Vladimir Putin “We discussed this important issue yesterday over a beer...”
Barack OBAMA “You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt...”
By Zahid U Kramet LAHORE – There was hope but no great expectations for the dialogue between India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi on July 15. And so the headline of a major English-language Pakistan daily read, “They talked but said nothing” – an outcome which proved [...]
By Rahimullah Yusufzai: The desperate American idea of raising village militias to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan is reportedly being opposed by President Hamid Karzai at a time when Pakistan is suffering from the consequences of this policy. The brutal bombings in Ekkaghund town in the tribal region of Mohmand Agency on July 9 in [...]
By Robert D. Blackwill: The Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan seems headed for failure. Given the alternatives, de facto partition of Afghanistan is the best policy option available to the United States and its allies. After the administration’s December Afghanistan review, the U.S. polity should stop talking about timelines and exit strategies and accept [...]
By Salman Masood, and Alan Cowell: In the latest twist in a murky tale, Pakistan said that an Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran maintains was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency had taken refuge in a section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington that deals with Iranian interests. Iranian officials were “making arrangements for his [...]
By Gareth Porter: United States officials are explaining Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri’s return to Iran as the result of a defector having a change of heart because of his concern about Iranian government threats to his family. Iran and Amiri himself have insisted that it is a simple case of a victim of abduction escaping [...]
By Syed Saleem Shahzad One chapter in the Afghan war came to an end with the killing in May of al-Qaeda’s number three and Afghan operations chief Mustafa Abu al-Yazid in a drone attack in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area. The appointment of a new commander, Egyptian Sheikh Fateh al-Misri, previously not an al-Qaeda member [...]
News flash: A suicide attack outside the office of a senior government official in Pakistan’s northwest has killed up to 62 people and wounded at least 107 more, government and hospital officials say. Rasool Khan, the region’s assistant political agent, said two bombers struck on Friday after people had gathered around his office, in the [...]
By Brian Cloughly: A paper published on June 13 by the London School of Economics states that Pakistan, at the highest political and military levels, fosters and supports insurgents in Afghanistan. Its author, Matt Waldman of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, declares that “as the provider of sanctuary, and very substantial financial, military and logistical [...]
By Kuldip Nayar: Before the Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in 1979, I used to visit Kabul regularly. I found President Mohammad Daud a fatherly figure who had no idea of what was happening in his country. Even otherwise, he was dependent on warlords, a pattern which has not changed since. But he was not aware [...]
By David Barno: When I stepped off a C-130 turboprop at Kabul airport in October 2003 to begin 19 months in command of coalition forces, Afghanistan was already famed as the graveyard of empires. Here was a nation hostile to invaders, with a population widely regarded as xenophobic fundamentalist Muslims. I was prepared to find [...]
MOROCCO: 20th February “Movement of change”
Pakistan all set to start with a win against Kenya
TTP releases video of Colonel Imam’s killing
Immediate military withdrawal ordered in Bahrain
40 UK arms export licenses revoked for Bahrain
Bahrain sets up “Unity Alliance” amid violent uprisings:
Dark clouds hover over Pakistan amid internal and external pressure