TTP has claimed responsibility for the murder of a Chinese woman who was visiting a market in Peshawar. The reasoning given by Taliban spokesman Muhammad Afridi should send a wake up call. “Our comrades carried out the attack in Peshawar which killed the Chinese tourist,” Muhammad Afridi, a spokesman for a faction of the Pakistani [...]
One day, a scorpion was sitting on the edge of a stream looking to the other side when a frog came swimming by. “Mr Frog, please, I beg of you to let me ride on your back as I must cross to the other side of this stream, but, being a scorpion, I cannot swim.” [...]
The recent NATO airstrike on two Pakistani military outposts near the village of Salala have triggered yet another flash point in U.S.-Pakistani relations. Officials in Islamabad have reportedly confirmed that at least 25 Pakistani soldiers were killed by strikes that involved both NATO helicopter gunships and fighter jets. The cross-border incident has already claimed its [...]
Events of this week should leave no doubts that the war against terrorism is Pakistan’s war as much or even more than it is the west’s. So what are we going to do about it? Even though I basically agree with Imran Khan’s assessment that terrorism cannot be defeated by bombing it, I also think [...]
An article in the news magazine The Atlantic terms Pakistan as America’s ‘ally from hell‘. The immediate reaction to such a headline is unavoidably, ‘right back at you’. But let’s rise above such petty name-calling and consider some of the claims that are made in Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder’s explosive (sorry, couldn’t resist) article. [...]
Imran Khan may be getting his wish for American troops pull out of Afghanistan sooner than he thought. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Obama is exploring ways to withdraw US troops ahead of the 2014 deadline. The Obama administration is exploring a shift in the military’s mission in Afghanistan to [...]
Another suicide car bomb attack targeted security forces in DHA Karachi today. This is just the latest in the increasingly brazen attacks by Taliban militants. Soon after, Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan called the media and vowed the attacks would continue. Meanwhile, the Americans are growing tired of the double games being played by GHQ. It’s [...]
When people discuss the ‘Dark Ages’, they are usually referring to a historical period in Europe after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. This period is considered to be a period when Europe moved backwards from what was once its great height of political, cultural, and economic achievement. Today, Pakistan, once a part of [...]
A new report in a British newspaper terms Pakistan ‘incapable’ of prosecuting terrorists. The report makes this claim based on a new US State Department report, so it is sure to be dismissed as evidence of American anti-Pakistan propaganda. But we should take this claim seriously, not because the Americans are saying it, but because [...]
A common slogan of right-wing groups is that if the Americans leave, everything will get better. It’s a seductive thought because it gives such an easy solution. If only the Americans would leave, they would take all of our problems with them. But there’s one part of Pakistan where the problems of violence and killing [...]