Posts published in “Day: August 20, 2016”

With an aim to wipe out all terrorists once and for all, the Pakistan army has embarked on another operation in the Khyber Agency. Ground forces backed by air strikes and heavy artillery shelling at suspected militant hideouts have succeeded in penetrating into the deep-forested Rajgal valley in Tirah, which is considered to be the last bastion of outlawed militant groups. Sporadic incidents of terror have kept the security forces on their toes, and the…

The military has gone active again in the border regions of the Khyber Agency – “to reinforce troop deployment in Rajgal Valley” (ISPR) – just around the time Afghan and nato forces are trying to tighten the noose around the developing IS threat in Nangarhar and Kunar regions. This could, of course, be a regular beefing up of security forces along the difficult border as the war moves from one stage to another. It could…

It seems that the armed forces have reinforced their wrath on militant hideouts in Khyber Agency where they conducted counter-terrorism operations, killing five militants and destroying 15 hideouts in the process. The targeted operation follows the recent dissatisfaction that Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif expressed in a security meeting at General Headquarters, at the lack of implementation on the National Action Plan and its hindering effects on Zarb-e-Azb’s progress. The Army says Zarb-e-Azb…

The terrorists just never go away. No matter how often they are hit or the severity of the blows they receive, there are always new targets on the kill-list. Recent reports of the Pakistan Air Force hitting targets in remote parts of the Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan are yet another case in point. There have already been extensive clearance operations in the Tirah Valley with Khyber I and II, and now Khyber III is striking…

After a week of political turmoil, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah held a one-on-one meeting Wednesday in an attempt to ease tensions between them and resolve their disagreements – that sparked political uncertainty in the country over the past few days. Delegations from both sides appear to have brokered today’s meeting between the two leaders. The talks are expected to continue on Thursday and Friday. Referring to the Ghani-Abdullah squabble, the CEO’s…

U.S Air Force Chief of Staff General David L. Goldfein announced in a media release Tuesday that Boeing B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers have completed airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan for the first time in 10 years. “We got the B-52 back in the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. “We have the B-52 contributing to a significant ground effort and employing weapons in close proximity of friendly troops who are under attack [and] who…

Washington: Afghan police pose for a photograph with an Islamic State flag after an operation in the Kot district of Jalalabad province east of Kabul. (AP Photo) The US is monitoring the movement of Islamic State (IS) and its affiliated groups in Afghanistan besides helping the latter’s security forces to fight out the terrorist organization which is trying to expand its base rapidly in the war-torn country, a top American official has said. “We are…

Reports have emerged that just hours before the Taliban took control of Dahna-e-Ghori, the Baghlan provincial police chief allegedly ordered the head of operations to hand over all responsibilities to an unnamed person and return to Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital. A TOLOnews investigation found that following the orders, government forces allegedly responded quickly and retreated from the district – without a single bullet being fired off. The fall of Baghlan’s Dahna-e-Ghori district meanwhile sparked questions…

A prominent Russian analyst has said the state of the art Mi-35 gunships should be handed over to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) based on bilateral strategic cooperation agreement between Kabul and Moscow. Dmitriy Verkhoturov in his opinion piece to RIA Novosti’s Farsi service has written that the delivery of the gunships in the absence of a strategic cooperation agreement would not yield positive results as Moscow may expect. He has particularly…

LAHORE – Banned outfits operating from Afghan soil near Durand-Line have planned launching separate offences inside Pakistan and prepared their foot soldiers for this purpose, security officials told The Nation yesterday. TTP Fazalullah group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a splinter of TTP, Hafiz Gul Bahadur group and Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), who all were uprooted from Fata by Pakistan army, have found refuge in Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan, Khost, Paktia and Paktika province of Afghanistan along the Pak-Afghan border. According…