British Humanitarian Aid Worker Found Beheaded in QuettaTehrik-i-Taliban Negotiated for Months for Ransom
Jon Boone in Islamabad and Shiv Malik
Islamabad, April 29: The beheaded corpse of a British aid worker has been discovered in the Pakistani city of Quetta, almost four months after he was kidnapped. The body of Khalil Rasjed Dale was left on a road outside the city, in southern Baluchistan province, with a note attached which said he had been killed because a ransom had not …
Turf Wars Heat up on Pak-Afghan BorderLashkar-i-Islam Vs Taliban Vs Army Causes Mass Exodus
AFP
JALOZAI, April 8 – Banmaroo stands in the dust, tears rolling down her cheeks as she recalls how her husband was killed in Pakistan’s latest battle zone on the Afghan border. “He was just a labourer. Firing started. I don’t know who killed him, but I was handed his body in the afternoon. It was in such a rough condition, …
Shia Hazaras Massacred in Balochistan – Again!UN Workers Killed in Separate Incident
By Shehzad Baloch – The Express Tribune
QUETTA, March 29: At least five people were gunned down, and six others sustained injuries, when a van carrying people belonging to the Hazara community was ambushed on Spini road in Quetta Thursday morning. Law enforcement agencies and the police put security on high alert in the city after the incident. According to a senior police official, the van was on …
Karzai Calls on U.S. to Pull Back as Taliban Cancel TalksBy Rod Nordland and Matthew Rosenberg – nytimes.com
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 15 — Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans. Getting talks started with the Taliban has been a major …
Taliban linked Jundallah Owns Sectarian Killings in Pakistan’s NorthBBC.Com
Gunmen have killed at least 18 Shia Muslim bus passengers in a sectarian attack in the northern Pakistani district of Kohistan, officials say. The attackers are reported to have checked the identity cards of all the passengers before removing the Shias and shooting them. About 27 other passengers on the bus were spared. Meanwhile, a Chinese woman was shot dead …
`Balochistan Situation Needs Urgent Attention’:Senator Afrasiab Khattak
QUETTA: The Functional Committee of Senate on Human Rights has rejected a report presented by the Provincial Home Department over law and order situation and human rights violations in Balochistan. The committee expressed serious concerns over the recovery of mutilated bodies of missing persons, targeted killing of labourers, doctors, teachers and an increasing number of kidnappings for ransom in the …
US officials meet Taliban negotiators in Qatar
KABUL, Jan 28 — Several Taliban negotiators have begun meeting with American officials in Qatar, where they are discussing preliminary trust-building measures, including a possible prisoner transfer, several former Taliban officials said Saturday. The former officials said that four to eight Taliban representatives had traveled to Qatar from Pakistan to set up a political office for the exiled Afghan insurgent …
The Human Intel that led to Bin Laden’s HideoutUS Defense Secretary Urges Release of Pak Abettor
WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has urged Islamabad to release a Pakistani physician who helped the United States find Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 2 last year. In an interview for an episode of “60 Minutes”, a programme run by the Colombia Broadcasting Service (CBS), Mr Panetta acknowledged that the doctor provided vital clues to the United …
Commission Fails to Pin Responsibility in Journalist Murder CaseThe Express Tribune
Karachi, Jan 14: That the judicial commission’s report on Saleem Shahzad’s murder is inconclusive should not be surprising, experts say. Its shortcoming lies in its very foundation – the formation of a ‘judicial panel’ to investigate a murder. The judicial commission’s failure to point out the murderers of journalist Saleem Shahzad was expected, said Coordinator of the Committee to Protect …
Remembering Saleem Shahzad – Tribute to a slain colleagueBy the Author
It was Saleem Shahzad’s dedication to investigative reporting and his fascination for the crime-beat that foremost stands out in my memory. Come evening and the slender young man, then working for the affiliate Star newspaper, would enter the Dawn reporters room to compare notes with the crime reporter. His style was single-minded and purposeful – rechecking facts to supplement hours …
Swat Operation – Back to the FutureBy the Author (Excerpt from ATDT Pgs 208-211)
