Posts published in “Day: January 13, 2016”

The writer is an author and journalist. ‘WE will not allow our soil to be used against any other country for terrorism.’ This oft-repeated cliché in our official statements has almost become a national embarrassment. A solemn pledge loses all credibility when major militant attacks in other countries are allegedly traced back to our territory. It is not just cross-border involvement but also the activities of banned outfits at home that raises questions about how…

Balkh police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat on Tuesday said Pakistani military officers were behind the Indian consulate attack in Mazar-e-Sharif earlier this month. He said the attackers, officers from across the border, were well-trained military men who fought Afghan security forces in the 25-hour siege. “We saw with our own eyes and I can say 99 percent that those attackers were from Pakistani military and used special tactics while conducting their operation,” said Sadat. “The…

The writer is an academic teaching Chinese politics for more than 20 years, for most of that time in China. China’s stock-market problems last week did more than shake investors and increase anxiety about Beijing’s commitment to market reform:  Many observers now wonder whether the recent hammering of China’s stocks and currency will have political fallout for Communist Party leaders. Twice last week, tumbling Chinese stock prices triggered a newly installed circuit breaker that ended…

Beijing: China has detained a Swedish national who worked with human rights lawyers on suspicion of endangering state security, a rights group said on Wednesday, describing the charges as “baseless”. Peter Dahlin was taken into custody on January 4 while on his way to Beijing’s international airport, the group said, amid a growing crackdown on rights lawyers and foreign groups working on legal reform. Rights groups say the crackdown aims to rein in dissent, but…

The writer is a national security strategist, visiting faculty at NUST and fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Centre Pakistan’s foreign policy managers, including the prime minister, the advisor on foreign policy, the foreign secretary and indeed the spokesperson, had all initially contributed to confusion over Pakistan’s involvement in the anti-terrorism coalition the Saudis announced on December 15. The Saudi announcement had taken them by surprise since like the Saudi’s April 2015 anti-Yemen coalition – in…

Islamabad: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz on Tuesday said Pakistan will not send ground troops to Saudi Arabia or any other country after having joined the 34-state Islamic military alliance led by Saudi Arabia. In a briefing to the National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee at the Parliament House, Aziz said all matters between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been settled. He said Pakistan will be sharing intelligence with Saudi Arabia…

( Carles Lister  is a specialist on Syria with the US think tank Brookings Institution; Within the framework of the Syria Track II Initiative, he has coordinated several hundred meetings in the last two years between leaders of more than 100 armed rebel groups and representatives of Syrian civil society) British-American terror expert Charles Lister believes that al-Qaida ally Jabhat al-Nusra is more dangerous than Islamic State. In an interview, he warns that most Syrian…

WASHINGTON: Observing that “instability will continue for decades” in many parts of the world including Afghanistan and Pakistan, US President Barack Obama on Wednesday said both al-Qaida and ISIS pose a direct threat to the US during his final State of the Union Address to the Congress. “Both al-Qaida and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our people, because in today’s world, even a handful of terrorists who place no value on human life,…