Pakistan

slamabad, November 03: The Pakistani military today claimed to have wrested the Taliban stronghold of Sararogha in South Waziristan, where 21 militants and a soldier were killed in fierce clashes over the past 24 hours.

Soldiers had “commenced the sanitisation of Sararogha” and several improvised explosive devices had been neutralised, the military said.

Sixteen militants and a soldier were killed in clashes around Sararogha, where the army believes the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan leaders are holed up.

Islamabad, November 03:The Pakistani Taliban today threatened they would launch a guerrilla war once security forces entered the whole of the South Waziristan tribal region, where a military operation is currently underway.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Azam Tariq said the militants have retreated from various areas in South Waziristan as part of a strategy.

“We have vacated the areas in accordance with our war strategy and our fighters will launch a guerrilla war after Pakistani forces enter deep into all areas (in South Waziristan),” Tariq told BBC Urdu.

Islamabad, November 03: The death toll in a train accident near the Jumma Goth Quaidabad area of Karachi has reached 10 of 38 passengers were injured in the incident.

Allama Iqbal Express, which ran to the interior Karachi Tuesday morning, hit a stationary freight train in the area Jumma Goth.

The accident halted train traffic on the main runway. Railroad division superintendent has said that traffic will be restored within three to four hours.

Islamabad, November 02: A Suicide bomber on a motorbike ripped through workers queuing for their salaries near a Pakistan hotel today, killing 20 people as the UN pulled expatriate staff from the northwest of the country.
The force of the explosion outside a bank near the four-star Shalimar Hotel in the garrison city of Rawalpindi showered the area with body parts.

“We were sitting on the second floor of our office. It was a huge blast,” Raja Sher Ali, a marketing manager in a local company, said.

Islamabad, November 02: At least seven people were injured as an explosion ripped through a police post on Monday on a main highway on the outskirts of Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, police said.

The check-post was located at an entry point to the city at a six-lane motorway between the federal capital Islamabad and Lahore.

Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore told reporters at the scene that seven people, including three policemen, were seriously injured in the bombing, which was carried out by a suicide bomber who blew himself up as police tried to conduct a search of him.

Islamabad, November 02: Pakistan today claimed its security forces had seized Indian-made arms and equipment from the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, where the Army has launched a major operation to flush out the militants.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas alleged during a news briefing that Pakistani troops had recovered “Indian arms, ammunition, literature and medical equipment” from Sherwangi, a key militant base that was captured a few days ago.

Rawalpindi, November 02:At least 22 people were killed Monday when a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle triggered a massive explosion near a luxury hotel and a bank in this garrison city adjacent to capital Islamabad. The blast occurred barely 500 metres from the Pakistani Army Headquarters, which had come under Taliban attack last month.

Hospital sources said 22 people were killed while about two dozen, including an Army major, were wounded when the blast occurred at 10.40 a.m., Geo TV reported. Some of those wounded were in critical condition.

Islamist militants blew up a girls school in Pakistan’s lawless Khyber tribal district on Sunday, destroying the building and wounding four people in neighbouring homes, officials said.
Islamabad, November 01: Two explosions ripped through the 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village and a boy who watched the premises is missing, possibly kidnapped by the militants, local administration officials said.

“The militants have blown up the school with two blasts and all rooms were demolished,” said administration official Shafeer Ullah.

Amritsar, November 01: Despite the recent advice by the union home ministry asking Indian nationals to avoid travelling to Pakistan in view of the security situation there, a contingent of nearly 1,500 devotees Saturday crossed over into Pakistan to be part of Gurpurab – birth anniversary celebrations of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev.

The contingent, comprising Sikhs and Hindus, including a number of women, left for Pakistan by a special train from the Attari border railway station, 25 km from here.

Islamabad, November 01: Charging their batteries for the soul-searching journey, Pakistani pilgrims are heading for the holy lands in Saudi Arabia with hopes that hajj will bring peace to their violence-wracked country.

“This year’s Hajj has much more importance for us as compared to any other country as we have been facing a total chaos,” Hashmat Hashmat Khan, 53, told on Saturday, October 31.

“I am hopeful that our journey to the Holy land will bring peace to our beloved country.”

Udhampur, October 31: The spate of terror strikes and the resultant turmoil in Pakistan may spill over to India, top central government and army officials said Saturday.

“I think we can expect some of the terror strikes in Pakistan to spill over to India. As Pakistan is in turmoil, we have to be vigilant and fully prepared to thwart any attack on us,” union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said in Banglaore during an interaction with the alumni of Bishop Cotton Boys School, where he was a student in the early 1960s.

Islamabad, October 31: A Pakistani anti-terror court conducting the trial of seven suspects in connection with the Mumbai attacks today declared 14 other accused, including Ajmal Kasab, as “absconders” and adjourned the matter till November 7.

During today’s proceedings, Judge Malik Muhammad Akram Awan declared 14 other suspects linked to the attacks -? including Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive by Indian authorities during the strikes — as “absconders,” sources said.

Details of the other 13 were not immediately available.

