Pakistan

Islamabad, June 10: The death toll from a suicide car bombing at a luxury hotel in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar rose Wednesday to 16, which included two foreign UN officials and a Spanish national, while up to 60 people were injured, a police official said.

Three suicide attackers in a pickup truck entered the Pearl Continental Hotel late Tuesday after shooting the security guards and rammed the explosives-laden vehicle into its main building.

Islamabad, June 10: The UN is set to begin its probe into the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto with the appointment of a former Irish policeman as the third member of a commission that has been set up to conduct the enquiry.

Peter Fitzgerald, a former deputy commissioner of the Irish National Police Force, Garda Siochana, was a member of the UN commission that probed the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Harriri, Dawn reported Wednesday.

Islamabad, (Peshawar) June 10: A huge suicide truck bomb ripped through a luxury hotel Tuesday killing 14 people and wounding 52 in Pakistan’s Peshawar city, capital of a northwest province plagued by Taliban violence.

Two foreigners were among the dead in the devastating blast at the five-star Pearl Continental hotel, provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said, but would not reveal the nationalities.

Peshawar, June 10: A huge suicide truck bomb ripped through a luxury hotel Tuesday killing 11 people and wounding 52 in Pakistan’s Peshawar city, capital of a northwest province plagued by Taliban violence.

Two foreigners were among the dead in the devastating blast at the five-star Pearl Continental hotel, provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said, but would not reveal the nationalities.

London, June 09: Former Pakistan President General Parvez Musharraf has conceded that his country’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains link with militant commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, suspected of having masterminded the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Musharraf said that ISI had “used Haqqani’s influence” to get Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, who was abducted by Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, released.

London, June 08: Former Pakistan President General Parvez Musharraf has conceded that his country’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains link with militant commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, suspected of having masterminded the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Musharraf said that ISI had “used Haqqani’s influence” to get Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, who was abducted by Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, released.

Islamabad, June 08: The killing of two aides of radical cleric Sufi Mohammad who had brokered a controversial peace deal between the Taliban and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government points to a change in the militants’ tactics as religion no longer seems to be working for them, an editorial in a leading English daily said on Monday.

“Religion is no longer working for Baitullah Mehsud as the national consensus in Pakistan veers against his TTP,” Daily Times said in an editorial headlined ‘Possible change in Taliban tactics’.

Islamabad ( RAWALPINDI), June 07: The naib ameer of Tahreek-e-Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi(TNSM) and spokesman Ameer Izzat Khan have been killed during trade of fire between security forces and militants in Sakhakot, ISPR said. An army personnel has been martyred and five injured in the clashes.
–Agencies

Islamabad, June 05: Several key figures connected to the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley have been arrested, Pakistani authorities said.

The arrests come as Pakistan’s military has surged into the Swat Valley, in the country’s north, in an offensive against the Taliban.

Authorities arrested Amir Izat Khan and Maulana Muhammad Alam, both senior members of an organization run by Sufi Muhammad, local information ministry officials said Thursday.

Islamabad, May 30: Pakistani forces cleared a Taleban stronghold in Swat and drove militants out of a town in the northwest valley, the military said yesterday, amid worries over the return of more than two million displaced people.

The army said that it successfully cleared the Taleban’s stronghold at Peochar village as its cordon and search operation continued to wrest back complete control of strategic Peochar Valley.

Washington, May 28: Pakistan with about 60 nuclear warheads; primarily targeted towards India, is continuing production of fissile material for weapons and adding to its weapons production facilities and delivery vehicles, a US Congressional report has said.

The latest report by Congressional Research Service (CRS) – a research wing of the US Congress which prepares reports for Congressmen – has confirmed the recent statements and media reports that Pakistan was expanding its nuclear arsenal.

Islamabad, May 25: The Taliban left so many mutilated bodies at the crossing some hanging from trees with threatening notes that Pakistanis in the Swat Valley’s main town took to calling it “bloody intersection.”

On Sunday, the army said that spot and seven other major crossings in Mingora were secured, part of street-by-street urban fighting whose success is considered critical to flushing out the militants from the valley as a whole.

Islamabad,May 24: Gunshots pierced the air as Pakistani troops battled Taliban extremists in the Swat Valley’s main city, a trapped civilian said, while helicopter gunships pounded alleged militant hide-outs in a nearby tribal region Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

Elsewhere in the northwest, police said they had captured an important militant commander and six other Taliban fighters.

Islamabad, May 11: In a new revelation, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the CIA of the United States and his country’s ISI together created the Taliban.

“I think it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and CIA created them together,” Zardari told a television news channel in an interview.

In the interview, which was given on 7th May, Zardari also accused the US of supporting the military rule of Pervez Musharraf who was alleged to be taking sides of the Taliban.

Karachi, April 30 : At least four persons were killed today in fresh clashes between two ethnic groups in this southern Pakistani port city, taking the toll in two days of widespread violence to 27.

Several parts of Karachi continued to be tense as armed members of the two groups clashed with each other and burnt at least 10 shops. Four persons were killed in incidents of firing today, TV channels reported. Twenty-three people were killed in clashes yesterday.

Islamabad, April 16: Verdicts handed down under the newly-imposed Sharia laws in parts of Pakistan’s restive northwest cannot be challenged in the Supreme Court but only before special appeal courts, says a Taliban-linked radical cleric.
“The judicial system here (Malakand division of the North West Frontier Province) will be different from the rest of the country. Here, all the cases will be settled in the Qazi courts in accordance with Sharia,” The News Thursday quoted Sufi Muhammad as saying.

Islamabad, March 05: The Geo news channel – a Pakistani TV – has aired what it claims is footage of the terrorists escaping the site of Tuesday’s dastardly attack on the Sri Lankan cricket players in Lahore. The dramatic visuals show the gunmen fleeing on motorcycles and on foot.
The edited footage of Geo TV were captured on CCTV cameras in the streets around Liberty chowk and Gaddafi stadium where a group of gunmen, said to number 14 killed six policemen and injured five members of Sri Lankan cricket team.