Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum has once again returned to battlefield in a bid to clear the areas under the anti-government armed militants control. This time Gen. Dostum has joined thousands of the Afghan security forces in two districts of northern Jawzjan province of Afghanistan, four months after he first launched operations in this province. Gen. Dostum will start counter-terrorism and clearing operations in Qosh Tapa and Darzab districts of Jawzjan province this time.…
Posts published in “Day: February 24, 2016”
General Raheel Sharif’s day-long visit to Qatar on the eve of The Quadrilateral Coordination Group’s (QCG) meeting to agree on a date for talks with the Taliban is indicative of Pakistan’s decision to include other parties in the reconciliation process. Qatar’s role in the negotiations between the Afghan Taliban and the government has been minimal up until now, but the presence of the Taliban’s official office in the country is seemingly enough reason for Pakistan…
ISLAMABAD: The Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) on Afghan peace and reconciliation announced on Monday that Pakistan will host peace talks between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban. A joint communiqué issued by the QCG after a meeting held in Kabul stated that all Taliban and other groups will be invited to participate in the talks through their authorised representatives. The talks are expected to be held in the first week of March. Referring to…
ISLAMABAD: Depressed global oil prices may trigger massive layoffs of Pakistani workers in Gulf countries, which may hold back the growth in remittances, which is the largest source of financing the current account deficit, said Riaz Riazuddin, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday. However, the second top man at the central bank hastily added the anticipated single-digit increase in remittances “is not a threat” to stability of the external sector.…
ISLAMABAD – Federal Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi yesterday said work on Iran-Pakistan pipeline would start by the end of the year and that he was going to visit Tehran next month. “It will take some time as we have yet to find a financier and contractor for the project,” Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said, addressing a press conference. Replying to a query regarding the gas pipeline project, the minister said,…
41 fighters of the terrorist group of the Islamic State (IS) which also goes by its Arabic name Daesh have been killed in Achin District of eastern Nangarhar province. Officials say the militants were killed in ground operation and air strikes in Abdulkhil, Pikhi, Nargasi and Mazdaki areas on Tuesday. Governor’s office says a local commander of the group by the name of Mawlawi Adil and some foreigners were among those killed. A hideout of…
The loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group have released a new propaganda video despite major setbacks the terror group faced in Afghanistan in a series of deadly airstrikes and group operations. The latest video was released on social media this afternoon which purportedly shows the loyalists of the terror group equipped with full military gear and in uniform similar as the ones worn by the fighters of the terror…
Adviser to Prime Minister (PM) on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, during a recent interview, elucidated on the progress of investigations into the Pathankot attack, which took place on the Indian airbase, on January 2, 2016 leaving seven dead and several injured. Following the registration of a First Investigation Report (FIR) on Friday by Punjab police’s counter-terrorism department, and the consequent statement by Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar claiming that it was an insufficient step and…
A country’s security and integrity depends more on its overall national policy than on the weapons at its disposal. There are enough examples to show that countries which are seen to be peaceful and friendly and which concentrate fully on their people’s economic and social welfare feel secure form internal threats and foreign aggression. A significant section of population consigned to poverty and social backwardness invariably acts as a destabilising factor. Countries which promote business…
In his latest book ‘Playing to the Edge’, Michael Hayden, the former CIA Director, expressed his deep frustration of the “duplicity” of the Pakistani leadership when it came to taking action against terrorist groups. Soon after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack the then chief of Pakistan’s ISI conceded that some of the powerful spy agency’s retired members were engaged in training those involved in the heinous crime but refused to take action, a former CIA…