation led by Jane Harman, who heads the homeland security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment, on Tuesday.

Islamabad, November 11: At least 34 people were killed and nearly 100 others injured when a powerful car bomb ripped through a crowded intersection in Charsadda bazaar on Tuesday afternoon.

Scores of women and children died and dozens of shops and vehicles were damaged in the suspected suicide attack. A power breakdown caused by the explosion and lack of facilities hampered rescue work.

Doctors said five bodies and 65 wounded people were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, and the condition of 10 of them was critical.

Peshawar, November 10: Pakistani Taliban vowed to fight a tough, protracted guerrilla war against the army on Tuesday as a car-bomb in a northwestern town killed 10 people, police said.

The army went on the offensive in South Waziristan, a lawless ethnic Pashtun region on the Afghan border, on October 17, aiming to root out Pakistani Taliban militants behind a wave of violence in urban areas.

The militants have responded with intensified attacks in towns and cities since the offensive was launched on October 17, killing several hundred people.

Islamabad, November 10: Ten people were killed and 15 wounded in a car bomb blast in the northwestern Pakistani town of Charsadda on Tuesday, police said.

“We have reports of 10 people killed and 15 wounded,” Malik Naveed, police chief for the North Western Frontier Province, told Reuters by telephone. “We are checking it now.”

—Agencies

Karachi, November 10: Criticising former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf for his verbal attack on President Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal House spokesman Ejaz Durrani has called the former general ‘a hypocrite’.

Referring to Musharraf’s recent interview, in which he blamed Zardari for the country’s current turbulent situation, Durrani said Musharraf was a hypocrite who fled the country to avoid trial for his numerous dubious actions, and that he was now seeking asylum abroad.