The writer is a veteran journalist and executive editor of The Nation. Pakistan has found itself involved in more issues than its policymakers would perhaps like, and certainly at this point they would find themselves stretched very thin. As the centre of attention would be the problem of keeping the Indo-Pak peace initiative on track despite the militant attack on the Pathankot air base. However, there is the related issue of the Afghan peace talks,…
Posts published in “Day: January 15, 2016”
The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. In a highly provocative undertaking, the Saudi regime executed Shia cleric NimrBaqr Al Nimr last week, a vocal critic of the royal family demanding nationwide free and fair elections, and political rights to minorities. In response to his death, protests erupted in Iran. A large crowd — shocked and angry — poured into the streets and torched the Saudi embassy. Suspecting the Iranian authorities of being behind the…
The writer works for Geo TV. It is unfortunate that some ‘intellectuals’ are trying to paint the Saudi-Iran rift as an internal issue of Pakistan. It is equally sad to see the religious Right depict this as a war between right and wrong. And then there are those Pakistanis who were born here and live here but somehow are more concerned with the interests of Saudi Arabia or Iran than of Pakistan. The fact is…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is bound to provide defence support to Saudi Arabia in case of a threat to its integrity under two bilateral agreements between the two countries; one was inked in 1982 while the other was sealed in 2005. This was revealed by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in a high-profile closed door briefing given to the members of the Senate here the other day. Highly-placed diplomatic sources told The…
The author is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Quetta. On January 13, 2016, two masked men reportedly threw a grenade and fired gunshots at the office of ARY News Channel in Islamabad, injuring one media person. The self-styled Islamic State’s (IS) Afghanistan chapter claimed responsibility for the attack in pamphlets and stated it was in reaction to the coverage the channel is giving to Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Besides this, in late December, the Counter…
The United States government has designated the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as a terrorist organization. The Khorasan branch dubbed as ‘Khorasan province – Wilayah Khorasan’ is the territorial scope of the terror group covering parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan but the loyalists of the terror group is mainly operational in some remote regions of Afghanistan bordering the Durand Line located between Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The Department of…
At least eleven fanatics of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group were killed in an airstrike in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, local officials said. The airstrike was carried out in Achin district of Nangarhar with the help of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The district administrative chief Ghaleeb Mujahid confirmed that eleven loyalists of the terror group including one of their key commanders were killed in the raid. He said…
10 militants belonging to the terrorist group of the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh have been killed in fresh airstrike of Afghan Air Force in eastern Nangarhar province. Security officials say Air Force targeted the insurgents while the insurgents were conducting a gathering in Kot District. According to the police HQ of Nangarhar, the airstrike was carried out based on a tip-off and that it did not have civilian casualties. The late Wednesday airstrike took…
Nangarhar police chief Fazel Ahmad Sherzad on Thursday raised concerns over the activities of Daesh in the province and said some elements in the region, including Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), support the militant group. His statement comes a day after the group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, which resulted in the death of at least seven members of the Afghan security forces. Referring to attack on the Pakistani mission,…