Pakistan’s envoy to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who went missing in February, appeared on Saturday in a video aired by al-Arabiya news channel in which he said that he was held by the Taliban. ”We were on our way to Afghanistan in our official car on February 11 when we were kidnapped,” said Azizuddin.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday maintained Russian opposition to a United States missile defence system and Nato’s enlargement during talks with alliance leaders, officials said. No progress was reported from the summit but Putin, in his last major international appearance before stepping down in May, and Nato leaders said the talks had been positive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday started a tense summit with Nato leaders amid mounting tensions over United States anti-missile defence plans and the alliance’s expansion toward Russian territory. In a rare moment of cooperation, Russia and Nato concluded a deal on land transit for non-military freight to Afghanistan.
The head of the main United States spy agency has warned that al-Qaeda is training operatives who ”look Western” and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks. Central Intelligence Agency Director General Michael Hayden said the terror network has shed its operational reliance on mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The new United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, arrived in Kabul on Friday with a pledge to improve coordination with President Hamid Karzai’s government. ”The Afghan government has asked for that for a very long time and we have to respond in a better way than we have managed so far,” said Eide.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday declared the birth of an Anglo-French axis as a force for progress in Europe and the world, on issues ranging from climate change and nuclear power to United Nations reform and the war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s new prime minister was sworn in by President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday as two senior United States envoys arrived for talks aimed at shoring up Islamabad’s role in the ”war on terror”.
Pakistan’s new prime minister triggered an immediate showdown with Pervez Musharraf on Monday, ordering the release of judges detained by the president just moments after being elected. Musharraf had ordered the judges held in November amid fears they might challenge his grip on power in the nuclear-armed nation.
Islamic militants in a Pakistani border town blew up 36 tankers supplying fuel for United States and Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, wounding up to 100 people, officials said on Monday. The rebels late on Sunday destroyed the tankers that were parked in Landikotal, the main town of the troubled Khyber tribal district.
Pakistan’s Parliament prepared on Monday to elect a new prime minister as the coalition government appeared set for a confrontation with key United States ally President Pervez Musharraf. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the candidate nominated by the party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, is a virtual certainty to win.
United States-led coalition troops killed three men, two children and a woman, in a raid in south-eastern Afghanistan, the district chief and village residents said on Wednesday. The issue of civilian casualties is a sensitive one as it undermines public support for the presence of foreign troops.
A suicide car bomber killed eight Afghan civilians in an attack on United States troops near the airport in Afghanistan’s capital on Thursday, a Nato spokesperson said. Thirty-five civilians were wounded in the attack, but the four US soldiers inside the two vehicles targeted suffered only minor cuts and bruises.
Two suicide attacks killed at least 31 people and injured more than 200 in Lahore on Tuesday as suspected Islamist militants escalated their campaign of mayhem in Pakistan’s largest cities. The bombs were the latest in a string of attacks against military and police targets in Lahore, the previously peaceful capital of Punjab province.
Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women’s Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide. The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia.
Pakistani tribesmen on Monday buried the last of the 43 people killed in a suicide bomb attack at a meeting of tribal elders discussing how to tackle al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
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/ 29 February 2008
A suicide bomber killed at least 40 people at a funeral of a policeman in the Swat district of Pakistan, days after the Pakistan army said it had begun to bring the mountainous region under control. Another suicide bomber rammed his car into a vehicle carrying paramilitary forces in the north-western tribal region, killing one civilian and wounding 17 others.
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/ 29 February 2008
Army commanders were making frantic arrangements on Thursday night to bring Prince Harry back from Afghanistan after an American website disclosed that he had been serving with other British troops fighting the Taliban. The prince, who is 10 weeks into a 14-week tour, was believed to still be in the country on Thursday night among British soldiers in the southern Helmand province.
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/ 18 February 2008
Vote counting got under way on Monday after a lacklustre turnout in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections, which passed off relatively peacefully despite fears of sabotage by Islamic militants. With his future hanging in the balance, President Pervez Musharraf resolved to work with the new civilian government.
