The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah talked about the terrorists’ sanctuaries in the neighborhood during his speech at the NATO Warsaw summit in Poland. CEO Abdullah was apparently pointing towards the safe havens used by the Taliban group and Haqqani terrorist network leadership councils in Pakistan. “Looking back at recent history, some of us failed to grasp, the strategy that enabled the reemergence of militant cells that enjoyed sanctuaries and staging grounds in our…
Posts published in “Day: July 12, 2016”
ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Despite its disappointment over Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s diatribe against Pakistan at a Nato summit in Warsaw, the Foreign Office on Saturday said Pakistan would continue with its efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan and asked Kabul to cooperate in its fight against terrorism. “Since we have a genuine interest in seeing peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan would continue to make every effort to help bring peace in Afghanistan,” the Foreign Office said in…
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday accused Islamabad of continuing to distinguish between ‘good and bad terrorists’ as he excluded Pakistan from countries with whom Afghanistan has forged successful peace initiatives. “Our regional initiatives with our neighbours are beginning to yield significant cooperative dividends … with the exception of Pakistan,” Ashraf Ghani said in his speech at the Nato summit in Warsaw. “Despite clear commitment to a quadrilateral peace process, Pakistan’s dangerous distinction between…
By ADAM JOURDAN AND BEN HIRSCHLER SHANGHAI/LONDON |: As China’s medical bills rise steeply, outpacing government insurance provision, patients and their families are increasingly turning to loans to pay for healthcare, adding to the country’s growing burden of consumer debt. While public health insurance reaches nearly all of China’s 1.4 billion people, its coverage is basic, leaving patients liable for about half of total healthcare spending, with the proportion rising further for serious or chronic…
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — On the 10th day of Peter Dahlin’s captivity in a secret Beijing jail, Chinese state security officers sprang one of their big surprises — something he found even more astonishing than hearing a colleague being beaten in a room above his cell. They showed him a document about the organization he had started in China to promote access to legal services, complete with names of employees, associates and grant recipients. But…
China’s PLA Navy has launched its largest ever live-fire drill in the South China Sea just days before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague is set to issue a ruling over the Philippines’ case brought against Beijing’s South China Sea claims. On Sunday, the country’s CCTV broadcast images of jet fighters, and navy ships firing missiles, and helicopters taking off and submarines surfacing. The PLA Daily said that “the drill focuses on air…
The writer is a resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and an author of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.” WASHINGTON — BEFORE Fayad Tayih abandoned the Islamic State earlier this month, he detected a striking trend: More people inside the self-declared caliphate were signing up to become suicide bombers. Mr. Tayih had been working in an administrative job for the jihadist group in Deir al-Zour, in eastern Syria, at the…
Bangladesh has not until recently been thought of as a hub of terrorism, but the last three years have seen a steady rise in attacks on secular bloggers and members of minority faiths. Terrorism moved upscale with the attack that left 20 foreigners dead at a popular Dhaka cafe and it was followed days later by an attack on a gathering celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramazan. Seemingly all of the attacks…
The war against terror is definitely expanding. And that, unfortunately, is because the bad guys are expanding their theatre of influence and action. Bangladesh, for example, was not widely expected to catch ISIS’s eye anytime soon. And if the Ramzan attack wasn’t bad enough. The terrorists surprised everyone again by trying to attack on Eid day itself. This speaks volumes about the outreach ISIS has developed. The popular narrative was that they were on the…
THE small Gulf kingdom of Bahrain is once again simmering due to sectarian polarisation and political deadlock. Though the situation has been far from normal ever since a pro-democracy movement was crushed by the state in 2011 with Saudi help, recent events have put the ruling Al Khalifa on a collision course with the popular opposition. Tensions increased after the state revoked the citizenship of Ayatollah Shaikh Isa Qassim, Bahrain’s top Shia cleric, in June.…