An Afghan insurgent warlord branded Britain's Prince Harry on Wednesday as a shameless, drunken "jackal" out to kill innocent Afghans while on duty as an attack helicopter pilot for NATO forces in the country. ...
04:26 AM, Jan 03, 2013
Deep inside caves, in remote desert bases, in the escarpments and cliff faces of northern Mali, Islamic fighters are burrowing into the earth, erecting a formidable set of defenses to protect what has essentially become Al Qaeda's new country. ...
09:01 AM, Jan 01, 2013
Pakistan saw the highest number of journalists losing their lives in South Asia with 13 of them dying in the line of duty, followed by India with five among a total of 25 mediapersons falling victim to violence. "In 2012, South Asia, the most volatile region, mourned the murder of 25 media persons, with Pakistan again remaining in the lead. 13 journalists lost their lives in Pakistan, followed by five...
07:54 PM, Dec 30, 2012
The head of Pakistan's Taliban said his militia is willing to negotiate with the government but not disarm, a message delivered in a video given to Reuters on Friday. The release of the 40-minute video follows three high-profile Taliban attacks in the northern city of Peshawar this month - an attack by multiple suicide bombers on the airport, the killing of a senior politician and eight others in a bombing...
08:44 PM, Dec 28, 2012
A suicide bomber killed three people in an attack on a US base in Afghanistan on December 26, the same base that is believed to be used by the CIA and which a suicide bomber attacked three years ago killing seven CIA employees. The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the eastern town of Khost, saying they had sent a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives...
03:55 PM, Dec 26, 2012
An Afghan policewoman walked into a high-security compound in Kabul Monday and killed an American contractor with a single bullet to the chest, the first such shooting by a woman in a spate of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies. ...
02:40 AM, Dec 25, 2012
An Afghan police official says an Afghan policewoman on Monday killed an American adviser at the Kabul police headquarters. Kabul's Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Daoud Amin says an investigation is underway to determine whether the killing was intentional or accidental. ...
12:41 PM, Dec 24, 2012
Prince Harry who is an RAF helicopter pilot deployed in Afghanistan, has killed a Taliban leader in an airstrike, notching up his first 'kill', British media reported on Sunday. The 27-year-old, the third in line to the British throne, was called in to provide air support to troops tracking a commander-level Taliban chief and hit the target with a 100 lb Hellfire missile fired from an Apache helicopter. ...
03:22 AM, Dec 24, 2012
Pakistan's powerful army chief has made reconciling warring factions in Afghanistan a top priority, military officials and Western diplomats say, the newest and clearest sign yet that Islamabad means business in promoting peace with the Taliban. General Ashfaq Kayani is backing dialogue partly due to fears that the end of the US combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014 could energise a resilient insurgency straddling the shared frontier, according to commanders...
01:35 PM, Dec 23, 2012
Seattle: The US Army said on Wednesday it will seek the death penalty against the soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a predawn rampage in March, a decision his lawyer called "totally irresponsible." The announcement followed a pretrial hearing in November for Staff Sgt Robert Bales, 39, who faces premeditated murder and other charges in the attack on two villages in southern Afghanistan. The slayings drew such angry...
02:47 AM, Dec 20, 2012
London: Britain will withdraw 3,800 troops, almost half of the current force serving in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province, by the end of 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron announced today. Cameron told the Parliament that 3,800 British troops are to be withdrawn from Afghanistan next year. Troop numbers are already being reduced from 9,500 to 9,000 before Christmas. And numbers would fall to about 5,200 by the end of 2013, Cameron...
09:25 PM, Dec 19, 2012
Washington: The Pentagon has notified the Congress about its decision to reimburse $688 million to Pakistan, under Coalition Support Fund (CSF), which is cost of providing support for some 140,000 troops stationed at the Afghan-Pak border. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, notified the Congress of its decision of the US Department of Defence in a letter dated December 6, 2012, a Pentagon official said. "In making this determination, I find...
12:05 PM, Dec 19, 2012
Kabul: Ten young girls were killed when a bomb exploded as they were gathering firewood outside their village in eastern Afghanistan on Monday morning, an official said. It was not clear what triggered the explosion outside Dawlatzai village in Nangarhar province's Chaperhar district, said Mohammad Seddiq, the government administrator for the district. The girls ranged in age from 9 to 13 years old and all came from different families, he...
11:25 AM, Dec 17, 2012
New Delhi: Saying that extremism in Pakistan has its roots in jihad during the war between the then Soviet Union and Afghanistan, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Sunday said his country had brought down the frequency of suicide bombings. At an interaction organised by Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, Malik said extremism in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region started "when we decided to take part in jihad" during the war...
04:41 AM, Dec 17, 2012
Incirlik Air Base: The Pentagon says it will send Patriot air defense missiles and 400 troops to Turkey as part of a NATO force meant to protect Turkish territory from potential Syrian missile attack. Pentagon press secretary George Little said US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed a deployment order on Friday en route to Turkey from Afghanistan. The order calls for 400 US soldiers to operate two batteries of Patriots...
03:40 PM, Dec 14, 2012
Washington: Al Qaeda still represents the most important threat the United States faces across the world, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Friday. "We have significantly weakened their ability to do the kind of command and control and planning that would be necessary to conduct another 9/11 attack. At the same time, they still continue to threaten our country. And they still represent, I think, probably the most important threat...
10:51 AM, Dec 14, 2012
Islamabad/London: Amnesty International on Thursday accused the Pakistan Army of widespread human rights abuses in the country's restive tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, saying several laws were being misused in the fight against Taliban and other militants. In a new report titled "The hands of cruelty: Abuses by armed forces and Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas", the rights group said troops arbitrarily detained people for long periods without charge and with...
02:58 AM, Dec 14, 2012
Washington: Facebook has removed a page set up by the Pakistan Taliban, after a US monitoring group reported of its existence as a fresh example of a social media being used by terror groups to recruit new fighters. Earlier, the US-based SITE Intelligence Group said the Umar Media TTP page used Facebook as "a recruitment" tool and called attention to the Facebook page that belonged to Umar Media TTP, the...
03:47 PM, Dec 13, 2012
Washington: The Obama Administration should continue to "bet" on India, the prestigious Asia Society said in a report as it underlined that the US should take a fresh approach to South Asia to best position itself for success in the region after the 2014 military drawdown from Afghanistan. The report, running into more than 75 pages, offers new ideas on how to integrate competing US interests in South Asia, encourage...
04:41 PM, Dec 11, 2012
Washington: After being rescued in a daring military operation from Taliban captivity, an Indian American doctor who was involved in training local medical professionals in Afghanistan, is set to return home. Dilip Joseph's employers, Colorado-based Morning Star Development, insisted that it did not pay any ransom to the Taliban for the release of the doctor, who worked with it for the last three years and has been a frequent traveller...
12:51 PM, Dec 11, 2012
