Ben SheppardIf the Taliban sit down with the US and Afghan governments, it will be the latest radical transformation of a movement often seen as a symbol of oppression, violence and religious extremism.The Taliban emerged in the 1990s, garnering support in Afghanistan by bringing order to rural ...

Washington - Pakistan likely played a crucial role in persuading a reluctant Taliban to enter into tentative peace talks with its American and Afghan government foes, experts said here.For more than two years, the United States has been promoting the idea of negotiations free of preconditions with ...

KABUL - Afghanistan’s president has disrupted plans for peace talks between America and the Taliban by threatening a boycott.Hamid Karzai said he will not meet the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations and the militant group stops its violent attacks on the ...

WASHINGTON- United States envoys will meet with Taliban representatives within days, senior officials said on Tuesday, after the Afghan militants opened an office in Qatar to oversee peace negotiations. US-led Nato forces are still fighting Taliban guerrillas on the Afghan battlefield, but the ...

KABUL - Afghanistan will send a team to Qatar for peace talks with the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday, as the US-led Nato coalition launched the final phase of the 12-year war with the last round of security transfers to Afghan forces.Karzai's announcement was the first possible ...

DOHA - A Taliban office, touted as a tool to help facilitate talks between the militants and the Afghan government, will open on Tuesday in Doha, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television reported.Al-Jazeera cited anonymous sources for its Monday report and gave no further details but a Taliban ...

One of the most important tasks awaiting Mian Nawaz Sharif after his election as the Prime Minister is the handling of the issue of the Taliban, which has serious implications for both Pakistan’s internal peace and stability, as well as for its external relations. Internally, the wave of ...

KABUL- Taliban insurgents on Monday launched a grenade and gun attack on Kabul airport, firing on military facilities before being overwhelmed in an operation hailed as a victory for Afghan security forces.Two suicide bombers blew themselves up and all five other attackers were killed when elite ...

The AfPak Region (APR) is anticipating massive change. All regional players, to include the allies (US, Afghanistan and Pakistan) and the Taliban (al-Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, TTP and other affiliates), are trying to mould the emerging strategic environment to suit their respective interests. The ...

KABUL- The Taliban Friday denied any involvement in a deadly suicide attack on International Committee of the Red Cross offices that prompted the organisation to halt staff movement across Afghanistan.The two-hour assault in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, which left one Afghan guard ...

Clash between Taliban militants and pro-government villagers in Andar district of Ghazni province, 125 km south of Kabul, has left 31 Taliban fighters dead on Friday."Taliban militants raided three villages in Andar district at 01:00 a.m. local time and we resisted. The gun battle lasted for six ...

PESHAWAR - A US drone strike killed the number two of the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan region on Wednesday, security officials said, in what would be a major blow in the fight against militancy.The drone strike killed seven people, three Pakistani security officials said, including ...

PESHAWAR -  The Pakistani Taliban on Sunday issued a fresh threat to assassinate former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who is currently facing a barrage of legal cases in police custody.The retired general has been detained in his farmhouse on the edge of the capital Islamabad since April 19 ...

Fifteen Taliban militants were killed as clash erupted in Purchaman district of Farah province 695 km west of Kabul on Sunday, a local official said."A group of Taliban insurgents were preparing to storm the headquarters of Purchaman district this morning but the police force acting upon ...

KABUL -Explosions and gunfire rocked central Kabul Friday as the Taliban launched a major attack close to an Afghan intelligence facility and the headquarters of a government force that protects foreign firms.Smoke rose from the site of at least one suicide car blast that started the coordinated ...

QUETTA - At least twelve personnel of Balochistan Constabulary (BC) and a civilian were killed while 18 others sustained injuries in a deadly remote controlled bomb attack in Quetta, on Thursday morning.Police officials said, a coaster-van carrying around 25 personnel of Balochistan ...

ISLAMABAD - US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson said holding of dialogue with Taliban is prerogative of the Pakistani government.Talking to media in Islamabad on Wednesday, Olson said any reservations regarding these proposed talks will depend on terms and conditions of the dialogue with ...

The US has said it is too early to comment on Pakistani Taliban’s peace talks offer to Prime Minister-designate Nawaz Sharif.“It would be premature for us to comment on any potential negotiations,” a State Department spokesperson told PTI when asked about peace talks offered by ...

US ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson said holding dialogue with Taliban is prerogative of Pakistani government.Talking to media here on Wednesday, Olson said holding dialogue with Taliban is prerogative of Pakistani government. However‚ he said‚ any reservations regarding these ...

  lahore Incoming prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said that his government is inheriting massive problems from the last government yet it is determined to complete in months the tasks that otherwise would require years. Without giving any specific deadline to overcome the energy crisis, the ...

LAHORE - The secret agencies have flaws in their frame of work and the ongoing terrorism could not be curbed due to the government’s fragility. These views were expressed by ex-DG FIA and interim Punjab Home Minister Tariq Pervaiz in an interview published in the latest edition of Family ...

One of the daunting challenges that Mian Nawaz Sharif would be confronted with, soon after taking the reins of government as Prime Minister, would be how to deal with the Pakistani Taliban and their counterparts in Afghanistan. During his election campaign, he did offer peace to the TTP who had ...

KABUL  - The Taliban Sunday freed four of eight Turkish engineers taken hostage last month after their helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Afghan officials announced.The engineers were in good health and the other captives would also be ...

ISLAMABAD - The Taliban have sent suicide bombers to mount election-day attacks on Pakistan's historic polls, a militant commander said on Thursday, following a bloody campaign which has claimed more than 100 lives.Saturday's vote will be a democratic milestone in a country but the Pakistani ...

The Taliban have sent suicide bombers to mount election-day attacks on Pakistan's historic polls, a militant commander said Thursday, following a bloody campaign which has claimed more than 100 lives.Saturday's vote will be a democratic milestone in a country ruled for half its history by the ...

islamabad - A child has contracted polio for the first time in Pakistan's militant-infested tribal belt since the Taliban banned vaccinations a year ago, a UN official said on Monday."The new case has been detected in North Waziristan where we had been denied access in June last year," the World ...

The stereotypical Afghan woman is still very much alive and struggling to survive, every single, often painful, step of the way towards what increasingly looks like a return to a hefty measure of Talibanisation. That, frankly speaking, will make very little difference for rural women at all, ...

Karachi - Awami National Party (ANP) candidate Sadiq Zaman Khattak, contesting for NA-254 Karachi, was gunned down along with his four-year-old son by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Bilal Colony on Friday.Following the killing, the Election Commission postponed polls in the constituency while ...

lahore/karachi - PPP leader Senator Rehman Malik has said that pro-Taliban forces want to keep PPP and other liberal forces away from the elections. He called upon the Election Commission of Pakistan to take action against the parties who were violating the election code of conduct. Addressing ...

KARACHI  -  Allama Hassan Zafar Naqvi, central spokesman for Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, has said that his party wants to make Pakistan a strong, viable and prosperous welfare state. He said that the survival of the country was linked to freedom from the US and Taliban. He was addressing ...