DECIPHERING the foreign policy and national security statements of the PML-N government is becoming an increasingly odd affair. There is the known, but unacknowledged, gap between the priorities and preferences of the political government and the military leadership. There is also the pressure that the civilian foreign policy advisers of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appear to be under from the military to publicly articulate and defend policies that are crafted in GHQ. But vastly experienced…
Posts published in “Day: July 4, 2016”
Afghan airmen are giving their country’s government security forces a “lift” in the fight against militants in more ways than one. The Afghan air force is conducting flying missions daily – sometimes with U.S. Airmen from the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, Train, Advise, Assist Command – Air (TAAC-Air), and sometimes completely on their own with one of their four C- 130H aircraft. The flying abilities of the AAF pilots are not surprising to their U.S.…
Over 60 Taliban insurgents were killed or wounded in a series of airstrikes in Arghistan district located in northeastern Badakhshan province. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Perry Aston/Released) The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 50 militants were killed and 12 others were seriously wounded in the raids. MoD further added that 12 militants were killed and 2 others were wounded in a separate airstrike carried out in Aband district of southeastern…
A senior Taliban leader was killed in an airstrike in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan along with at least 15 other militants. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the airstrike was carried out by the Afghan Air Force in Hesarak district. MoD further added that Mawlavi Mumtaz Mia Khel the group’s shadow governor for Kabul was killed along with his 15 fighters in the raid. Another senior Taliban commander identified as Mullah Tor was also…
The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) have recaptured a number of the security posts in Jalrez district of central Wardak province. According to the local security officials, the security posts were captured during two days of ongoing operations which were lunched following a coordinated Taliban attack. Provincial governor’s spokesman Abdul Rahman Mangal said the security posts were captured by the Taliban militants two days ago and an operation was launched to clear the…
KABUL: The leader of the Taliban called for an end to foreign forces’ “occupation” of Afghanistan as a preliminary step to a settlement based on Islamic law that he said would bring unity to a country ravaged by decades of war. In one of his first public statements, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who was named leader of the movement after the death of his predecessor Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in a US drone strike in May,…
LAHORE: Jamaat-i-Islami blames “foreign hand” for ongoing confrontation between Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Some foreign forces want continuation of hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, people of the two countries will not let their nefarious designs succeed,” JI acting emir Liaquat Baloch said at a meeting of the steering committee of the Defae Pakistan Council at Mansoora here on Saturday. Mr Baloch said the “enemy powers” wanted to deprive the Afghan people of peace, progress and…
LANDI KOTAL: The bus service between Peshawar and Jalalabad in Afghanistan via the Torkham border has been lying suspended for over a month as the Pakistan government has refused to give security clearance to three of the five transport companies operating the service. The service was suspended on May 30 when the last date for Afghan nationals entering Pakistan without legal travel documents expired. Haji Nasir Khan, the owner of the United Transport Company, told…
Lahore; Around 80 to 100 terrorists belonging to the banned Jamaat-ul-Ahrar – a breakaway faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan – have been trained in Afghanistan to carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan, reveals a letter prepared by the Punjab Home Department. The communiqué forwarded to senior police officers across Punjab detailed that these terrorists were backed by the Afghan National Army and government institutions. It also raised the alarm that coordination among terrorists in Afghanistan…
The exchange of the list of prisoners held by India and Pakistan of the other’s citizens – a bi-annual process – is nothing more than ceremonial. The principle behind the idea is to allow for the citizens of each country to be allowed consular access, but it’s not like that has ever helped any of those imprisoned in the jails of the other’s country.A Pakistani citizen in an Indian Jail or vice versa, will only…
A delegation of American executives flew to Beijing in April for a secret meeting just blocks from Tiananmen Square. They had come to court the new kingmakers in one of the strangest experiments in money the world has seen: the virtual currency known as Bitcoin. Against long odds, and despite an abstruse structure, in which supercomputers “mine” the currency via mathematical formulas, Bitcoin has become a multibillion-dollar industry. It has attracted major investments from Silicon…