Taliban diplomats have started work in the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and at Afghan consulates in other Pakistani cities, two Taliban officials and two Afghan diplomats told VOA Thursday. VOA has obtained copies of official Taliban notifications sent to the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad. Pakistani officials say they have allowed the deployments even though Pakistan has not yet […]

The banned far-right party has considerable support in politically significant Punjab. For the past few years, autumn in Pakistan has been synonymous with protests challenging the writ of the Pakistani state. This year isn’t any different – except that it took just a weekend of protests to coax the Imran Khan government to negotiate a deal with the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik […]

On October 20, 2021, two soldiers and two Police officers were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in the Bajaur District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. On September 30, 2021, two persons, including a Pakistan Army Captain and a TTP ‘commander’ Khawaza Din […]

A roadside bomb exploded near a police bus parked outside a university in southwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least one officer and wounding 15 other people, mostly civilians, a provincial minister said. The attack happened outside Baluchistan University in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said Mir Ziaullah Longove, provincial interior minister. He said rescuers transported the dead and […]

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi gave Afghanistan’s new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) rulers advice Thursday on how to gain international recognition, during a visit to Kabul. After returning to Islamabad, Qureshi said he advised Islamic Emirate leaders on how to improve their reputation. “As a neighbour and as a well-wisher and friend, I conveyed to them what sort […]

Pakistani counter-terrorism forces say they have killed three Afghan militants who belonged to the ISIS group during a raid on a hideout near the country’s border with Afghanistan. The gun battle was the latest episode of violence in Pakistan involving extremist groups that appear to have been emboldened by the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan, The Associated […]

Security forces attacked in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan Islamabad: Six Pakistani security personnel were killed in three attacks in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan in two days. Four personnel including two FC soldiers Lance Naik Mudassir and Sepoy Jamshed and two police constables Abdul Samad and Noor Rehman lost their lives in an improvised […]

A roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying security forces in a former stronghold of local militants in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, killing four, police said. The attack happened in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. The area served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban until a few years ago, when the army said […]

Seventeen-year-old Israr was fast asleep when his phone rang. It was 2am and the teenager was exhausted. He’d been working all day as a guard. On the other end of the line was his brother, who told Israr that men had barged into their family house, dragged their father outside, and shot him dead. “He asked me to rush back […]

A local Pakistani journalist was killed in an overnight attack when a roadside bomb went off near his car in the country’s southwest, police said Monday. Shahid Zehri, 35, was traveling in his car when the bomb exploded in the town of Hub in the Baluchistan province on Sunday, according to Shafiq Mengal, a local police officer. Mengal said the […]