Taliban have confirmed losing 13 fighters in two drone strikes in Barmal District of Paktika province. A statement released by the group’s spokesperson on Saturday states that their fighters came under drone attacks while they were in fighting with militants belonging to Daesh group in Warmama area. According to the statement, five militants were killed in one strike and eight others in another one. The statement does not contain exact date of the strikes. Local…
Posts published in “Day: February 15, 2016”
Kabul: General John Campbell, the outgoing commander of Resolute Support Mission and U.S forces in Afghanistan, has said that poor leadership within the ranks of the Afghan security forces is their biggest hurdle and called on the country’s leaders to bring reforms. He said that almost 70 percent of the problems troops are facing are due to bad leadership. He went on to say that despite government’s reshuffling of 92 officials, the issues still exist.…
KABUL, Afghanistan — In an attack using a tactic long feared by Afghan officials, Taliban suicide bombers riding in two stolen Afghan Army Humvees clashed with security forces on Saturday in southern Helmand Province, killing six security personnel at a checkpoint, Afghan officials said. While the Afghan government has publicly played down the threat, in private, officials have warned that insurgents, who have in the past largely relied on motorcycles and basic weapons, could gain…
ISLAMABAD: Islamabad police have claimed to have made headway in the case of a former governor of Herat who had gone missing in the capital, as Kabul urged Islamabad to immediately recover him. The former governor of Herat province, Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, was out shopping with his 12-year-old grandson at the Rana market but did not return, sources had said on Friday. Wahidi had arrived in Islamabad on February 7 along with his family to…
HONG KONG — As the Chinese economy stumbles, wealthy families are increasingly trying to move large sums of money out of the country, worried that the value of the currency will fall and their savings will be worth less. To get around the country’s cash controls, individuals are asking friends or family members to carry or transfer out $50,000 apiece, the annual legal limit in China. A group of 100 people can move $5 million…
Why are we so confused about Daesh and its presence in the country? Why is there this reoccurring reluctance to face up to facts and look head on at evidence that the group is indeed establishing a presence in the country? Just as the IB chief informed a Senate committee that a major Daesh network based in the country had been broken up, the Foreign Office spokesman in his weekly media briefing maintained that there…
ISLAMABAD: Daesh network, well before it could get established in Pakistan, has been seriously dented by a recent joint operation of civilian and military intelligence agencies, it is learnt. Sources said that dozens of Daesh activists have been arrested from different parts of the country during the recent weeks and months in a major crackdown, which is believed to have seriously dented Daesh before it becomes a serious challenge for Pakistan. Although the US President…
Islamabad: Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director General Aftab Sultan on Saturday claimed to have arrested Daesh operatives said to be involved in 10 different terror-related incidents. In an in-camera briefing to a Senate standing committee, the IB DG said that the IS network in Pakistan had been destroyed and a network of terrorists involved in 10 big terror attacks had been apprehended. Referring to the attack on Bacha Khan University (BKU) in Charsadda, he said he…
Islamabad: Days after IB chief’s warning of dreaded terror network’s presence in Pakistan, Nisar says Daesh does not maintain the same level of presence in Pakistan as it does in other countries Days after the head of the premier civilian spy agency informed the Senate Standing Committee on Interior that Daesh, the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group, was emerging as a threat in the country, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Saturday said that…
KARACHI: Atta-ur-Rehman, alias Naeem Bukhari, one of the three high-valued targets whose arrest was announced by the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations at a news briefing here on Friday, spent around five years in custody before he got released from jail and wreaked havoc on major cities. Sources said Rehman was first picked up by Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, in a Nazimabad locality in June 2002. Besides the outlawed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi chief, the other two high-valued…
The writer is a retired Senator and an analyst of regional affairs The devastating armed conflict that has continued in and around Afghanistan for the last four decades has brought death and destruction on a very large scale. It has not been some local or limited conflict fought between lightly equipped local factions. The strongest armies of the modern big powers of the contemporary world and regional states equipped with the most lethal weaponry of…