Pakistan/Terrorism: 3 killed in suicide bombing attack

Three people were killed and 5 others were injured on Monday when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the city of Peshawar. Senior police officer Liaquat Ali Khan said the bomber, on a rickshaw, set off his explosives when police intercepted them for checking. "The attacker killed a police constable, the rickshaw driver and a passer-by."

Earlier on Sunday, 16 people were killed and 42 others were injured in another suicide bombing attack in the Adezai cattle market in Mathani area. Among the killed was UC Nazim Abdul Malik, who was once associated with the Taleban but had parted ways with them. SSP operations Abdul Karim declared the target of the attack was Malik. "The suicide bomber attacked the UC nazim soon after he came out of his car," said Karim. Malik was reportedly heading a strong local Lashkar against anti-social elements in the area.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Army brigadier, driver injured in drive-by shooting

A Pakistani Army brigadier and his driver have been injured in a drive-by shooting attack by gunmen on motorcycle early on Friday. "Two army officials, including one brigadier, were injured when unknown gunmen opened fire on their vehicle," said Doctor Nasir Ahmad. "Both have firearms injuries, but they are stable," he added. Police has declined to divulge information on the identity of the two men. A security official, on the condition of anonymity, informed that the brigadier is a military intelligence official. The incident is third such attack since mid-October – after the military launched an offensive against Tehrik-e-Taleban militants in South Waziristan.

Meanwhile, in the country’s Khyber district on Thursday, unknown islamist militants bombed a girls’ school. "Militants used 25 to 30 kilogrammes of explosives to blow up the two-storey school on the outskirts of Bara town,” said Farooq Khan, a local administration official. Islamist militants have destroyed at least 200 schools, most of which are girls' school, in recent years.

Pakistan/Terrorism: forces enter Taleban headquarters in Makeen

Pakistani military on Friday claimed that its forces have entered the Taleban headquarters of Makeen in South Waziristan. "Today security forces have entered Makeen. A large part of the town has been cleared," the army said, referring to Makeen as the "base headquarters of terrorists".

The army said soldiers have been advancing into the militant heartland from three directions and had entered the Taleban headquarters in the town of Makeen. A large part of the town had been cleared and the home of slain Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud had been demolished, the army said. A senior military official in the region said troops had met little resistance."Our troops are now clearing mines and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and moving forward," said the official, who declined to be identified.

The military said 21 militants had been killed in Makeen, where Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in an attack by a U.S. missile-firing drone aircraft in early August. The military's claim came hours after two motorcycle- borne gunmen shot and wounded Brig Suhail and his driver shortly after he left his home in Sector I-8/4 of Islamabad.

Pakistan/Terrorism: militants blow up girls school in Khyber

Militants blew up a girl's school in Pakistan's lawless Khyber district on Thursday. “Militants used 25 to 30 kilograms of explosives to blow up the two-storey school on the outskirts of Bara town,” local administration official Farooq Khan told reporters. He said the school had 26 rooms in all, including a science laboratory, adding that the explosion completely destroyed eight rooms. Another senior administration official Shafeer Ullah confirmed the incident.

The latest attack came four days after twin bombs ripped through an 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village in Khyber too, wounding four people in neighbouring homes. In recent years militants have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone during a two-year violent campaign by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah to enforce sharia law.

Pakistan has been fighting against militants in Khyber and pressing a major assault designed to crush Taleban sanctuaries in South Waziristan.

Pakistan/Iran/Terrorism: Islamabad arrests three suspects in Sistan-Baluchestan bombing

Pakistani intelligence officlals announced that security forces arrested three Iranians suspected of planning the suicide attack in Iran's southeastern region last month which killed 42 people. "They are Iranian Baluch and are suspected to be involved in the planning of the suicide bombing in Iran last month," an intelligence official told reporters on condition of anonymity. He gave no further details. Intelligence and paramilitary officials said the ethnic Baluch men were arrested by the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary troops in a raid on Thursday in Turbat, a district in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province on the Iranian border. The arrests came two weeks after Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar visited Islamabad to demand it hand over Abdolmalik Rigi, the militant group's leader. However, Pakistan says Rigi is in Afghanistan.

Tehran says the Sunni rebel group Jundollah (God's Soldiers), which has claimed responsibility for the Oct. 18 attack, operates from across the border in Pakistan. The attack in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province killed 15 Iranian Revolutionary Guards, including six senior commanders, and 27 others.

Pakistan/Terrorism: army kills 21 Taleban militants in South Waziristan

Pakistani army announced on Wednesday that it had killed 21 militants and taken control of Sararogha region from the Taleban in South Waziristan. The army said two suspected militants had also been arrested in the continuing offensive against militants that began in the region on 17 October.

