The CIA is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Pakistan’s intelligence service, according to former officials, even though it’s widely suspected the agency is helping Taliban extremists.
Pakistan
Is the world safe from Pakistani nukes?
The success of recent attacks by the Pakistani Taliban raises a scary prospect: just how safe are the country’s nuclear warheads from falling into militant hands? Intelligence officials aren’t so sure.
How global warming could ignite an India-Pakistan war
The always heated relations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir could flare up into a raging blaze if climate change worsens Pakistan’s droughts, as both countries battle for access to the region’s glacial water supply.
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A third of people killed in CIA drone strikes are civilians
A shocking new report has found that a third of the victims of CIA’s Taliban-targeting drone strikes in Pakistan are civilians — and those are just the ones the media knows about.
Rocky Pakistan terrain gets even more unstable
Pakistan’s military have taken a risky move: they’ve launched an offensive in the Taliban-Al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan. Will the move unleash a new wave of terror attacks in major cities?
How Islamabad went from boring and green to violent and mean
Islamabad in Pakistan wasn’t always known as a scene of suicide bombings and security checkpoints. NY Times journo Salman Masood looks back on the “laidback, dull” city of his youth.
Why Islamic extremists hate India
India doesn’t have a single soldier fighting in Afghanistan — so why are suicide bombers targetting the Indian Embassy in Kabul? Salil Tripathi explains the long and complex relationship between India and the Islamic world.
How the US nearly destroyed a UK terror investigation
Did the Bush administration lose its nerve in 2006 and nearly cause a whole UK investigation of terror suspects (who were planning an attack “bigger than 9/11”) to fall apart? Andy Hayman of the Metropolitan Police says yes.
Meet the new Pakistani Taliban chief
With Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud said to have been killed recently by the US military, the organisation has named his successor: “ruthless and rash” 20-something Hakimullah Mehsud.
We took our eyes off Afghanistan
The media should stop fixating on the political conflict and focus on long term policy and systems in Afghanistan — not as headline grabbing, but more important for Australia’s future, writes Greg Sheridan.
Why China will attack India
China will attack India by 2012, says Bharat Verma: the country needs a military victory to unite its fractured population, and pacifist India is the softest target.
US super embassy won’t win hearts and minds in Pakistan
A planned new US “super embassy” in Islamabad sends a very visible message about the US engagement with Pakistan, writes Shakira Hussein.
Taliban’s top man: dead or alive?
Conflicting reports abound on whether Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and his second in charge have been killed in Pakistan, as the struggle for power continues between Taliban factions.
Trained for terror: the Taliban’s brainwashed boys
CNN meet a group of Pakistani boys who say they were kidnapped by the Taliban and groomed as suicide bombers. Rescued by the army, a team of psychologists are attempting to bring them back from the brink of brainwashing and repair their shattered lives.
UK MP blows the lid on MI5 torture secrets
The former UK Home Secretary has revealed how MI5 and police “effectively sub-contracted” the torture of a terror susepect to a Pakistani intelligence agency, with information previously suppressed by the government.
Cricket takes on the Taliban
Pakistan’s Twenty20 World Cup cricket win has given a monumental boost to a nation drained of all morale, says Tunku Varadarajan. Can the sport offer an alternative vision for the country to militant Islam?
Welcome to Pakistan: one suicide bombing a week and counting!
In Darra Adam Khel, an arms-manufacturing town south of Peshawar where a stick of dynamite can be bought for less than an dollar, young men are queuing up for suicide bombings, writes Benjamin Gilmour.
Checking into Peshawar’s Pearl Continental, before it was blown to bits
Like the Marriot in Lahore, the Peshawar Pearl Continental was regarded as an oasis by expatriate diplomats and aid workers, by foreign correspondents, and by upper-class Pakistanis, writes Shakira Hussein.
Peshawar bombing: eyewitness accounts
BBC readers in Peshawar send in their accounts of the blast.
Massive hotel bomb further erodes security
The hotel suicide bombing in Peshawar further weakens the city’s security, making it a prime target for the Taliban.
A timeline of militant attacks in Pakistan
Reuters wrap the year so far in major terror attacks in Pakistan.
India must save Pakistan from itself
New Delhi needs to urgently help shore up the civilian government in Islamabad, says Jug Suraiya. And what better way than by finally converting the Line of Control in Kashmir into an officially recognised international border?
Pakistan’s government must conquer the north-west
For all the fallout — including fresh bombings in the north-west — Pakistan’s government was right to take military action to drive the Taliban from Swat. It must push on.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan diary: Taliban ups the ante
“The Taliban’s tactic now, according to many analysts here, will be to attack as many of Pakistan’s cities as possible”, writes Khan. It’s all about pressuring the government into a ceasefire deal.
Taliban blasts kill at least 8 in north-west Pakistan
The Taliban has fought back in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, an area where the government has launched a massive operation against the militants. This comes after it claimed responsibility for an attack in Lahore that killed at least 27 people.
