Pakistan

Islamabad, September 06: US and “internal powers” were behind the 1988 plane crash that killed General Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1978 till his death, a former Pakistani spymaster has claimed.

Imtiaz Ahmed, a former chief of the Intelligence Bureau, said the US collaborated with “internal powers” in Pakistan to assassinate Zia.

Ahmed, who also served in the ISI, has shaken up political parties with revelations of huge payments allegedly made by the Inter-Services Intelligence to strengthen the opposition to former premier Benazir Bhutto in 1990.

Islamabad, September 06: Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday said Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had told him the terrorists involved in the attack on his country’s cricket team in Lahore were funded by LTTE elements in the island.

Gilani said he had asked Rajapaksa to share more information about the funding so that Pakistan can send a team from the Interior Ministry to go into the issue further.

Islamabad, September 06: President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday approved appointment of two new judges in the Supreme Court and 11 additional judges in the Peshawar and Balochistan High Courts.

NEWLY APPOINTED JUDGES:SUPREME COURT

Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, Judge High Court of Sindh

Justice ® Rehmat Hussain Jaffery, former Judge, High Court

of Sindh

ADDITIONAL JUDGES PESHAWAR HIGH COURT

Abdul Aziz Kundi

Fasih-ul-Mulk

Liaqat Ali Shah

Mazhar Alam Minakhel

Attaullah Khan

Muhammad Safdar Khan

Miftahuddin Khan

ADDITIONAL JUDGES BALOCHISTAN HIGH COURT

Islamabad, September 06: Police say three policemen have been fatally shot — each by a single bullet to the head — west of Pakistan’s capital.

Officer Arshad Mahmood says it appears to be a targeted killing but would not say if Taliban militants are suspected.

The dead policemen were discovered early Sunday in their guard room along a railway bridge in Hasan Abdal, a town 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Islamabad in Punjab province.

Mahmood says they apparently were sleeping when killed.

Islamabad, September 06: The Pakistani military says its forces have killed more than 60 pro-Taliban militants in an ongoing military operation in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber.

According to the Dawn, unnamed Pakistani military officials said the militants were killed Saturday after Pakistani fighter jets pounded positions belonging to Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) in Gogrina and Sandapal areas.

Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps reported that a militant training center and 15 houses believed to have been used by militants were also destroyed in the airstrikes.

Peshawar, September 06: Pakistani forces on Saturday destroyed a headquarters of an Islamic militant group in the lawless Khyber tribal area bordering Afghanistan officials said.

Helicopter gunships, paramilitary troops and artillery units carried out the attack on a Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam) headquarters in the Tirrah valley, a security official in Peshawar told the news agency.

Islamabad, September 06: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani urges the resumption of talks between Islamabad and New Delhi and calls it a prerequisite to peace and development.

“A breakdown in India-Pakistan dialogue would help terrorists, a common enemy to both countries,” Gilani told reporters on Saturday in Karachi. “Dialogue is vital,” he stressed.

The premier said the suspension of Indian-Pakistani negotiations would only serve opportunists and terrorists, a common enemy of both countries.

Islamabad, September 06: Pakistan’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam blames the US for problems facing the country, saying Washington is trying to change Islamabad into its military base.

“America has acknowledged that it has lost the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore, it is now increasing its influence in Pakistan and is out to build a mini-Pentagon in our country,” said Fazlur Rehman, the chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).

Rehman condemned Washington’s expansion plan of its embassy in Islamabad and called it a threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Islamabad, September 05: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that militants have been ‘almost cleared’ from the northwest of the country and were on the run, Online news agency reported Saturday.

‘Militants are on the run as Swat and Malakand have almost been cleared of them. This huge success in the battle for the integrity of Pakistan has been made possible by the sacrifices of our armed forces and the people,’ Zardari said in his message to the country on the eve of Defence Day Sep 6.

Islamabad, September 05: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday asked India to return to the composite dialogue process, contending that the delay in resuming the stalled peace talks would only benefit terrorists.

“We seek relations (with India) on the basis of equality. It is our resolve not to let our soil to be used for terrorism. Therefore, we want the composite dialogue to be resumed because the terrorists are benefiting from the situation,” Gilani said.

Islamabad, September 05: Pakistani security forces Saturday killed at least 55 militants in two districts of the country’s troubled northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

Paramilitary Frontier Corps troops aided by helicopter gunships destroyed the headquarters of the pro-Taliban fighters in Khyber tribal district and destroyed seven vehicles, a statement said.

The operation in Gogrina and Sanpal areas of Tirrah valley in the district killed at least 35 militants and injured several, the Frontier Corps said.

Islamabad, September 05: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that militants have been “almost cleared” from the northwest of the country and were on the run, a news agency reported on Saturday.

“Militants are on the run as Swat and Malakand have almost been cleared of them. This huge success in the battle for the integrity of Pakistan has been made possible by the sacrifices of our armed forces and the people,” Zardari said in his message to the country on the eve of Defence Day Sep 6.