Karachi, October 31: After axing him from the national team, Pakistan Cricket Board has now barred Misbah-ul-Haq from playing in Bangladesh and instead advised him to concentrate on playing domestic cricket.

Misbah had got an offer to play for a leading Bangladeshi team in their limited overs competition and had sought a clearance from the Cricket Board to play there.

Even though Misbah said that he had not got any response from the Board on his request but sources said PCB actually told him to play in the ongoing Quaid-e-Azam Trophy instead of going abroad to play in a foreign league.

Islamabad, October 31: An editorial in a leading English daily Saturday maintained that much of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s harsh words on Pakistan’s lack of seriousness in tackling the Al Qaida were true and that Islamabad should be honest enough to accept this.

Another editorial in the same vein said the “circumstantial evidence” of Al Qaida’s presence in Pakistan was “unending”.

“If we are honest, we cannot deny that much of what she said was true,” The News said in an editorial headlined “Clinton’s call”.

Peshawar, October 31: For Rubina Ajmal, life has come to a standstill since Wednesday’s car bombing that targeted women buying clothes, bangles and cosmetics in a crowded market in Pakistan’s north-western city of Peshawar, killing more than 100 people.

Expecting few women to leave the relative safety of their homes in the coming days and weeks, Rubina, 35, has decided to shut down her small beauty salon – her only way of making a living since her husband died in a traffic accident three years ago.

Islamabad, October 31: India is isolating itself globally on Pakistan by insisting that Islamabad first eliminate its terror infrastructure before peace talks can resume, an editorial in a leading English daily said Saturday in reference to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remarks on the issue.

“India should realise that it is isolating itself globally by putting the condition of removing terrorism on Pakistan before it begins talking,” Daily Times said in an editorial headlined “Mr. Singh’s hidden ‘precondition’.”

Islamabad, October 31: The Swat valley tribal elders have called on the government to ban all religious organizations to help stop growing militancy in the region.

At a press conference in Makaan Bagah area of the Swat valley, tribal elders urged the government in Islamabad to ban all Jihadi groups to maintain peace in the region.

The elders said that there is a need to expel militants in order to eliminate terrorism.

Washington, October 30: A top Pakistani diplomat personally knew David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, accused of carrying out a major terror attack in India for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), according to the US investigation agency FBI.

Pakistan’s Consul General in Chicago, Aman Rashid, knew both Rana and Headley alias ‘Daood Gilani’, as all the three went to the same high school, the FBI said in a revised affidavit filed in a Chicago court.

Islamabad, October 30: A court in northwest Pakistan directed police to declare former President Pervez Musharraf a “proclaimed offender” and confiscate his property if he failed to cooperate with the probe into the whereabouts of a man allegedly detained by security agencies during his tenure.

The district and sessions court in Abbottabad in North West Frontier Province issued the order in response to a petition filed by the family of the “missing” man.

In the petition, the family had accused Musharraf of having a role in the abduction of the man.

Islamabad, October 30: Pakistan’s chief justice has withdrawn from a case relating to the appointment of Supreme Court and high court judges after the declaration of the November 2007 emergency. He has appointed a five-member bench for hearing the case.

“Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has separated himself from the bench that will hear the unconditional apology and contempt of court cases of PCO (Provisional Constitution Order) judges, including (former chief justice) Abdul Hameed Dogar and that of former attorney general Latif Khan Khosa,” Geo TV reported Friday.

Islamabad, October 30: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton struck an assertive tone in Pakistan, hitting out at its government over al Qaida and calling for better management of the economy.

Clinton has spent the last two days in Pakistan, the troubled US ally on the frontline of the war on al Qaida and its allies, trying to bolster the civilian government and counter rising anti-US sentiment in the Muslim nation.

Islamabad, October 30: An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted parts of Punjab and North West Frontier Province in Pakistan Thursday night, a TV report said.

The quake occurred at 11.45 p. m.

The tremor was felt in Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Muzaffarabad, Swat and Dera Ghazi Khan, among others areas, Geo TV reported.

No further details were immediately available.

—–IANS

Islamabad, October 30: After a sweep of a militant stronghold in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan, the Pakistani army has recovered passports purportedly belonging to two leading al-Qa’ida figures, including a member of the notorious Hamburg cell that orchestrated September 11.

Among a pile of documents, photographs, weapons and computers seen by The Independent yesterday in Waziristan, is a German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, the logistical expert of the notorious German terror cell that orchestrated the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Islamabad, October 30: An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted parts of Punjab and North West Frontier Province in Pakistan Thursday night, a TV report said.

The quake occurred at 11.45 p.m.

The tremor was felt in Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Muzaffarabad, Swat and Dera Ghazi Khan, among others areas, Geo TV reported.

No further details were immediately available.

–Agencies

Islamabad, October 29: The death toll from a massive car bomb attack that ripped through a crowded market in Pakistan’s Peshawar has risen to 105, the city’s main hospital confirmed.

“A total of 105 people have been killed. Seventy-one of them were identified. Thirteen are children and 27 were women,” Doctor Zafar Iqbal told AFP at the Lady Reading Hospital.

The list of dead was pasted on the outside of the hospital. An intelligence official in Peshawar also confirmed the same death toll.