Taliban gun men on Friday May 28, targeted two mosques of minority Ahmadis in Lahore and killed seventy people. At least 90 people were injured. The last major attack on Pakistan’s cultural capital took place in March when a double suicide bombing killed dozens. This was for the first time Ahmadis were attacked. Hitherto, militants were targeting Shia Muslims.
Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals. But they were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1974 and in 1984 they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.
“Punjabi …

BY now Pakistanis are accustomed to ‘non-state actors’ — nebulous creatures that are blamed for the nation’s ills and help the government defer the burden of accountability. In a nod to these elements, we learnt this month that the violence and intolerance that permeate this country’s campuses are the work of ‘non-student elements’.
This coinage comes from the Punjab University (PU), which re-opened recently as a 19-day faculty boycott came to an end. The faculty was protesting the beating — many describe it as attempted murder — of a professor. As …

By Nadeem F. Paracha in the Dawn blogs
In 1947 the only established student organisation in the newly created country of Pakistan was the Muslim Students Federation (MSF), the student-wing of the Muslim League. The Muslim League began to disintegrate as Pakistan’s first ruling party. Consequently, the MSF too started to reflect the fragmentary nature of its mother party.
In 1950, a group of students in Karachi formed a progressive student organisation called the Democratic Students Federation (DSF). The organisation’s rapid growth led it to becoming a powerful platform for the students, …

By Patrick Cockburn in The Independent, Apr 16
The Pakistani army has fought successfully to control mountainous frontier areas once ruled by the Pakistani Taliban, but it remains reluctant to attack the cross-border safe havens of the Afghan Taliban despite American pressure.
Pakistani soldiers in Bajaur district on the Afghan frontier are eager to demonstrate what they have already achieved, showing off captured tunnels dug into the hillside by the local Taliban to protect their fighters against air and artillery attack. On display are some rockets and shells and a broken sign …

By Anwar Iqbal in The Dawn, Mar 14
WASHINGTON, March 13: The blasts in Lahore are the last desperate measures of pro-Al Qaeda militants who are now being abandoned by the Taliban, diplomatic sources told Dawn.
The sources also confirmed a Los Angeles Times report, published on Saturday, that the Taliban militants in Fata were now refusing to collaborate with Al Qaeda fighters.
The Taliban were declining to provide shelter or assist in attacks in Afghanistan even in return for payment, the report said.
“Yes, Pakistani intelligence sources also confirm this assessment,” said a …

ISLAMABAD: The PML-N has demanded of President Asif Ali Zardari to constitute a high-level commission, headed by a judge of the Supreme Court, to hold an inquiry into the Kargil issue.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, PML-N leader Siddiqul Farooq said the inquiry commission should be directed to submit its report, along with its recommendations, within three months. In this connection, he also reminded Zardari of his commitment to hold accountable dictators, whether they were dead or alive.
The PML-N leader accused Pervez Musharraf of being an incompetent Army chief, …

MUZAFFARABAD: The bomber responsible for the first suicide attack in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) was a member of the Taliban from Waziristan, an official said on Saturday. The blast on Friday hit an army vehicle in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the AJK, killing two soldiers and wounding three others. “The suicide bomber has been identified as Abid. He belonged to the Taliban in Waziristan,” said Raja Kafeel, a spokesman for the prime minister of the AJK. A Taliban spokesman on Saturday said the bombing was in retaliation for military …

MIRPUR (AJK) – In the wake of first-ever suicide attack on security personnel in Muzaffarabad, the security has been put on red alert across AJK to foil any terrorist attempt, official sources said.
The sources said Saturday that police have intensified thorough checking at all the entering and exit points. Checkposts have been erected at Bararkot, Kohala, Azad Pattan, Dhalkot, Mangla, Dhangalli, Jatlan and Gujrat-Bhimbher entry points, said Mirpur Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Tayyeb.
Besides, the checking of all the vehicles moving in the district including the city has also been geared up …

KOTLI, June 26: An Afghan national, who has performed as a prayer leader in different mosques of Azad Kashmir, has been a cause of sectarian tension in the state.
Recently, he provoked, through his fiery and enticing speeches, some local youths to attack members of a minority sect in the Sensa tehsil of the Kotli district, locals told Dawn. They added that after the attack the members of the minority religious sect had to close their businesses in the tehsil and some of them migrated to safer places.
The cleric identified only …

By Tariq Naqash in the Dawn, June 27
MUZAFFARABAD, June 26: Two soldiers were killed and at least three others injured in a suicide bombing here on Friday.
The banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the first suicide attack in Azad Kashmir.
The early morning blast in army barracks in Shaukat Lines caught security personnel unawares, although “they had been on alert for four months”, a police official said.
According to witnesses, a bearded man in his twenties walked through a ground used by army personnel for physical training and local youths as …