The writer is a former ambassador and former Assistant Secretary General of OIC A small item hidden in the inner pages of our ever vigilant press covered the news that Iran had disclosed that it had reached an agreement with American aerospace giant Boeing “to purchase 100 aircraft to renew its ageing fleet”. Iran’s civil aviation authority qualified the deal with the caveat that the deal was contingent upon “US Treasury permission”. Now the discerning…
Posts published in “Day: July 4, 2016”
The writer is an engineer and a cricket fan who works in the Middle East. The Iran Pakistan Pipeline should be an important part of Pakistan’s energy plan, but for some reason the government is still vacillating about it. Statements like “it will remain a pipe dream unless US sanctions are lifted” expose the seriousness of the government in its implementation. This is sophistry, as Iran has already spent over US $ 2 billion to…
The loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group have executed at least three men in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. The terror group claimed that the men were arrested during an operation by the fighters of the group and they belong to Taliban group. The group initially released the pictures of the men in social media and later issued more pictures which purportedly shows the execution of the men. The…
The family of an American hostage on Saturday appealed the Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah to ask his loyalists to release the American hostage Cathleen Coleman and her husband Joshua Bowell in the wake of holy month of Ramazan and Eid festival. The American and her Canadian husband were taken hostage by the Taliban in 2012 in Ghazni province and since then they have been able to contact their families only three times. Coleman and Bowell…
The insurgent Taliban has been weakened after the deaths of its founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and former leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, says General Abdul Raziq, police chief of Kandahar province. As a result of their leaders’ demise, the Taliban has split into factions, he said. Raziq added that while Taliban is faced with rifts within their leadership ranks, the same applied to the National Unity Government (NUG). “Taliban is faced with internal rifts, as is…
Massacres attributed to the Islamic State have struck on four continents this year, reflecting how the appeal of the group’s ideology is growing even as the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria has receded, according to experts. The slaughter of civilians in three large attacks in the past week alone — in Istanbul on Tuesday, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Friday, and in Baghdad on Sunday — suggests that militant actions beyond the caliphate’s borders…
The writer is a former director NIPA, a political analyst, a public policy expert and an author. The military needs full political support on any national plans to root out terrorism. Challenges that Pakistan faces could be effectively confronted for the achievement of goals only if there is the will to act politically. Lukewarm support does not facilitate meeting the ends of policy. All options must be used, including the much-needed large-scale reforms and urgent…
The writers work at the Centre for Governance and Policy, IT University, Lahore Just a month before the China-US summit in 2002, the Chinese presidential plane was found bugged and an investigation highlighted that spying gadgets were planted by US officials during the refurbishment of the plane in Texas. The world anticipated that this controversy would lead to the cancelling of the summit or, at least, would overshadow the talks — skewing the space for…
The Adviser on Foreign Affairs warned on Friday that pushing too fast against all militants in the country could lead to “blowback” in the form of more terrorist attacks. However, to claim that we have at all been on the cusp of “moving too fast” against terrorists in our country is preposterous.Sartaj Aziz sought to deflect criticism that Pakistan has not done enough to crack down on the Haqqani network and that it still shelters…
The US has released, for the first time, its breakdown of who was killed in a total of 473 drone strikes between 2009 and 2015 carried out in what the Obama administration terms ‘places that are not active warzones’. The figures, which apply to Pakistan, Libya and Yemen, state that 64-116 civilians and up to 2, 581 combatants were killed in drone strikes. There are many problems with this report – all of which stem…
If the White House thought that the release of figures that purported to be for fatalities, including civilians, caused by drone strikes was going to satisfy an incredulous public, then it was sorely mistaken. The report, released on July 1, says that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed in 473 strikes by drones made between January 2009 and December 31, 2015. It is difficult to find any other agency or organisation that monitors and…