Peshawar, September 05: Pakistani troops killed 30 suspected militants and destroyed one of their bases in an ongoing operation in the northwestern Khyber tribal region, authorities said Saturday.

Militants frequently attack trucks along the famed Khyber Pass, one of the main routes used to ferry supplies to NATO and U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Taliban-affiliated group Lashkar-e-Islam has been a main target of the latest government offensive, which authorities say has killed scores of alleged militants.

New Delhi, September 04:Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor Friday accused Pakistan of violating the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir to enable terrorists to sneak into India.

General Kapoor said the ceasefire violations at the LoC were “diversionary tactics” meant to enable terrorists to cross into India.

“Ceasefire violations have increased because this enables infiltration to be carried out when the firing is on and (it) can be used as a diversionary tactic,” Kapoor told reporters here.

Washington, September 04: Amid growing demand for more American troops in Afghanistan from the commanders on the ground, the Obama administration seems to be literally divided on what should be the size of the US forces in the war-torn country.

After assuming office in January, US President Barack Obama has sent nearly 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as he shifted the focus of the Administration from Iraq to this country.

As the situation there is getting worse during the past few months, there has been increasing voices from the commanders seeking more troops for the country.

Islamabad, September 04: Pakistan government on Friday briefed PoK leaders on its new self-governance and reforms package for the Northern Areas, part of Jammu and Kashmir currently under Islamabad’s occupation.

The briefing by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, held at the Foreign Office here, was aimed at taking the Kashmiri leaders on board for the ‘Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order 2009’ in the wake of criticism by separatists like Yasin Malik of JKLF and main opposition PML-N.

Islamabad, September 04: A Pakistani court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking the registration of a police case against former President Pervez Musharraf and his close aides for the “murder” of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.

The petition, filed last month by Bugti’s son Nawabzada Jamil Akbar Bugti in a sessions court at Sibbi in Balochistan, was dismissed by the judge who said the matter did not come under his jurisdiction.

Islamabad, September 04: Former president Pervez Musharraf has left Jeddah for London following a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia amidst speculation that the Saudi royal family is engaged in efforts to prevent his possible trial in Pakistan on charges of treason.

Details about Musharraf’s meeting with King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, which began late on Tuesday night and continued till early hours yesterday, were not immediately available but sources close to the former military ruler said he was in “high spirits” after the talks.

Islamabad, September 03: Pakistan government will provide bullet-proof vehicles to federal ministers in the wake of an assassination attempt on Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said today.

“There are very few official bullet-proof vehicles that have been given to ministers, and I am using a privately hired bullet-proof car,” Malik told reporters after visiting Kazmi at a hospital here.

President Asif Ali Zardari has directed the government to acquire more bullet-proof vehicles for the ministers, he said.

Islamabad, September 03: Pakistan today dismissed US concerns about disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan posing a proliferation risk as “baseless”.

Though Khan’s case is “sub-judice”, concerns expressed by the US regarding nuclear proliferation are “uncalled for and baseless,” Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told a weekly news briefing.

Karanchi, September 03: Pakistan’s budget deficit for the fiscal year 2008/09 (July-June) was 5.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), higher than the government target, according to data posted on the Finance Ministry’s Web site.

The deficit for fiscal year 2008/09 was targeted at 4.3 percent of GDP and was 3.0 percent for the first nine months ending March 31.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last month that Pakistani authorities had indicated the deficit ceiling may have been exceeded by 0.9 percent of GDP.

Islamabad, September 02: Unknown gunmen opened fire on a government minister’s vehicle in the Pakistani capital Islamabad Wednesday, injuring the official and killing his driver, witnesses said.

Hamid Saeed Kazmi, the minister for religious affairs, was a few hundred meters from his office in the centre of the city when a man fired several shots with an AK-47 rifle at his vehicle, said Jamil Ahmad, a vendor who witnessed the attack.

Islamabad, September 02: Pakistani security forces believe that new Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, a media report said Wednesday.

A Pakistani TV news channel quoted intelligence sources as saying that the man died some time back and it was Hakimullah’s look-alike brother who spoke to news channels recently.

The brother was summoned from Afghanistan to temporarily head the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Online news agency reported.

Islamabad, September 02: A contempt of court petition was filed Wednesday in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against former president Pervez Musharraf for imposing emergency in 2007.

Anwar-ul-Haq, a medical practitioner in Islamabad, filed the petition in the court Wednesday saying Musharraf breached the Constitution and violated the Supreme Court’s order by imposing emergency rule Nov 3, 2007, Geo TV reported.

He suggested that Musharraf be brought to the country by Interpol.

Washington, September 02: Pakistan is enhancing its atomic weapon capabilities across the board by developing and deploying new nuclear-capable missiles and expanding its capacity to produce fissile material, two US experts have said, estimating Islamabad has an arsenal of 70-90 warheads.

In an article published in the latest issue of “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist,” Robert S Norris and Hans Kristensen estimate that Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile has jumped to an estimated 70-90 warheads from a previous figure of 60.