Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label pakistan taliban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pakistan taliban. Show all posts

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Pakistan bars U.S. diplomat from leaving amid tense relations

May 13, 2018  03H:19  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
ISLAMABAD  - Pakistani authorities have barred a U.S. diplomat involved in a fatal traffic accident from leaving the country, forcing an American military aircraft flown in for his departure to leave without him, local media reported on Saturday.
The move came a day after Pakistan said it would restrict the movements of all American diplomats in the country in response to Washington’s similar restrictions on Pakistani embassy diplomats.
A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on the media reports, and a U.S. State Department spokesperson in Washington would neither confirm nor deny them.
“For the privacy and security of those involved, we cannot disclose the diplomat’s current location,” the State Department spokesperson said.
Pakistan is a crucial link to supplying American troops fighting the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. But Washington has long believed it actually shelters the Taliban’s leaders, and President Donald Trump has cut off military aid in an effort to pressure Pakistan.
The latest blow to relations came on Saturday, when Pakistani authorities banned a U.S. military attache from leaving as planned, Pakistan’s The Nation and Express Tribune newspapers reported.
A day earlier, an Islamabad court had ruled his diplomatic immunity may not apply in the April 7 traffic accident in which the U.S. attache’s vehicle hit a motorcycle, killing the 22-year-old driver, both papers reported. [L3N1RL0CW]
As a result, a U.S. Air Force C130 flown in to Pakistan’s Nur Khan air base outside Islamabad was forced to leave without him on Friday, Geo TV and the two newspapers reported.
Separately, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it would apply travel restrictions to all U.S. diplomatic staff similar to those applied by Washington, according to a notification sent to the U.S. Embassy on Friday and obtained by us at Reuters.
The new U.S. rules require diplomats to obtain permission to travel more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from their stations, the local Dawn newspaper reported.
The U.S. State Department on Saturday confirmed the new restrictions on its employees in Pakistan but declined further comment.
“We are in regular communication with our Pakistani counterparts. We do not discuss details of diplomatic conversations,” the spokesperson said.
U.S.-Pakistani relations have deteriorated significantly since the beginning of the year, when Trump abruptly announced in a tweet a cutoff of military aid, which he said treated the United States with “nothing but lies and deceit” for 15 years.
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Friday, September 18, 2015

Gunmen attack Pakistan air force base in Peshawar

by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Islamabad

32 minutes ago



Militants have killed at least 17 people after attacking an air force base in the northern city of Peshawar.
The gunmen, dressed in police uniforms, stormed the Badaber air base on Friday morning, Major General Asim Bajwa said.
Sixteen of the victims were killed during morning prayers at a mosque inside the compound, Gen Bajwa added. The other victim was an army officer.
The Pakistani Taliban said they ordered the attack. Peshawar has frequently been targeted by militants.
Gen Bajwa said the militants entered the base, which is 10km (6 miles) south of Peshawar, at two points and then split into groups.
A rapid response force was dispatched to the scene and contained the attackers around a guard room, he added.
Thirteen militants were said to have been killed by security forces, although the Taliban said just one of their fighters died.
The total number of gunmen involved is unclear, but Gen Bajwa said his forces were hunting for the remaining attackers.
Reports say about 20 people, including 10 soldiers, were injured in the exchange of fire.

Analysis: M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, Islamabad

Image copyright AFP
Image caption A rapid response team was sent to engage the militants after reports of the attack
The attack on Badaber air base is the first on a military target since a Pakistan navy ship was attacked in Karachi's dockyard in September last year. It is the bloodiest since last December's massacre of 150 pupils and teachers at Peshawar's Army Public School.
The air base - which is essentially a residential complex rather than an operational one - is located on the southern-most tip of Peshawar's administrative limits. It is surrounded by tribal territory, which has been the hub of criminal and militant activity until recently.
The attack comes amid claims of success by the military in its 15-month operation in the tribal region, and may well be an attempt by militants to show they can still hit hard targets.
It also exposes holes in Pakistan's pre-emptive intelligence gathering mechanisms, mainly due to lack of co-ordination and information sharing among various security agencies.
In an email, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said a "suicidal unit" had carried out the attack.
An unnamed military official told the Reuters news agency that the militants had "explosives-laden jackets and were armed with hand-propelled grenades, mortars, AK-47 rifles".
It is so far unknown if the militants had any insider support, as has been the case in previous attacks.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack, saying: "Terrorists will be rooted out from the country."
Image copyright AP
Image caption About 20 people were said to have been injured, including at least 10 soldiers
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    Saturday, October 4, 2014

    Pakistani Taliban declares allegiance to IS group


    by Sunita Kureishi and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and France24
    Latest update : 2014-10-04

    The Pakistani Taliban announced its allegiance to the Islamic State group on Saturday and ordered its jihadists to help the militants in their campaign to set up a global Islamic caliphate.

    In a message to mark the Muslim holy festival of Eid al-Adha, the Pakistani Taliban said they fully supported the goals of the Islamic State group.
    “Oh our brothers, we are proud of you in your victories. We are with you in your happiness and your sorrow,” Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement emailed to Reuters from an unknown location.
    Islamic State militants already control large stretches of land across both Syria and Iraq but have recently begun making advances into South Asia, which has traditionally been dominated by local insurgencies against both the Pakistani and Afghan governments.
    Although there is little evidence yet of a firm alliance between the Islamic State group and al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban commanders, Islamic State fighters have been spotted recently in the Pakistani city of Peshawar distributing pamphlets.
    The Islamic State group's trademark black flags have also been seen at street rallies in Indian-administered Kashmir.
    Saturday's announcement comes after a September move by al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri to name former Taliban commander Asim Umar as the “emir” of a new South Asia branch of the terrorist network.
    The Pakistani Taliban's statement went on to call for Islamist groups to forget their differences for the sake of unity.
    “In these troubled days, we call for your patience and stability, especially now that all your enemies are united against you. Please put all your rivalries behind you," it said.
    “All Muslims in the world have great expectations of you ... We are with you, we will provide you with Mujahideen (fighters) and with every possible support.”
    The statement, released in Urdu, Pashto and Arabic, was sent a day after Islamic State militants beheaded British aid worker Alan Henning in a video posted online Friday, triggering condemnation by the British and US governments.
    The move appears to defy recent speculation that the Pakistani Taliban, whose goal is to topple the government and set up a sharia state, is actually wary of the Islamic State group, which is driven by different ambitions that have little to do with South Asia.
    Funded by local as well as foreign charity donations from wealthy supporters in the Gulf and elsewhere, the Pakistani Taliban operate separately from the Afghan insurgents of the same name but are loosely aligned with them.
    There are also concerns that groups like the Haqqani network will likely exploit the security vacuum to strengthen their hold on Afghan territory following the withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year.
    The Haqqani network, despite being based in Pakistan, is narrowly focused on an insurgency in Afghanistan and has not commented publicly on recent developments regarding the Islamic State group.
    The Pakistani Taliban have been beset by bitter internal rivalries over the past year, with the influential Mehsud tribal faction of the group refusing to accept the authority of Mullah Fazlullah, who came to power in late 2013.
    Islamic State militants could move to exploit these rivalries by making inroads into a region rife with anti-Western ideology and full of young, unemployed men ready to take up arms to fight for Islam.
    Meanwhile, world powers in both the Middle East and the West are struggling to keep up with the fast-changing nature of an international jihadist insurgency.
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