“16 militants had been killed and two suspected militants arrested during the operation at Sararogha,” the Pakistani military said in a statement. “One soldier had been killed when a mine exploded during the operation,” the military said. Another five militants were killed during an operation in the Ghani Khel area, the army said.

In a separate incident, two women school teachers were killed Wednesday when armed militants ambushed their car in Pakistan's troubled tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Reportedly, the women were travelling from the school they taught at in Khar - the main town in the northwestern tribal district of Bajaur - when insurgents bearing automatic weapons sprayed the vehicle with bullets. "Two women teachers were killed and two men were injured in the firing by militants," administration official Adalat Khan told reporters.

France/Pakistan/Terrorism: French secret service doubt Islamist role in Karachi bomb blast

According to a source, close to the case investigating the bomb attack in Karachi that killed 11 French nationals in 2002, a French secret service documents have cast doubt on a theory that Islamist militants were responsible for the attack. "The documents, which are all top secret, show strong scepticism of the Al-Qaeda theory," the source said.

The source also said the magistrates had dropped an arrest warrant for a suspected Pakistani Islamist leader, Mati Ur Rehman, whom they had been seeking as part of the investigation. The French judges are studying the theory that the Pakistani soldiers ordered the attack after a dispute on the payment of commissions in Pakistan linked to the building of the submarine.

The documents related to the bombing were declassified in October. Two investigating judges asked for 40 documents to be declassified amid suspicion the attack was linked to shady defense deals, not a terrorist plot. The bombing killed 14 people, including 11 French naval engineers and technicians of a naval construction firm.

Pakistan/Terrorism: at least 22 killed in suicide bombing attack

At least 22 people, including military personnel, have been killed in a suicide bombing attack on Monday in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi. According to senior police official Aslam Tarin, the bomber detonated his explosives near a group of workers who were queuing up for their salaries at a bank in Mall Road. "The suicide bomber came on a motorcycle and blew up close to people gathered to get salaries. We found parts of a suicide vest and some body parts of the suicide attacker," he said. Rescue officer Nayyar Ali Babar said he also saw "a couple of dozen" other people who were injured in the blast. Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that 24 people were killed in the attack. In recent weeks, more that 300 people have been killed in sporadic attacks by Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists– which is considered a retaliatory action to the Army's offensive in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Also on Monday, the United Nations have announced their decision to relocate international staffs from the restive region. "They will be relocated immediately," said UN spokeswoman Ishrat Rizvi. "The decision has been taken bearing in mind the intense security situation in the region."

Iran/Pakistan/Security: Tehran arrests 6 Pakistani nationals for trespassing

Al Alam, a Tehran-based Arabic-language television news channel reported on Monday that Iranian authorities have arrested 6 Pakistani nationals for trespassing its territorial waters. The station quoted an official source – on the condition that it will keep its identity anonymous – who declined to divulge information on when and where the Pakistanis had been arrested.

Relation between the two nations has not been co-operative as Iran accuses Pakistan for supporting the Sunni Jundollah insurgent group that carried out a suicide bombing attack on October 18. It also accuses the United Kingdom and the United States for the same. At least 40 people, including senior commanders of the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guards, were killed in the attacked that occured in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, bordering Pakistan. Tehran has even asked Islamabad to hand over the leader of the Jundollah, or the People's Resistance Movement of Iran (PRMI), saying the group has its bases in Pakistan.

Pakistan/Terrorism: militants blow up school, clinic in Shahukhel

Suspected militants blew up a high school and a clinic in restive northwest Pakistan on Friday. “A 12-room state-run high school for boys and a clinic in Shahukhel village were turned to rubble by explosives planted by militants,” chief of Hangu district administration, Gul Wali Khan, said. There were no casualties because the buildings were empty, he said. Up to 80 kilograms of explosives were used, he added.

In the recent years militants have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone during a two-year violent campaign by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah to enforce sharia law.

Following a suicide attack on a university campus in Islamabad, authorities last week shut schools across Pakistan. Although most schools reopened on Monday, several private schools have remained closed this week.

Pakistan/Terrorism: 5 people arrested in Karachi for alleged terror activities

Pakistani police arrested five men who were attempting to set up a terror network in Karachi. “The men were attempting to set up a terror network in this sprawling city in southern Pakistan,” senior Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department Fiaz Khan said on Wednesday. Police said members of the alleged group have been trained in explosives from camps in the Waziristan region of northwest Pakistan. Police also said they seized two suicide jackets, five Kalashnikov rifles and more than a 100 kilograms of explosives from the men. One member confessed to recently being in the region and to planning attacks in Karachi. The five are still being questioned, police said.

