Category: News

Station House Officer (SHO) was killed in firing by a gang of criminals during a police raid to arrest the anti social elements in Peshawar. According police, a team headed by SHO Farhad Ali raided a house in Regi area to arrest, Noor Muhammad, a proclaimed offender. The accused and his accomplices resisted and opened fire at police team critically injuring the SHO. The injured police officer was shifted to hospital where he succumbed to his wounds.
The police said that son of offender Noor Muhammad was also injured in the police firing but they all managed to flee and search for them was underway.

The CIA team during its visit to Abbottabad is reported to have interrogated a brother and two cousins of a top slain militant and three other high-value terrorist suspects, in what is seen as a crucial development pertaining to investigations privy to Abbottabad operation. Following the visit of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team to examine Osama bin Laden’s compound in Thanda Choha here on Friday, the extensive search operations were reportedly conducted and seven hotels were scrutinised to hunt down the militant suspects amid the reports that foreigner militants were residing in the hotels and guest houses of Abbottabad to avoid search and surveillance operations launched across the city.
According to details exclusively available with this newspaper, the seven-member CIA team accompanied by two brigadier ranked officials of Pakistan Army had reportedly moved to an unknown location after examining the aforesaid hideaway during the morning hours of Friday in order to interrogate Abdullah Mehsud, brother of the slain rebellion terrorist Qari Zainuddin Mehsud and his two cousins Ali Shaban Masud and Zaryab Mehsud. All the three terrorists were reportedly arrested from the mountainous area of Jhangi Syedan located a couple of kilometres away from Abbottabad city. They were arrested sometime between May 9 to May 15 (this month’s second week). Two other unidentified high-value terrorist suspects were also reportedly investigated.

Fire erupted in Islamabad International Hotel near KFC in Cantonment area on Sunday afternoon, Rescue 1122 sources said. Rescue 1122 personnel reached the spot within five minutes. They used special vehicle Turn Table Letter (TTL) to rescue the people, who were trapped in the hotel building.

Rescue 1122 official Asad said that the fire was extinguished and no loss of life was reported. He said that the fire erupted at the second floor of the hotel building. However, the reason of fire could not be ascertained.

Secretaries level talks between Pakistan and India on the outstanding issue of Siachin will begin in New Delhi from today (Monday). Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Akhtar Ali will be leading the Pakistani delegation while the Indian side will be represented by Pradeep Kumar. The Siachin issue surfaced when India secretly occupied a large part of Siacin glacier in 1984, triggering skirmishes between the two countries that continue till today.
Today’s will be the 12th round of defence secretary level bilateral talks resumed after gap of three years. The first round was held in 1985. Pakistan had been demanding an end to the Siachin occupation under the Simla Pact. Talks held on the issue so far had failed to bear any fruit. Located at an altitude of 5400 meters above sea-level, the battlefield’s temperature drops down to as low as minus 40 degrees centigrade where 95 percent of deaths occur not because of the fights but due to unbearably cold weather and difficult terrain.

In the face of declining global oil prices, the Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) may recommend up to a 6% reduction in domestic oil prices for the month of June 2011. Officials told that the government may reduce oil prices next month, though the decline may not be exactly in line with international oil price movements given the depreciation in the value of the rupee over that period.

According to the government’s analysis, global oil prices declined by between 1.5% and 6% for various subcategories of fuel over the past month, but the rupee also lost approximately 0.7% of its value against the US dollar, the currency in which nearly all international oil contracts are denominated.

The move to reduce oil prices may help dent the impression amongst large sections of the public that the government only increases the domestic cost of fuel.

The Taliban have no plans to attack Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, their spokesman told. A larger assault earlier this week by the Taliban on a naval base in Karachi renewed fears that Pakistan’s sizable nuclear arsenal could be vulnerable.

Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, dismissed those concerns on Wednesday as America’s “excuse” to pressure Pakistan’s government into fighting the Taliban, who he portrayed as the country’s true protectors. “Pakistan is the only Muslim nuclear power state,” Ehsan said in a telephonic interview, adding that the Taliban had no intention of changing that fact. He mocked Pakistan’s willingness to work with the US, saying, “Isn’t it a shame for us to have the Islamic bomb, and even then we are bowing down to the pressures of America.”

The arrangement would allow the CIA for the first time to enter a complex that it had previously scrutinized only from a distance, using satellites, stealth drones and spies operating from a nearby safe house that was shuttered when bin Laden was killed.

U.S. officials said that a CIA team is expected to arrive at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, within days and that the objective is to scrub the site for items that were not recovered by American commandos during the raid early this month or by Pakistani security forces who secured the facility afterward.

“The assault team was there for only 40 minutes,” a U.S. official said. The aim is to return to the site “to do another, more thorough look.” The official, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Pakistan can and will like to bring the Haqqani group to the negotiating table if the US was to ask it to do so, experts told the Senate. The issue of Pakistan’s alleged links to the Haqqani network was raised at a Senate hearing where John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked the witnesses to explain if Islamabad could sever those ties.

“I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for the Pakistanis to abandon the Haqqani network, although perhaps not impossible,” said one of the witnesses, Peter Bergen.

He noted that while the Afghan Taliban did not have much of a relationship with Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network did and also protected Al Qaeda militants. “So the biggest key to moving forward is getting the Haqqani network to basically change sides, and I don’t think that’s out of the question,” he said.

American officials have met with a senior aide to the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, at least three times in recent months in the first direct exploratory peace talks, officials in the region said, a US paper claimed. The meetings have been facilitated by Germany and Qatar, but American officials have been present each time, meeting with Tayeb Agha, who is a close personal assistant to Mullah Omar, the officials said. The C.I.A. and the State Department have been involved in the meetings, one official said.

Talks have begun before the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2. The presence of Mr. Agha, a longtime personal assistant of the reclusive Taliban leader, is a sign that the Taliban are serious despite their public opposition to peace talks, the officials said. Yet the senior Afghan official cautioned that the meetings might not represent much because Mr. Agha was known to be no longer particularly close to Mullah Omar. Mr. Agha was a much trusted personal assistant, answering phone calls and making appointments for Mullah Omar, for most of the Taliban’s time in power, from 1994 to 2001. The meetings have been conducted without the participation of Pakistan.

The traders of Karachi warned to seal business if any augments in taxes would be declared in upcoming budget. The traders say that their business have already been disturb due to gas and power load shedding and if any extra tax is forced, it would prove the last nail in the coffin. According to Pakistani News Channel reporter, There are 21,000 traders in Karachi and about 300,000 people are allied with these traders in one way or the other.