Pakistan

Islamabad, July 01: Most Pakistanis consider the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants as threat to the country, but still do not regard the US and President Barack Obama as friends, a poll showed Wednesday.

The poll conducted by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland last month found that those considering actions of militants as dangerous for Pakistan rose from 34 percent to 81 percent since late 2007.

Islamabad, July 01: Sectarian and militant violence has killed at least 43 people in Pakistan’s troubled northwest, officials said Wednesday.

Fighters from warring Shia and Sunni tribes in the country’s mountainous Kurram tribal district, which borders Afghanistan, targeted one another’s positions with machine guns and rocket fire in clashes that have intensified in the past two weeks.

‘According to the information we have gathered from our local sources, 30 people were killed from both sides in the clashes that took place in seven villages,’ a local intelligence official said.

Islamabad, July 01: Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said senior Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah has been seriously injured in fighting in the Swat Valley.

In an interview with BBC, Malik said the Taliban militants are currently on the run, but the Pakistani forces will soon capture them. He said the terrorists are hiding in South Waziristan and making plans for terror attacks.

‘We need help from the world community to find out who is helping the Taliban with money and arms,’ the Online news agency reported Wednesday citing the minister.

Islamabad, July 01: At least 27 people were killed Wednesday in fresh clashes between two religious groups in Pakistan’s restive Kurram tribal region, taking the toll to 148 in sectarian violence in the area over the past two weeks.

The clashes between rival Shia and Sunni tribesmen have intensified, reports from Kurram tribal agency said. Several people were also injured in today’s clashes.

More than 200 people have been wounded in fighting over the past 16 days.

Lahore, July 01: Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was so enamoured by the performance of famous comedian Sohail Ahmed that he gifted him his 50,000 dollar wristwatch.

Accordingly, Gilani sent his costly wristwatch along with a letter of appreciation to the stage actor a few days back.

Ahmed, in one of his shows, said Gilani sent him a letter saying that he watched Ahmed’s programme with great interest and was sending him the watch.

An outspoken opponent of obscenity in stage dramas, Ahmed is famous for using improvised dialogue during his trademark comedy plays.

Islamabad, July 01: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said it is important for both India and Pakistan to share a cordial relationship so as to establish peace in the region and fight against extremism.

“Good neighbourly relations were essential for the welfare of the people of both countries and also for fighting militancy,” presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar quoted Zardari, as saying.

Babar said Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik called on President Zardari to discuss several issues regarding India.

Rawalpindi, July 01: The Taliban has slaughtered 18 of their own injured men in the Biha valley, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) has claimed.

According to a daily update of the ISPR, the Taliban killed the injured associates as they were unable to move while the Army continued to advance further in their stronghold.

The ISPR also claimed that 18 other insurgents were killed in Swat and Dir and 23 nabbed alive by the security forces from the region.

Three security personnel were also killed in the operation,The Daily Times reports.

Islamabad, July 01: Taliban militants in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan say they have pulled out of a peace deal with the government, raising the prospect of wider unrest as the Pakistani army extends its efforts to eliminate insurgents.

The militants in North Waziristan blamed continuing U.S. missile strikes and army offensives against the Taliban for their decision, which was announced in the wake of a Taliban ambush that killed 16 soldiers.

Ghanour (Patiala), June 30: The Minister of state for External Affairs Preneet Kaur today said that levying of ‘Jizya’ on Hindus and Sikhs by Taliban in Swat region was an internal matter of Pakistan though the government was concerned about it.

“We have taken up the matter with them and in future also we will raise it at an appropriate level and time,” she said while addressing a ‘thanksgiving’ rally here after scoring a hatrick of victories from the Patiala Lok Sabha seat.

She also expressed concern over racial attacks involving Indian students in Australia.

Islamabad, June 30: Pakistan will begin production of JF-17 thunder jets, a lightweight multi-role combat aircraft, in collaboration with China, the Online news agency reported Tuesday.

The countries signed an agreement in March for the production of 42 JF-17 fighters at the Pakistan Aeronautical complex in Kamra in Punjab province. Some parts of the aircraft would also be manufactured in China.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) plans to raise its first squadron of JF-17 jets by the end of this year, sources said.

London, June 30: Pakistan has assured the UK that it is determined to nab or eliminate top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud from the northwest of the country where its forces are engaged in decisive battle with the militants.

Replying to a question on the Rs 50 million bounty announced for Mehsud, visiting Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the government was determined to nab or eliminate him.

Islamabada, June 30: Pakistan on Monday said its anti-Taliban operations in Swat had entered the final phase with troops having “totally dismantled” the militants’ infrastructure, even as over 30 rebels and 16 soldiers were killed in fresh fighting in the unruly NWFP and Waziristan.

The operations in Swat are in their final stage and expected to end in a few days as only a little area remains to be cleared of militants, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told a news briefing.

Islamabad, June 30: The Taliban has declared an end to the peace deal it signed with the Pakistani government last year due to the ongoing military operation in northwest Pakistan.