By the time Zardari took over as president, the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariati- Mohammedi (TNSM) had established a parallel Taliban state in parts of Malakand division where it ostensibly practiced Nizam-i-Adl (Order of Justice: essentially Sharia law). Awami National Party’s Senator Afrasiab Khattak told me that his new government was taken aback to find it had inherited an ill-trained, ill-equipped police force that …
‘Terrorism Declines in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’ – Security ReportViolence Distributed Across Country - Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies
The 11 percent downturn in overall incidents of violence and terrorism in 2010 does not suggest that the security situation in Pakistan has improved. This declining trend in violence would be short-lived in absence of a comprehensive, all-inclusive and long-term counter-terrorism strategy. It is imperative that the government also takes into account the political, socio-cultural and developmental initiatives in addition …
‘Pakistan Deadliest Country for Journalists for a Second Year’Committee to Protect Journalists - Year End Report
NEW YORK: Pakistan remained the deadliest country for the press for a second year, while across the world coverage of political unrest proved unusually dangerous in 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its year-end survey of journalist fatalities. CPJ’s analysis found notable shifts from historical data: Targeted murders declined while deaths during dangerous assignments such as the coverage …
‘Intelligence had prior information about BB murder plot’ – LetterAzaz Syed - Dawn.com
ISLAMABAD: Exactly four years after the brutal assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a letter of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), country’s top intelligence outfit, has revealed that the extremists groups related to al Qaeda have had their plan to assassinate Benazir Bhutto six days earlier then 27th of December 2007 the day when Miss Bhutto was assassinated, copy of the letter available …
Four Years on – Benazir’s Murder Remains MysteryExcerpt from ATDT
The Rawalpindi Conspiracy
Islamabad, in which Benazir Bhutto twice took oath as Prime Minister, had during her exile moved firmly into the U.S. orbit of influence. It looked nothing like the provincial capital I had visited in 1991 or even 2001. Instead by toward the end of the decade it had become a cosmopolitan city where big money and an entrenched mafia had …
Afghan President Blames Pak based LEJ for Kabul BlastPakistan Demands Evidence for Claim
AFP
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai Wednesday blamed the the sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) for a bomb at a Kabul shrine which killed 55 people, demanding justice from Pakistan, his spokesman said. The comments are likely to antagonise further already tense relations with Islamabad, which boycotted Monday’s Bonn conference on the future of Afghanistan following NATO air strikes that killed …
Clash Between NATO and Pakistani Troops DefusedBy Rod Nordland (The New York Times)
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 30 — A cross-border incident involving NATO and Pakistani forces was quickly defused early on Wednesday with no loss of life, according to Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the spokesman for the American-led international coalition here. Few details of the incident were immediately available but it apparently involved heavy artillery fire across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Afghanistan’s Paktika …
North Waziristan Militant Hafiz Gul Bahadur Threatens IslamabadReuters
MIRAMSHAH: The most powerful militant leader in Pakistan’s North Waziristan border region has threatened to tear up a peace accord and turn his fighters against the Islamabad government. Hafiz Gul Bahadur has an unofficial non-aggression pact with the military. Pakistan can’t afford new militant enemies. The army’s hands are full with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, blamed …
Three Hindus killed in Pakistan this WeekNov 08, Khaleej Times online
Three members of the minority Hindu community were killed when unidentified persons attacked a village in Sindh province of southern Pakistan on Monday, officials said. Another Hindu was seriously injured in the attack at Taluka Chak in Shikarpur district. President Asif Ali Zardari took “serious note” of the attack on members of the Hindu community and directed authorities to immediately …
Fight Hard, Talk HardThe End Game in Afghanistan
By ATDT Author
It is an axiom that Americans work hard and play hard. What is less known, and at times baffling, are US moves that entail crushing the enemy on the battle field while engaging with its high profile leaders in private. This fight hard, talk hard strategy – designed to do whatever it takes to succeed, is the hall-mark of a …