At least 105 people have been killed  in a massive car bomb attack in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday. The blast, which occurred at a crowded market, also left more than 200 injured, destroyed several buildings including a mosque and caused a fire.

India/Pakistan/Security: PM denies New Delhi is linked to Taleban

(Christopher Brown/Polaris/Photo News)

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday denied Islamabad's allegations that New Delhi was backing the insurgency in Balochistan and the Taleban to destabilise Pakistan. "What was said about the Indian role in Balochistan has no basis. Those who are levelling these false charges know it jolly well," the prime minister told a news conference. "The same applies to the accusation of India supporting the Taliban. Nothing can be far fetched, far from the truth. We are victims of terrorism aided and abetted from the Pakistan side. Both references to Balochistan and what is said about Taliban are widely false," he said.

Singh made it clear on Thursday that he was not satisfied with the action taken by Islamabad against those who organised the Mumbai terror attack. "We are not satisfied. That goes without saying. We hope Pakistan will take effective measures to bring to justice all the perpetrators of 26/11," the prime minister told reporters.

Pakistan has admitted that terrorist groups based on its soil planned and masterminded the audacious attack on Mumbai in November last year that left some 170 people dead.

6 people killed in a terrorist attack in Peshawar

At least 6 people have been killed and 24 others were wounded when a explosion occured this Wednesday morning in a market in the city of Peshawar. The blast comes as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begins a visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan/Terrorism: blast in Peshawar, 50 killed

A car bomb has exploded in a crowded market in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 50 people and wounded more than 80. "At least 43 people have been killed and more than 80 were wounded," Hamid Afridi, the head of the main government-run hospital in Peshawar, has said. "We have declared an emergency in the hospital."

Police official Anwar Shah said the blast had been caused by a car bomb. "It was a huge bomb blast, heard in almost all the city," he said. The blast reportedly occurred at around 1pm (local time) in Peshawar’s Yadgar chowk in the crowded Meena Bazar area. As of now, there has been no official confirmation from the Pakistani authorities regarding actual causalities, but it is said that several persons have died in the blast and many have sustained serious injuries.

The explosion came just hours after Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, arrived in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, for talks with government officials. Pakistan is currently on high alert for terrorist attacks in response to the army's offensive against the Taleban in the South Waziristan area.

Pakistan/Terrorism: terrorists kill 6 Pakistani security officers

Suspected Taleban killed six Pakistani security officers in two separate attacks on Monday. “Militants assaulted security officials in Toraware village overnight, killing two and wounding four in a three-hour shootout in the area some 95 kilometers north of South Waziristan,” police officer Mir Chaman Khan said. Some 10 insurgents were believed to have been killed, he added.

“In Bajur, a tribal region further north, Taleban fighters attacked a checkpoint at Matthak village, killing four security officials. Seven militants died in the clash,” said Syed Ghulam Rasool, a local government official. The militants also attacked security check posts at Khar, the main town in Bajur, and in Siddiqabad, an adjoining village, wounding at least three security personnel. The attacks came a day after the Taleban chief warned of more terrorist strikes if the army did not stop its offensive against insurgents along the Afghan border. Indeed, Pakistani aircraft attacked Taleban in the South Waziristan region on Sunday a day after the army said it had captured a strategic town on an approach to the rebels main base area.

Separately on Sunday, unidentified gunmen on motorcycle shot dead Shafiq Ahmed Khan, the education minister of Pakistan's Balochistan province and a member of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), outside his residence on Thogai Road in the provincial capital Quetta. "He was wounded in the head and succumbed to his wounds on the way to hospital," said a doctor in the main hospital in Quetta. The Balochistan Liberation United Front (BLUF), an underground organization fighting for an independent Balochistan, claimed responsibility for the killing.

Pakistan/Iran/Security: Islamabad detains 11 Iranian Guards on the border

Pakistani forces detained 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Monday for illegally crossing into Pakistan. “It’s a serious matter. We are investigating why they crossed into our territory,” a Pakistani border security official said on the condition of anonymity.

Reportedly, the Guards were arrested in the Mashkhel area on the border with Iran eight days after a suicide bomber killed 42 people, including six Revolutionary Guard commanders, in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. A Sunni Muslim group Jundollah (God’s soldiers), claimed responsibility for the blast. Iran says the Jundollah group has bases in Pakistan and it has urged Pakistan to hand over its leader, Abdolmalik Rigi. But Islamabad strongly denied that the Jundallah attack was launched from its territory.

Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that the perpetrators of recent attacks in the region aimed to sow discord among Muslims and were linked to foreign countries. "Bloody acts in some Islamic countries, including Iraq, Pakistan and some parts of our country, are aimed at creating divisions among Muslims, Sunnis and Shi'ites," state television quoted Khamenei as saying. "Therefore unity among Muslims is very important," he said "Those who commit these bloody terrorist actions, directly or indirectly, are related to foreign countries," Khamenei said.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Suicide bomber kills eight at Air Force base

At least eight people have been killed and several others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a check post outside Pakistani Air Force base on Friday. “The suicide bomber detonated his explosives when security guards stopped him at the first check post outside the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex within the cantonment in Kamra, some 75 kms northwest of the capital, Islamabad,” an official said on condition of anonymity. “Eight people were killed and 13 were wounded, three of them seriously,” confirmed Shaukat Sultan, head of the main government hospital in Kamra.

Meanwhile, there were reports that a bomb attack in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar has wounded at least 15 people. The explosion occurred in the parking area of a restaurant, media report says. Further details were not immediately available.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but it came a day after an army brigadier and his driver were killed in a drive-by shooting in Islamabad, while at least six people, including two suicide bombers, died in twin attacks at the International Islamic University in the capital on Tuesday. At the weekend the army launched a major assault against Pakistani Taleban militant strongholds in South Waziristan Tribal Agency, near the Afgfhan border.

Pakistan/Terrorism: top Taleban commanders captured in Punjab

Pakistan's The Dawn newspaper reported on Friday that Pakistani security agencies have arrested two top Taleban commanders in the Punjab province who are believed to have masterminded the Oct 10 attack on the military’s headquarters in Rawalpindi and other high-profile strikes in Lahore. The two commanders, identified as Iqbal and Gul Muhammad, are from Faisalabad. They were arrested earlier this week by law-enforcement agencies, Dawn reported quoting senior officials.

“They were members of Tehrik-i-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) Shura, the umbrella council of about top 40 militant commanders that coordinates and oversees Taleban activities in Pakistan,” officials said. According to officials the duo, who were in charge of militancy in Punjab served as the link between Taleban’s main leadership in South Waziristan and the increasingly threatening Punjabi Taleban network. Security sources say the duo were involved in most of the major attacks in Punjab this year including the three coordinated attacks in Lahore on Oct 15.

At least 10 people were injured on Friday in a bomb attack outside a restaurant in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, hours after seven people were killed by a suicide bomber near a strategic air force complex in Punjab province. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.

Iran/Pakistan/Terrorism: Tehran urges Islamabad to hand over rebel group leader

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar on Friday urged Pakistan to hand over the leader of the Baluch rebel group Jundallah. "We have documents that show (Abdolmalik) Rigi travels readily to Pakistan ... we are here to ask Pakistan to hand over Rigi to Iran," Najjar who is in Islamabd on Friday for talks on efforts to combat the Sunni group after the Sunday attack in mainly Shi'ite Iran told state television.

The meeting comes five days after a suicide bomber killed at least 42 people, including top members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province. Jundallah, or "Soldiers of God", claimed responsibility for the attack -- one of the deadliest ever in the group's six-year insurgency against Tehran.

Najjar said Tehran has proof Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi "travels readily to Pakistan." “Sheltering Rigi is not in the interest of the two countries' good-neighborly relations," he said. However, there was no immediate comment from the Pakistani side. Islamabad has previously said that its intelligence agencies have evidence Rigi is in Afghanistan. Iran accuses the United States and the United Kingdom of backing Jundollah and has suggested it has links with Pakistani intelligence. Washington, London and Islamabad have all denied involvement.

Pakistan/Terrorism: Brigadier killed in Islamabad shooting

Suspected Taleban shot dead a Pakistani army brigadier and his driver in Islamabad on Thursday as the military continued a major offensive against the insurgents in their strongholds near the Afghan border. "It was an act of terrorism," said military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas. "The purpose was to kill and make news."

Reportedly, the attack on Brigadier Moeenuddin Haider and his driver Asghar took place in the G-11 sector of Islamabad. They were travelling in an army vehicle when it was attacked by gunmen. At least one soldier was injured. “One gunman came on foot and fired at the moving jeep,” said a local witness Naveed Haider. “Another man on a motorbike was waiting in the lane nearby and after firing both fled.” he added.

No group has yet claimed the responsibility of Thursday's attack. The incident came after a wave of bloodshed that has killed more than 170 people in Pakistan over the past three weeks, pressuring the military to launch an offensive in the volatile South Waziristan on Saturday. On Tuesday, two suicide bombers attacked an Islamic university in Islamabad, killing at least four people, and the next day authorities ordered schools and colleges to close across the country.