News/Pakistan/Afghanistan

  Relatives attend the funeral of Pakistani soldier Iftikhar Khalil, who was killed in an attack on a military checkpost in Kurram Agency, near Peshawar, yesterday. PESHAWAR: Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and three others wounded in a Tal...

BRUSSELS: The Nato military commanders will beef up security measures to prevent insurgents from infiltrating the Afghan army after French troops were killed by a renegade soldier, the alliance chief said yesterday. Nato defence ministers endorsed a...

  Afghan commuters make their way down a street during snowfall in Kabul yesterday. Heavy snowfall and avalanches kill scores of people in Afghanistan each winter. In 2010, avalanches killed more than 150 people in the high-altitude Salang pass t...

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar yesterday apprised the Senate that at present 118 Pakistani missions are working in 86 countries and there is no proposal under consideration to open new embassies. Replying to questions during question-...

Kabul: Sitting cross-legged on a blood-red Afghan carpet in a house perched on a Kabul hillside, the bearded man gazes out across the sprawling city where he was once one of the most feared men in town. Now, Maulavi Qalamuddin, former chief of the T...

  PESHAWAR: A car bomb attack targeting an anti-militant tribal elder killed three people yesterday and wounded seven others in the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said. The attack outside the residence of the tribal elder Aastana Gul in the...

BRUSSELS/KABUL: The United States took Kabul by surprise by laying out plans to end its Afghan combat role earlier than expected, just after the leak of a secret report that the Taliban is confident of regaining control of the country. US Defence Se...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court yesterday summoned Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to appear on February 13 to be indicted with contempt over his refusal to pursue corruption cases against the president. It was a shock announcement in a long-run...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said yesterday that it was willing to do whatever Afghans wanted to end 10 years of war with the Taliban, but insisted the process should not be led by the Americans or any other foreign power. A day after talks with President Ha...

PARIS: French forces have withdrawn from a forward operating base in Afghanistan where four French servicemen were shot dead by a renegade Afghan soldier last month, the general staff said yesterday. The base in Gwan, in the south of Kapisa province...

KARACHI: Pakistan has closed at least temporarily a pharmaceutical factory accused of manufacturing medicine suspected to have killed more than 100 heart patients, an official said yesterday. "We recovered raw material weighing 48 kilograms used for...

KABUL: The US military said in a secret report the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after Nato-led forces withdraw from the country, raising the prospect of a major failure of western policy after a costly war. L...

  Protesters torch an effigy of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during a demonstration in Multan against hike in petroleum prices. Pakistan’s Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has increased petroleum products prices by five pe...

KABUL: Pakistan said yesterday that it had no hidden agenda in Afghanistan, following top-level talks in Kabul after a Nato report accused Islamabad of secretly aiding Taliban insurgents. “We have no hidden agenda in Afghanistan,” Foreign Minist...

KABUL: The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan yesterday denied that they would soon hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government in Saudi Arabia. “There is no truth in these published reports saying that th...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police said yesterday that they were investigating how and why a parcel containing anthrax was sent to the prime minister’s official residence in the capital Islamabad last month. It appeared to be the first reported case of a...

  QUETTA: Baluch rebels attacked Pakistani security forces overnight, killing at least 11 soldiers and wounding another 12 in clashes that raged for five hours, officials said yesterday. Gunmen attacked two posts in the Margut area, about 60 kilom...

  An Afghan specialist displays an ancient pre-Islamic sculpture which Germany returned to Afghanistan at the Afghan National Museum in Kabul yesterday. KABUL: Germany this week returned an ancient pre-Islamic sculpture looted during Afghanistan...

PESHAWAR: Dozens of heavily armed Taliban militants attacked a Pakistani military post yesterday, sparking clashes that killed eight soldiers and wounded another 15, the military said. Helicopter gunships were mobilised when the fighting broke out i...

  KARACHI: At least 10 people have been killed in a renewed wave of sectarian and ethnic killings by criminal gangs in Pakistan’s financial capital of Karachi, police said Tuesday. The victims included the wife of a lawmaker from southwestern ...

KABUL: Eight out of  10 Afghans do not believe their police force is ready to take charge of law and order, a United Nations report showed on Tuesday, underscoring worries about the pace of transition to Afghan security control. While many Afghans ...

  ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on yesterday acknowledged “tactical advantages” to US drone strikes on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, but appeared to shrug off the unexpected confirmation by Washington of attacks on its soil. The remarks from Pakistan’s fo...

KABUL: Afghanistan will press Pakistan for access to Taliban leaders during a one-day visit to Kabul by Pakistan’s foreign minister, with Afghan officials hoping to ease cross-border strains and lay the ground for peace negotiations with the insurg...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court yesterday further eased tension in the country’s worst crisis in civilian-military ties since a 1999 coup by lifting a travel ban on a former envoy to Washington, who angered the generals after the emergence of...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani investigators and lawyers will visit India next month to gather more evidence for the prosecution of seven suspects linked to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, reports said yesterday. Pakistan indicted seven alleged perpetrators over the...

PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber killed an Islamist militant commander in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar yesterday, along with at least three other people, police said. The attack damaged a house that the target, Haji Akhunzada, was building i...

Islamabad: A Pakistani billionaire, kidnapped from Lahore Saturday and tortured, has been found, a media report said yesterday. Syed Feroze Hassan was found dumped near a village. The billionaire, who owns the Nazir Paper Mills, had been seized fo...

  KUNDUZ: An Afghan man killed his wife for giving birth to a third daughter rather than the son he hoped for, police in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province said yesterday. The victim, 28, known by the one name of Storai, was strangled by her...

  ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s embattled prime minister yesterday defended himself against contempt charges before the Supreme Court, refusing to back down in a case that could see him disqualified from office if convicted. It is only the second time...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former dictator Pervez Musharraf came under mounting pressure yesterday to delay his return from exile as he admitted that he would be in danger if he goes back to the crisis-ridden country. Friends and supporters advised Mus...