KARACHI: The Sindh prisons department has demanded at least 2,900 guarding staff and formation of a separate special prison security force (SPSF) to effectively safeguard the 25 detention facilities across the province, it emerged here on Monday. “We are facing a real danger of terrorism on our prisons, which requires all sorts of measures to keep the security intact,” said a senior official at the home ministry. Officials in the prisons department said they had…
Posts published in “Day: December 26, 2016”
The writer is author of “Fixing the EU Intelligence Crisis” Intelligence is crucial to the development of understanding — it requires practitioners and experts to operate in a complex environment. The Taliban intelligence war in Kunduz province received mixed responses in military circles of Afghanistan where terrorist groups used cell phones to organise and coordinate surprise attacks against the government forces. The way Taliban and the ISIS advanced in small towns and cities is a…
The writer is a freelance columnist. Afghanistan has been in the throes of violence, and the nation has faced death and destruction during the last three and a half decades. Firstly, when Soviet forces landed in Afghanistan, what they said, on the request of the then Afghan government, the US and the West planned the overt and covert operation against them. Secondly, people became victims of the civil war between the warlords after withdrawal of…
The writer is a retired ambassador and the president of the Lahore Council for World Affairs. Despite the negative consequences of the serious policy blunders committed by the US in Afghanistan over the past decade and a half, it refuses to draw the right lessons from its unhappy experience.Instead, it has persisted in pursuing its flawed Afghanistan policy with over-emphasis on a military rather than a political solution.In the process, most of the Pashtuns, who…
A leader of the Taliban group was killed during a night conducted by the Afghan special forces in eastern Nangarhar province. The provincial police commandment said the operation was conducted late on Sunday night in Chaparhar district. The security officials said another Taliban insurgent accompanying the Taliban leader was also killed and another militant was wounded. The officials further added that the Afghan forces and the local residents did not suffer any casualties during the…
At least five militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba were killed in a premature explosion triggered by their own Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in East of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the militants were killed after the IED went off prematurely in Asmar district of Kunar. The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report so far. Lashkar-e-Taiba, a military wing of Markaz ad-Dawat wal Irshad (MDI), is a Pakistan-based militant group which has…
Almost 40 years after seeking sanctuary in Pakistan, Nusheen Bibi lives in fear of being expelled from the only country she has ever known. Bibi was only three when her family fled the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – some of more than six million Afghan refugees who crossed into neighbouring Pakistan and Iran. They soon made a new life in northern Pakistan where Bibi grew up, got married and eventually gave birth. But growing…
The loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group suffered casualties in US airstrike in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. According to the local security officials in Nangarhar, the airstrike was conducted in Haska Mina district, targeting the militants of the terror group in Nari Oba area. The officials further added that 8 loyalists of the terror group were killed and at least two others were wounded. According to the officials,…
At least six Taliban leaders have left the Quetta city of Pakistan along with their family members and have shifted to Helmand province, Kandahar’s police chief General Abdul Raziq said. Speaking in a gathering attended by elders and Ulemas of 10 provinces, Gen. Raziq said some of the Taliban leaders who were looking to leave Quetta have been arrested and jailed by the Pakistani military. Gen. Raziq further added that there are no reports regarding…
ISLAMABAD: Chinese embassy officials are finally pushing back at the critics of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan as a senior diplomat on Monday, in a rare rebuttal, denied any wrongdoing in the project and sought public support against ‘disinformation’. The Chinese embassy, known for quiet diplomacy, had all along been uneasily watching allegations of unequal distribution of projects among provinces, lack of transparency, corruption in CPEC projects, and environmental concerns, but it was…
A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on Sunday said Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is “betting on a $21 billion Chinese-backed splurge on energy projects to boost the economy and his re-election bid.” Furthermore, “the projects could become a political issue. The Chinese-financed plants enjoy a generous return guaranteed by Islamabad. Less highly populated provinces complain that Mr. Sharif’s Punjab has scooped an unfair share of the projects. Beyond the election, billions of dollars of…