Pakistan

Islamabad, July 10 : At least 24 Islamist militants and four policemen were killed in overnight airstrikes in Pakistan’s north-western region near Afghanistan, officials said on Friday.

Pakistani jet aircraft and helicopter gunships targeted suspected Taliban positions Thursday in Orakzai, a relatively peaceful district in the country’s lawless tribal region littered with Taliban sanctuaries.

The raids flattened several militant hideouts in the Ferozkhel and Ghiljo areas, killing at least 24 insurgents, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

Islamabad, July 10: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the international community should come forward to help the displaced people in the country’s northwest battered by the war against the Taliban.

The displaced people in the Malakand Division will start returning to their homes from July 13 onwards, the Online news agency said Thursday citing the Pakistani leader.

Gilani made the remarks during a meeting at his home with the visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Karachi, July 10: At least five soldiers were killed and four wounded when the truck in which they were travelling struck a landmine in Pakistan’s southwestern Quetta City, a media report said.

The security personnel were returning in the truck after dropping food supplies for their colleagues at different check posts when the incident took place Thursday, the Online news agency said citing officials.

The terrorists planted the landmine in the Marwar area of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan Province.

The injured were rushed to a military hospital in the city.

Islamabad, July 09:Pakistan’s top prosecutor says the trials of six men accused of planning and helping the Mumbai attacks will start soon, setting the stage for a key test of Pakistan’s commitment to cracking down on militants it once nurtured to attack India.

While Sardar Latif Khosa and other officials told reporters the prosecution process was on track, defense lawyers complained they had not been given documents about the case or details of the evidence against the suspects, whom they have yet to meet.

Islamabad, July 09: Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistani Taliban chief and the country’s most wanted terrorist, is trying to obtain a ‘fatwa’ from two clerics declaring that suicide attacks against government installations, mosques and madrassas “are authorised by Islam”.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan commander Mehsud, against whom army has planned a massive offensive in the country’s troubled northwest, was making efforts to obtain such a ‘fatwa’, the military said.

London, July 09: In an apparent bid to bolster the country’s constitution and pull it out from the prevalent political pandemonium, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari may relinquish some of his key powers to share the balance of authority with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

“President Zardari said categorically that he will give up those powers as per the wishes of his party and the parliament,” the presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar said.

Islamabad, July 08: Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s aide Wafa Mohammad was held Wednesday in a town in the North West Frontier Province, a media report said.

Wafa Mohammad and his four sons were held in Takhtbai town, Express TV reported.

Mehsud has a $5 million bounty on his head as a key Al Qaeda facilitator. He is also blamed for dozens of attacks on government and civilian targets during the last two years.

–IANS–

Pashawar, July 08: A bomb went off in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday, but there was no immediate word on casualties, police said.

“It was a bomb blast on the main road. We don’t know about casualties, information is coming in,” said senior police official Qazi Jameel.

—Agencies

Islamabad, July 08: Gen. Parvez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former President and ex-military dictator, has moved away to London with expensive gifts, The News, leading daily of Urdu daily Jang Group revealed on Sunday.

Islamabad, July 08 : In the first candid admission of its kind by any Pakistani ruler, President Asif Ali Zardari has conceded that terrorist elements were ‘created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives’ by Islamabad.

“The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 (terrorist attack on America) brought things into a new light,” Zardari said in what he called “a candid admission of the realities” in an interactive meeting with former bureaucrats Tuesday night at the presidency.

Islamabad, July 08: A suspected US missile strike on a Taliban bastion in north-western Pakistan killed at least eight militants Wednesday, an intelligence official said.

Six missiles fired allegedly by US Predator drones at around 1.30 a.m. flattened a hill-top militant hideout near the Karwan Manza village in the restive South Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border.

‘Eight militants have been killed and another five wounded in the strike on the Taliban position,’ the official said on condition of anonymity.

Islamabad, July 08: A US drone struck a Taliban stronghold, in the second such strike within 24 hours, targeting a training centre in Pakistan’s volatile South Waziristan region on Wednesday killing at least 10 militants.

The drone fired several missiles at a training centre run by militants loyal to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud in Karwan Manza area, TV news channels reported.

At least five militants were also injured in the attack. The injured militants, some of them in a critical condition, were taken to a nearby hospital.

Islamabad, July 8 : Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s aide Wafa Mohammad was held Wednesday in a town in the North West Frontier Province, a media report said.

Wafa Mohammad and his four sons were held in Takhtbai town, Express TV reported.

