At least 12 loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group were killed in a premature explosion in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 21 militants of the terror group were also wounded in the explosion. A statement by MoD said the militants were looking to transport an explosive device from Mazdaki area of Achin district to Shedil Bazar of the same district when…
Posts published in “Day: March 14, 2016”
General Aminullah Amarkhil, police chief of central Ghazni province says several districts of his province are under severe threat which may fall if central government does not take necessary measures to suppress militants. Gen. Amarkhil added that security situation in Ghazni province has been tense and that Kabul has been informed about it. According to the General, eight districts of Ghazni province are on the verge of collapse but there are not enough security forces…
Ministry of Public Works (MoPW) reported on Sunday that preliminary talks between Afghanistan, Iran and India have begun on topics related to the establishment of a railway line liking Iran’s Chabahar port to Herat province in western Afghanistan. “India has shown a willingness to establish a railway route linking Chabahar and Herat and this is a milestone toward connecting Afghanistan to Chabahar port,” said Mahdi Rohani a spokesman for the ministry of public works. Meanwhile,…
The writer has served as ambassador to Afghanistan and is a former interior secretary Pakistan-Afghanistan relations are multi-dimensional, encompassing political, economic, cultural and people-to-people ties. Because of many unresolved issues, the relationship has been, for the most part, a roller coaster ride. Seldom have the two countries been able to realise and profit from the enormous latent potential of bilateral ties that could have a substantive impact on the lives of their rank and file.…
Pakistan, India may break the ice in Nepal By Kamran Yousaf in The Express Tribune, March 14th, 2016
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s top foreign policy aide and India’s external affairs minister are likely to meet on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) in Nepal this week. Both Sartaj Aziz and Sushma Swaraj will be travelling to the picturesque Pokhara city of Nepal for the Saarc Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting on March 16 and 17. Senior officials, including foreign secretaries of the two…
China has waged a campaign to extinguish terrorist violence in its Central Asian frontier region of Xinjiang. Its effectiveness is hard to assess from the government’s latest statistics. Chinese courts convicted 1,419 people for “harming state security,” including taking part in violent acts of terrorism, in 2015, Supreme People’s Court President Zhou Qiang said in a speech before the China’s rubber-stamp parliament in the Great Hall of the People on Sunday. Mr. Zhou didn’t say…
China to establish int’l maritime judicial centre: AFP report in The daily star, Dhaka, Mar 14, 2016
Beijing: China will establish an international maritime judicial centre, a report from the country’s top court said yesterday, as it seeks to shore up territorial claims to the South and East China Sea at the centre of a growing regional dispute. The decision comes as an international tribunal prepares to decide a case related to the country’s claims in the South China Sea, where it has built a series of artificial islands capable of hosting…
Beijing: Protests by angry workers that broke out at a vast failing state coal mine in the rust belt of north-east China forced a senior official to admit that he had understated their problems and indicates how President Xi Jinping’s plans to shake up slumping state-owned industries could run into resistance. The demonstrators had denounced Lu Hao, the governor of Heilongjiang province, after he said that miners working down shafts there had been paid on…
(The writer iss the author of “The Oil Kings: How the United States, Iran and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East” and the forthcoming “The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran.” ) FOR the past half-century, the world economy has been held hostage by just one country: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Vast petroleum reserves and untapped production allowed the kingdom to play an…
The writer is a freelance journalist. Heads of state do not typically flock to oversee military exercises in which their country’s troops are participating. But war games in Saudi Arabia are clearly an exception. Our prime minister and army chief last week joined dignitaries ranging from Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to watch the ‘Thunder of the North’ military exercises — the largest in the region, involving forces from 20…
THE prime minister and army chief have just wrapped up a visit to Saudi Arabia which saw them witness the ‘North Thunder’ military exercises. Held under the kingdom’s aegis, the exercises saw troops from 20 Muslim states, including Pakistan, come together for war games in Hafar al-Batin, a town located close to the Iraqi border. The drill reportedly involved thousands of troops and equipment taking part in exercises ostensibly meant to sharpen counterterrorism skills. However,…