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/ 18 February 2008
A suicide bomber targeting a military convoy in Afghanistan killed 35 people in an attack near the Pakistan border on Monday. The attack, a day after more than 100 people were killed in the deadliest suicide raid since 2001, comes as some Western politicians call for a stronger resolve to stop Afghanistan sliding back into anarchy.
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/ 18 February 2008
Fears of violence overshadowed Pakistan’s general election on Monday with 80Â 000 troops backing up police to watch over a vote that could return a Parliament set on driving President Pervez Musharraf from office. Musharraf has lost much popularity over the past year because of his manoeuvres to hold on to power which included a clash with the judiciary.
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/ 17 February 2008
A suicide bomber killed more than 80 people at a picnic spot in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Sunday in the most deadly attack since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, the government said. The attack will add urgency to a debate about how the United States and Afghanistan’s other allies can help stem militant violence and promote stability.
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/ 17 February 2008
At least 60 people were killed by an explosion at a picnic spot near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, witnesses and officials said. The cause of the blast in the western outskirts of Kandahar was not known immediately. Some people were also wounded by the explosion which went off at a location where spectators were watching dogs fight.
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/ 16 February 2008
Two-thirds of the Taliban-led insurgents in Afghanistan can be persuaded to abandon violence, according to a British aid worker expelled from the country for opening talks with some of those allied to the militant group. Michael Semple said he was confident that most Taliban-linked insurgents could be absorbed into Afghanistan’s reconciliation process.
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/ 12 February 2008
Pakistani security forces wounded and captured a prominent Taliban commander on Monday near the border area with Afghanistan. Mullah Mansour Dadullah took over as commander of Taliban forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed by British forces in May.
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/ 9 February 2008
To chants of ”Democracy is the best revenge”, tens of thousands of Benazir Bhutto’s followers rallied in southern Pakistan on Saturday as her party relaunched an election campaign derailed by her assassination. About 2Â 000 police and hundreds of private armed security guards from Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party secured the venue.
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/ 8 February 2008
German authorities have learnt that al-Qaeda is preparing to carry out attacks in Germany, a senior official said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper on Friday. The Secretary of State in the Interior Ministry, August Hanning, said al-Qaeda leaders based in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan have ”decided to carry out attacks in Germany”.
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/ 8 February 2008
John McCain effectively secured the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday when his main rival, Mitt Romney, near to tears, dropped out of the race. Only one person now stands between McCain and the United States presidency: the Democratic choice for the November election.
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/ 7 February 2008
Tens of thousands of people beat their chests in anguish at Benazir Bhutto’s tomb on Thursday as they marked the end of 40 days of mourning for the slain opposition leader. The solemn Muslim ceremonies at the family mausoleum in southern Pakistan marked the start of campaigning by her Pakistan People’s Party for elections on February 18.
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/ 6 February 2008
Pakistani Taliban fighters announced a ceasefire on Wednesday after months of clashes with security forces and suicide attacks across the north-west of the country. But a military spokesperson said that while fighting had died down no truce had been agreed.
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/ 1 February 2008
A top al-Qaeda commander who led Osama bin Laden’s terror network in Afghanistan was believed to have been killed when a missile fired by a United States drone hit his Pakistani hideout, officials said on Friday. Abu Laith al-Libi is said to be one of bin Laden’s key lieutenants.
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/ 31 January 2008
A suicide bomber targeted an Afghan army bus in the centre of Kabul on Thursday, causing numerous casualties, officials said. One civilian was killed and four people were wounded, including an army officer, they said. A purported Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said one of the militant group’s suicide bombers was responsible for the blast.
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/ 29 January 2008
Twelve suspected militants were killed by a missile strike in Pakistan’s troubled tribal belt, hours after gunmen held 300 children hostage at a nearby school, officials said on Tuesday. Separately, a Pakistani soldier was killed and five others injured in the latest clashes between security forces and Islamist insurgents in the lawless borderlands with Afghanistan.