Mehsud has a $5 million bounty on his head as a key Al Qaeda facilitator. He is also blamed for dozens of attacks on government and civilian targets during the last two years.

— IANS

Islamabad, July 07: Fresh appeals were filed in Pakistan’s Supreme Court against the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, a government lawyer said on Monday.

Hafiz Saeed, was put under house arrest in early December after a UN Security Council committee added him and the charity group he heads to a list of people and organizations linked to Al- Qaeda or the Taleban.

Islamabad, July 07: A Pakistani singer has combined the voices of Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Benazir Bhutto and US President Barack Obama in a new song that makes an impassioned plea for peace in the region.

Shahvaar Ali Khan’s “No Saazish, No Jung” is a peace anthem that tells “mullahs” and “foreigners” to leave his country alone.

Islamabad, July 07: Pakistani authorities on Tuesday resubmitted to the Supreme Court two petitions challenging the release from house arrest of JuD chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed, a key accused in the Mumbai attacks, after removing the “technical flaws” due to which the pleas were rejected earlier.

Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar filed one petition on behalf of the federal government while Advocate General Raza Farooq submitted the second for the Punjab government.

The petitions were resubmitted after removing the technical flaws pointed out by the apex court yesterday.

Islamabad, July 07: Suspected U.S. missiles slammed into a training camp ran by Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Tuesday, killing at least 12 militants in the latest in a flurry of strikes against him and his followers, intelligence officials said.

The attack took place in the Makeen area of South Waziristan close to the Afghan border, four officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The missiles were believed launched by unmanned American planes.

London, July 07: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari says targeting the Taliban rather than India does not ‘rankle’ his army because the two nuclear armed countries no longer pose threats to each other’s territories.

‘It rankles the small mind,’ he told the Daily Telegraph in an interview published Monday.

‘It does not rankle the army, because after India and Pakistan became nuclear powers, that position of being able to take over another state is nullified.’

Lahore, July 07: At least 25 explosive laden vehicles have reportedly sneaked into major cities of Pakistan, following which intelligence agencies have launched a massive search operation.

According to sources, intelligence authorities have issued a warning to all four provinces in this regard, and asked them to take every precautionary measure.

The Interior Ministry has also issued a circular stating that suicide bombers along with the vehicles have entered Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Quetta and Karachi, The Daily Times reported.

Islamabad, July 07: The lawyer of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian on a death row in Pakistan, will file a fresh mercy petition before the country’s president on Wednesday.

Counsel Owais Sheikh will file the plea before President Asif Ali Zardari in the wake of the Pakistan Supreme Court dismissing his appeal against capital punishment. The petition seeking clemency will include a letter addressed to Zardari by Sarabjit.

New Delhi, July 06: Pakistan is yet to clear a pre-partition debt of Rs 300 crore to India, which has been carrying forward year after year in its Budget
account as a “liability”.

The Budget books refer to this Rs 300 crore as “amount due from Pakistan on account of share of pre-partition debt.”

The amount was entered as a liability in the first Budget of independent India in 1950-51 and has been there ever since.

Islamabad, July 06: Former president Pervez Musharraf, has taken away 168 expensive gifts worth about Rs40 million at the pitifully low official price, given by top foreign dignitaries along with him, mostly free of cost, before leaving Pakistan to settle in London, said a news report.

However, Musharraf insists that he has not moved abroad permanently and is only there for the convenience of his lecture tour.

Islamabad, July 6: Pakistani combat jets today pounded Taliban positions in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region as the army claimed 14 militants were killed in clashes with security forces in the northwestern Swat valley.

The jets attacked militant positions in Ladha area of South Waziristan, a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud though there were no reports of casualties.

The army has said it is preparing for an offensive against Mehsud and his network.

Islamabad, July 06: Pakistan has turned down an offer from Bangladesh Cricket Board to play the postponed one-day series between the two countries in October.

Bangladesh were to host Pakistan for five one-dayers and a Twenty20 international in March but the series had to be postponed due to security concerns.

“Bangladesh could not host us in March due to non clearance from their government but now they invited us to schedule the series in October which is not possible for us,” a senior official of the Pakistan board said today.

Lahore, July 06: Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh will file a mercy petition before Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, his lawyer said Monday.

“I will file the mercy petition on Wednesday. I have also sought a meeting with the president so I can take up the matter with him personally,” lawyer Owais Qureshi told reporters after meeting Sarabjit at the high security Kot Lakhpat jail here.