The Taliban made the announcement Monday after a meeting of the group’s local shura (council) in North Waziristan, the website of the Dawn newspaper said.

On Feb 17 last year, the group signed a nine-point agreement with the government to restore peace in the area.

Islamabad, June 30: At least four people were killed and three wounded Tuesday in a blast at a petrol pump in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, TV reports said.

According to Geo TV, the blast occurred in a car parked at a petrol pump in the Sorab area.

The police have cordoned off the area and begun an investigation.

–IANS

Islamabad, June 30: Piotr Stanczak did not exhibit the slightest hint of hesitation when the Pakistani Taliban asked him to choose between execution and conversion to Islam.

Whether the Polish geologist acted out of pride or religious conviction, he decided to pay through his blood to save his faith, a choice that bewildered his killers and keep them talking about him with respect after his murder.

Islamabad, June 30: Pakistan has ruled out any possibility of shifting its troops from the eastern Indian border to the western border with Afghanistan.

Addressing a joint press conference with the ISPR spokesman Major General Athar Abbas here, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said Pakistan will not remove its military from the Indian border and deploy it along the western border with Afghanistan.

“We cannot and will not do it. Pakistan could not remain oblivious to the conventional threat,” The Dawn quoted Kaira, as saying.

Islamabad, June 30: Islamabad strongly rejects reports that the US has been spending millions of dollars to keep Pakistani nukes out of the reach of extremists.

A foreign ministry statement said on Monday that there was no truth whatsoever that any US money had been diverted toward developing or toward the maintenance of the nukes.

The ministry also emphasized that the control and command systems of nukes were completely indigenous.

Lahore, June 30: MQM chief Altaf Hussain has said the Partition of India in 1947 weakened Muslims, as it divided their power.

In an interview with Najam Sethi on Duniya News, Altaf said there would have been no Partition had the Congress accepted Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s 14 points.

Altaf said few people knew that even Allama Iqbal had not demanded a separate Pakistan in his famous Allahabad address in 1930. “He had, in fact, demanded the creation of Muslim states in the Muslim-majority areas,” he said, adding that Iqbal’s son justice (retired) Javed Iqbal could confirm this.

Islamabad, June 29: On the case of eight-year-old Zahida in Karachi, Pakistan, whose father Abdul Rasool exchanged her in marriage for another woman. Rasool wanted to marry Haseena and thus gave his daughter to her brother Dilshad.

When reporter asked the cleric who married them, he said that he did whatever he was told and the girl’s father was present and said she was 15 years old. Zahida’s mother Parveen told SAMAA that the marriage was contracted on June 25, following which she went to the local union council nazim and registered a case with the police.

Islamabad, June 29: Pakistani fighter jets bombed suspected Taliban hideouts on Monday and a stray mortar crashed into a mosque during prayers as violence in the volatile northwest on claimed more than 20 lives.

The air strikes hit a guest house being used by militants in the village of Kani Guram, in South Waziristan, where government forces are readying an offensive against Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Four militants were killed, three intelligence officials said.

Washington, June 29: Pakistan, plagued by insurgency and the worst-ever economic crisis, has been named among the “top 10 failed states” by the U.S.-based Foreign Policy magazine.

Pakistan, bracketed along with countries like Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan, has improved its position only by a notch — it is placed 10th in the index for 2009 published in the July-August issue of the magazine.

The fifth annual ‘Failed States Index’ is a collaboration between The Fund for Peace, an independent research organisation and Foreign Policy.

Islamabad, June 29: Nearly two months after Taliban militants expanded from their stronghold in the Swat Valley into neighboring Buner district, touching off an army offensive to remove them, there are early signs here that life is slowly returning to normal.

Bazaars have reopened in the two biggest towns, Daggar and Ambela. Power is back up in several larger communities. Men are mixing cement and rebuilding damaged walls. And families are either trickling back or sending older sons ahead to safeguard valuables and harvest overripe crops.

Islamabad, June 29: Pakistani authorities on Sunday announced rewards for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of 11 militant commanders, including a bounty of Rs. 50 million for local Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

According to an advertisement issued by the North-West Frontier Province government, Maulvi Faqeer Muhammad, the Taliban deputy chief based in Bajaur tribal region, carries a reward of Rs. 10.5 million.

Islamabad, June 28: An unidentified caller claiming to represent the Taliban demanded Rs 6 million as “jiziya” from the minority Hindu community of Battagram district in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province on Sunday.

The caller made the demand during a phone call to local Hindu leader Parkash. He asked Parkash, a doctor, to collect Rs 6 million from the Hindus in Battagram and pay the amount to the Taliban.

According to media reports, the caller said all minorities living in Battagram must pay “jiziya” or a tax levied on non-Muslims.

Islamabad, June 28: Pakistan has offered a Rs 50 million reward for information on Baitullah Mehsud, a senior leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban who is linked to the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Advertisements have appeared in newspapers here offering reward on information that leads to the arrest of Baitullah Mehsud and his accomplices.

The rewards are for militants, including three from South Waziristan, another three from Bajaur, two from Mohmand, two from Darra Adamkhel and one from Kurram Agency.