Tag: Taliban

MOSCOW - Russia said on Monday it was open to dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Interfax reported, echoing the US position aimed at ensuring regional stability as Washington prepares to pull out its troops. Russia fears the withdrawal of 100,000 US troops, scheduled to begin in July, will leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan, allowing militants to filter into the oil and gas-producing countries of former Soviet Central Asia.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in

ASADABAD - Taliban insurgents abducted around 50 off-duty Afghan policemen in an ambush in a volatile province in northeastern Afghanistan, the militant group and provincial officials said on Sunday.
The policemen were abducted by militants in the Chapa Dara district of remote northeastern Kunar province after returning from neighbouring Nuristan province where they had travelled to collect their salaries, Nuristan governor Jamaluddin Badr said.
"The policemen were in

ASADABAD - Taliban insurgents abducted around 50 off-duty Afghan policemen in an ambush in a volatile province in northeastern Afghanistan, the militant group and provincial officials said on Sunday.
Taliban-led militants have stepped up their fight this year against the Afghan government and its Western backers at a time when Kabul has announced security responsibilities for seven areas will be handed to Afghan forces in July.
The policemen were abducted by militants in the

LAHORE - JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman during his visit to New Delhi in 2007 made an indirect overture to the US embassy, offering his services as a mediator between the Bush Administration and the Taliban, reported The Hindu. On May 3, 2007, Assistant Political Counsellor Atul Keshap reported (cable 106645: secret) his meeting with Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind leader Mahmood Madani and Pandit NK Sharma, an astrologer-adviser to PV Narasimha Rao, who claims close ties to the Gandhi

KABUL - All mobile phone services in a southern Afghan province whose capital will be among the first towns to be placed under local control have been shut down on Taliban orders, an operator said on Thursday. The move underscores the power still wielded by the insurgents in Helmand, Afghanistan's largest province and the heartland of the global opium trade, as NATO prepares to hand over control of its capital Lashkar Gar this summer. MTN, one of Afghanistan's four mobile phone

LAHORE - Taliban kidnapped 24 tribesmen and also took away 15 vehicles from a festival in Kurram Agency on Tuesday while another four people were whisked away in a similar fashion from the same area, reported a private TV channel.
The incident has been reported from the Baggan area of Lower Kurram where militants attacked the weekly festival and shifted the tribesmen to their hideout in the central parts of the agency. Sources claimed that the rebels belonged to the Sattar group

MIRANSHAH - Taliban militants shot dead four tribesmen, including one Afghan national, on Monday after accusing them of spying for the United States in two scattered places of North Waziristan, officials said. Three bullet-riddled bodies were dumped on a roadside in Datta Khel village, 35 kilometres (21 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district, local administration official Wahab Khan said, adding that the body of another tribesman was found in Mir

LAHORE - In an article 'Taliban is losing its advantage in Afghanistan', the Washington Post said until five months ago, Forward Operating Base Jackson in Sangin, Helmand province, was an island in a Taliban sea. Patrol bases were ringed by Taliban flags, and each spring the fertile land along the Helmand River bloomed red with poppies, as 35 drug-processing labs helped fund the Taliban. But the newspaper said after the arrival of 1,500 marines in Sangin, things started to change.

Pakistani sultry actress Veena Malik has been threatened by the gang of Osama Bin Laden. According to the actress, she has received a letter from Maulana Massod, an associate of Osama Bin Laden. Masood has accused her of bringing shame to Islam and Pakistan. He has threatened her of dire consequences, if she continues to do the same. Veena is currently participating in a cricket show, 'Bigg Toss.' She had earlier participated in the famous reality show 'Bigg Boss.' She had hit the

KARACHI - Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Afzal Roshan on Thursday remanded four Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan suspects, who were arrested by the Crime Investigation Department on Wednesday, for seven days. The accused men - Musharraf, Sherz Ali, Hameedullah and Ahmad Ali - were brought before the court amid tight security, escorted by a heavy contingent of law enforcers. Police produced the accused men before the trial court and sought their physical remand for conducting

LONDON - British newspaper Telegraph has claimed that Iran is supporting Taliban to defeat NATO force in Afghanistan. According to the report, British Special Forces last month seized a large quantity of Iranian- Made rockets hidden in three trucks after a fierce fight with Taliban in the southern afghan province of Nimroz, bordering Iran. A spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan said that after tests, the weapon experts determined that these rockets had been made in an Iranian

KARACHI - Four suspects having links to banned terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were arrested during a raid in the Metroville area, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) said on Wednesday. Addressing a press conference, CID Senior Superintendents of Police Omar Shahid and Chaudhry Aslam said that a CID team raided a house in Metroville on a tip-off and arrested four suspects. The detainees have been identified as Musharraf, Sherz Ali, Hamidullah and Ahmad Ali, who

LAHORE - The coalition forces have forced out the Taliban out of territory they had held for up to five years and many of them had escaped to sanctuaries in Pakistan, Gen David H Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, said on Tuesday, according to New York Times. He said coalition forces would focus in the coming months on a strategy called "defence and depth", blocking the Taliban's their return through strategic border regions that the insurgents traditionally used,

ISLAMABAD - Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Thursday criticised Interior Minister Rehman Malik for using the term "Punjabi Taliban" in the federal cabinet meeting, saying such statements could fan provincialism. He was talking to media outside the home of slain Shahbaz Bhatti where he condoled with the aggrieved family.
He said that terrorism was a national issue but some elements were trying to politicise the condemnable act of murder of Minorities Minister Shahbaz

PESHAWAR - Four bullet-riddled bodies of local tribesmen were found on the main Miranshah-Datta Khel Road in North Waziristan Agency with a letter accusing them of being 'American spies', tribal sources and officials said on Tuesday. They said the bodies with gun shots were dumped on the roadside and it was evident that they had been killed early in the morning.
An official in the political administration told Pakistan Today that "all the four killed were local tribesmen and had

PESHAWAR - At least five people, including three women, were killed and 10 others injured when rockets fired by the Taliban hit a residential area in Hangu district on Tuesday.
The militants sheltering in the nearby mountainous region had intended to target the security forces' checkpost at Tora Ghundai in the Doaba area but the rockets missed the target and resulted in civilian casualties. According to police officials, three rockets landed in an unpopulated area whereas five

JALALABAD - Eight people were killed and 56 others wounded, including police chiefs, Saturday in an attack claimed by the Taliban on a bank in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan. Police officers who were collecting their salaries were among the dead and Alishah Paktyamwal, police chief of Nangarhar province where Jalalabad is located, plus his deputy were among those wounded in the attack.
The incident is the latest in a string targeting police in Afghanistan, who alongside the army