KABUL: At least seven people were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber struck a minibus carrying employees of Afghan TV channel Tolo, months after the Taliban declared the network a legitimate “military target”. The bombing near the Russian embassy in downtown Kabul also left 24 people injured. “Our office bus taking Tolo staff home came under attack,” an employee at the channel told AFP. The bombing left some staff members burning inside the vehicle,…
Posts published in “Day: January 21, 2016”
The writer is a retired brigadier. He is also former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) Much before the Arab Spring there were signs of unrest in the Saudi Kingdom. Periodically, Arab Bedouins have risen against the autocratic and often repressive kingdom that rules them. In fact, Osama bin Laden’s Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1992 because of his anti-kingdom movement, even as the Kingdom continued to fund al Qaeda.…
As Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s shuttle diplomacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran concluded with initial encouraging signs, Pakistan was again struck with yet another Army Public School-like terrorist attack – this time on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda. Who else should be more aware of the menace of terrorism and the need to forge a broadest possible alliance to eliminate it from the fertile soil of the Muslim world than Pakistan? Initially somewhat…
Finding ourselves playing the mediator : By Talat Masood in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2016.
The writer is a retired lieutenant general of the Pakistan Army and a former federal secretary. The current toxic rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is another manifestation of the deep decay that has set in the Muslim world. The two countries are locked in a power struggle and are primarily using the classic sectarian divide to strengthen their respective positions. The 34-country Saudi-led alliance formed with the avowed purpose of fighting the most brutal…
WHILE there appears to be no immediate threat of a Saudi-Iran conflagration, ties between the cross-Gulf giants remain far from cordial.In such a scenario, the Pakistani leadership’s efforts to bridge the gulf between Riyadh and Tehran have produced mixed results. While the initiative was welcome, expectations were naturally limited, considering the complexities of the Saudi-Iran relationship, as well as the nature of ties between both states and Pakistan.There was a difference of emphasis in both…
The Premier and Army Chief’s diplomatic trip can be dubbed a success considering Pakistan’s apparent haste to initiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with Iran in the wake of lifting of sanctions on Tehran. All the fears of having to pick a side and turning down opportunities of bilateral trade with our neighbour are suppressed for now as the belligerent sides seemed to welcome Pakistan’s “sincere efforts”. The eagerness to initiate efforts to set up…
The U.S. defense officials have said the Obama administration has granted the U.S. forces new authority to target the loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in Afghanistan. The strikes on ISIS loyalists would be carried out based on the new rules of engagement approved by the Obama administration last week, permitting the U.S. commanders in Afghanistan launch airstrikes against militants affiliated with the Islamic State, in the same way…
KHAAMA PRESS – Thu Jan 21 2016, 10:42 am Claiming responsibility for the attack on the shuttle bus of Kaboora Production, a sister entity to TOLO TV, in which seven employees of the production lost lives and more than 20 others sustained injuries, Afghan Taliban have issued a new warning to media. “We assure security to true media. They unknowingly should not go parallel with Tolo and refrain from useless expressions and decisions. If not,…