Immediately after the attack, it was clear that the deadly Kabul bombing last week would cause serious new strains in the always-fraying Pak-Afghan relationship. With Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah quickly calling off a trip to Pakistan scheduled for early May and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issuing a fierce condemnation of the bombing, the attack appears to have become perhaps the one issue on which the government in Kabul stands united — pressure on Pakistan…
Posts published in “Day: April 25, 2016”
At least 20 militants were killed after a major Taliban offensive was repulsed in western Farah province of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the Taliban militants launched the offensive on an Afghan National Army (ANA) base in Anar Dara district. A statement by MoD said the offensive was repulsed by the Afghan security forces by receiving close-air support from the Afghan Air Force. MoD said at least 16 militants were also wounded during…
The Afghan National Security Forces have arrested a military chief of the Taliban group in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan. According to the security authorities, the military chief, Qari Salim, was arrested during a special night raid. Qari Salim was a key leader of the Taliban group who played a vital role in the collapse of Kunduz city last year. The officials further added it took at least a week for the Afghan special forces…
Security officials in Goshta, in eastern Nangarhar province, on Sunday said that clashes continued overnight between Afghan and Pakistan military forces and that one security force member has been killed. The clash started on Saturday night in Goshta after Pakistani military forces allegedly fired a number of missiles into the district and Afghan security forces responded, a border police commander in eastern Afghanistan said. He said the clash only ended on Sunday morning. In addition,…
BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan—After a suicide bomber killed more than 70 people on Easter Sunday in a park in the eastern province of Punjab, the government vowed to go after Islamist militants in the area. The massacre in the provincial capital of Lahore, which targeted the city’s sizable Christian minority, was claimed by a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, long a major target of the security forces. But another outlawed extremist group, one with ties to al…
WASHINGTON: The biggest failure of the United States in Afghanistan is its inability to persuade Afghanistan and Pakistan to cooperate, says the former US ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad. In an interview to Voice of America, broadcast this weekend, Mr Khalilzad described the Pak-Afghan tension as “the mother of all problems” in the Pak-Afghan region. “The two countries need each other and they should cooperate,” said the Afghanistan-born scholar. The United States did not succeed…
ISLAMABAD: An important meeting between the foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India is expected tomorrow (Tuesday) when Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry will be leading a delegation to the Heart of Asia (Istanbul Process) Conference being held in New Delhi, reliable sources said. Diplomatic sources in Islamabad said a meeting of the Heart of Asia (Istanbul Process) is going to be held in the Indian capital on Tuesday. Secretary-level and other high officials from…
Angela Gui, 22, a university student in England, and her father, a publisher who lives on the other side of the world, don’t get to see each other as often as they would like. But they spent a happy Christmas together in 2014, and last fall Angela was looking forward to seeing her father again in November. A month before they were to meet, he went missing. Angela knows that her father, Gui Minhai, did…
WASHINGTON: The frayed ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia are not likely to improve even after a new president takes charge of the White House early next year, US and Saudi experts say. In interviews and comments to US media outlets, the experts said that President Barack Obama’s visit to Riyadh last week had failed to achieve its intended target: improving bilateral relations. Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al Faisal told CNN…
LONDON — The United States has opened a new line of combat against the Islamic State, directing the military’s six-year-old Cyber Command for the first time to mount computer-network attacks that are now being used alongside more traditional weapons. The effort reflects President Obama’s desire to bring many of the secret American cyber weapons that have been aimed elsewhere, notably at Iran, into the fight against the Islamic State — which has proved effective in…
ISLAMABAD: A senior naval officer convicted for corruption and misconduct by the naval court got no respite from the Islamabad High Court (IHC). Naval commodoreMohammad Shakil Naz was working as the general manager Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works and was responsible for the maintenance and repair works on submarines worth billions of dollars.According to the deputy attorney general, Raja Khalid Mehmood, Naz established factious companies for maintenance of the submarines under his command. He, however,…