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A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday to direct the Federation to stop drone attacks, which have killed hundreds of innocent people in FATA/Waziristan. Mado Jan, a resident of South Waziristan Agency, in person filed the petition under Article 184(3) of Constitution, making the Federation through secretaries ministry of interior, ministry of foreign affairs, ministry of defence, ministry of information and US ambassador/US charge d' affairs as respondents. The killing of Pakistani citizens on large scale is an offence of murder of which US President Barak Obama and others should be dealt with in...

WASHINGTON: The United States will begin formal talks with the Taliban, including the Haqqani network, in Doha, Qatar, in a couple of days, Obama administration officials said in a major announcement on Tuesday. The engagement, the first of its kind since the post 9/11 conflict, follows key concessions made by Washington, including dropping the pre-condition that Taliban immediately break ties with al-Qaida, in return for much broader, generic, self-serving commitments by the unyielding terrorist group. In a conference call from Northern Ireland where President Obama is attending the G8 summit, US officials said they expected Taliban to issue a statement...

Federal agents and police raided nearly a dozen 7-Eleven stores across Long Island early Monday as part of an identity theft and illegal immigration investigation, law enforcement officials say. According to investigators, some owners of the raided franchises allegedly helped traffic in workers from Pakistan to work in their stores. Five store owners were arrested Monday in the probe and are expected to face identity theft, money laundering and other charges, law enforcement officials said. Several 7-Eleven franchises in Virginia were also targeted in the probe.

<p>Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center published results of a public survey of gay tolerance in 39 countries worldwide. The numbers are fairly unsurprising: While a high proportion of respondents in Western Europe and North America answered "yes" to the question "Should society accept homosexuality?" few respondents in the Middle East and Africa agreed with them.</p>

A group behind assaults on Shiites in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for tandem attacks on a university bus and a hospital that killed at least 24. The Sunni extremist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi announced on Sunday that it had sent a female suicide bomber to strike the bus in Quetta, capital of the restive Balochistan province, killing 14 students from a women's university near a Shiite neighborhood on Saturday. About 90 minutes later, a follow-up attack on the hospital treating survivors left at least 11 dead and led to a prolonged gun battle between security forces and militants occupying part of the...

Pakistan's only female fighter pilot is ready for war Her olive green head scarf poking out from her helmet, Ayesha Farooq flashes a cheeky grin when asked if it is lonely being the only war-ready female fighter pilot in the Islamic republic of Pakistan. Farooq, from Punjab province's historic city of Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade. There are five other female fighter pilots, but they have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat. "I don't feel any different. We do the same activities,...

A senior Pakistani police officer says gunmen have taken over parts of a hospital in a southwestern Pakistan. Fayaz Sumbal, the head of police operations in Quetta, says armed men captured different sections of the hospital complex Saturday and were positioned on rooftops. He says Frontier Corps troops, and police commandos have been called in.

The US officials have repeatedly mentioned Headley's case to defend the controversial spying programme, saying the surveillance had been critical in thwarting potential terror attacks and also to track the 2008 Mumbai attack convict. Washington: Questioning the effectiveness of America's secret surveillance programme, a top investigative publication here has said the US intelligence failed to track Mumbai attack convict David Headley and he was arrested only after a tip off was provided by the British intelligence. The US officials have repeatedly mentioned Headley's case to defend the controversial spying programme, saying the surveillance had been critical in thwarting potential terror...

London - The claim was made by the Israeli liberal newspaper “Haaretz” citing a report of the British Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which oversees security exports. Israel is reported to have exported to Pakistan a range of military equipment purchased from Britain, but Islamabad denied the claim with a spokesman for the Directorate of Inter-Services Public Relations describing it as “baseless”. “The report is misleading and not based on facts,” he said. The claim was made by the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz citing a report of the British Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) which...

For more than 60 years, most Americans have thought of nuclear weapons as an all-or-nothing game. The only way to win is not to play at all, we believed, because any use of nukes will lead to Armageddon. That may no longer be the game our opposition is playing. As nuclear weapons proliferate to places that might not share our reluctance to use them in small numbers, however, the US military may face a “second nuclear age” of retail Armageddon for which it is utterly unprepared. Outside the US, both established and emerging nuclear powers increasingly see nuclear weapons as...

Photo: Bruce Reidel said, "The army has provided safe haven, arms, expertise and other help to Taliban. It briefly pretended to abandon Taliban to avoid American anger in 2001 misleading George W Bush." (Reuters) Washington - As the US prepares to leave Afghanistan, Pakistani spy agency ISI is engaged in helping Taliban, a terrorist outfit which the intelligence agency has been helping for more than two decades now, a top American expert on South Asian affairs has said. "For twenty years Pakistan's army, the real power broker in the country, has backed the Afghan Taliban. It helped create the Taliban's...

Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan held a rally against CIA drone attacks in Pakistan. Of course, you never hear him complain about what Pakistani Muslims do to the countryÂ’s Christians with its infamous blasphemy law. But that is the thing: whereas the traditionally Christian countries of the West always point the fingers at themselves first and foremost, Muslims hardly ever criticize their own, preferring to find faults with other people. That moral difference is, among many others, due to the gulf between our different roots: Christianity and Islam. WeÂ’ll hear a lot of talk on how drones have the effect of...

Note: Photo included with article. SNIPPET: "U.S. authorities have transferred Younis al-Mauritani, held in Afghanistan, to Mauritania, officials in the West African nation said on Saturday. Pakistan said in September 2011 it arrested al-Mauritani, better known in his homeland Mauritania as Youssouf Al Mauritani, during a joint operation with U.S. intelligence services." SNIPPET: "Pakistani military authorities said Al Mauritani was planning to attack U.S. economic interests including pipelines, hydro-electric dams and oil tankers when he was captured."

New Delhi: India has asked the US to "temporarily" hand over LeT terrorist David Headley for a year and extradite his accomplice Tahawwur Hussain Rana to get more information about the conspiracy hatched to carry out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. In its fresh efforts to get access to the Pakistani American terrorist, India has conveyed to the American interlocutors to "temporarily" hand over Headley for a year after the US expressed its inability to extradite him. The request was made during the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue held in Washington between May 20-22. "The US interlocutors assured us to actively...

Note: The following text is a quote: Warden Message: Afghanistan Travel Concerns: Kabul to Logar Province CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - Afghanistan 29 Sep 2009 U.S. Embassy Kabul issued the following Warden Message September 29, 2009: The U.S. Embassy has received information that, as of late September 2009, Taliban members in Logar Province, Afghanistan, were planning on an unspecified date to ambush and capture unidentified Americans who routinely travel between Kabul City and Logar Province. The Taliban reportedly intend to follow the Americans’ vehicle from Kabul and stop the car en route. The U.S. Embassy urges Americans...

The butcher of the off-duty British soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby, defended his carving up of a living human being by claiming that he was engaging in "an eye for an eye"� because the British army is killing Muslims in Afghanistan. Normally there is no reason to respond to the justifications offered by terrorists and other murderers of the innocent. But in this case it is important to do so because much of the Muslim world finds this argument persuasive and because much of the world's Left offers it as explanation. This is true even though a large majority of Muslims...

April 03, 2009 Think Islamist extremists don't have their eyes on conquering Europe? Think again. This video produced by Ibnul Akwa links the recent successes of Shabaab in Somalia and of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Eastern North Africa with the eventual reconquista of Spain. There's nothing original here...

The death toll from an attack on Indian politicians by Maoist rebels has risen to 23, a day after the rebels fired at a convoy of cars carrying local Congress Party leaders in eastern India. Suspected insurgents fired at the vehicles Saturday in the Sukma area of Chhattisgarh state. Dozens of people were wounded in the attack. Local reports say some senior party leaders were among those killed. The Associated Press reported Sunday that several more bodies were found near the scene of the crash Sunday, including those of a party leader and his son who had been believed kidnapped....

Yes, I realize that the ultimate goal is for the Coca-Cola Company to sell as many cans of dark, fizzy, flavored water as it can (I get that), but I found this ad for Coke quite touching and inspiring nevertheless. Bringing India & Pakistan Together With a Coke

Many countries express interest in JF-17 Thunder Numerous countries are interested in obtaining a fighter jet jointly developed by Pakistan and China, said a senior officer of the Pakistan air force. "We've been receiving inquiries and expressions of interest on the JF-17 Thunder from many countries in the Middle East, Africa and even as far as South America," Air Marshal Sohail Gul Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, told China Daily on Thursday. The JF-17 Thunder - or the FC-1 Fierce Dragon as it's known in China - is a third-generation multipurpose combat jet co-developed by Aviation Industry...

NEW DELHI — The Indian government is evaluating the possibility of stationing troops in Afghanistan after the international forces begin leaving the country in 2014. An Indian Ministry of Defence source said no decision has yet been taken, but the possibility of putting boots in Afghanistan is under consideration by the Indian government. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is visiting New Delhi May 20-22 and the issue of stationing of Indian troops is likely to be discussed, said an official of the Indian External Affairs Ministry. “It is in India’s interest to enhance security and defense cooperation with Afghanistan,” added the...

A Pakistan International Airlines flight en route from Lahore to Manchester, England, was forced to land at London's Stansted Airport on Friday after a pair of male passengers threatened the safety of the aircraft in some way. The plane was escorted to the ground by Typhoon military jets, and the 300 or so people onboard disembarked safely. The two men were taken into custody and have not yet been identified, but the BBC reports that they are 31-year-old and 40-year-old British citizens. A witness told Sky News, "The cabin crew informed us that basically they tried to come into the...

LONDON (AP) - Two men have been arrested on suspicion of endangering an aircraft after a plane carrying more than 300 people from Pakistan to Britain was diverted from its original course Friday, officials said. The incident further rattled the U.K. just days after a British soldier was brutally killed on a London street in a suspected terror attack. A British security official said the situation involving the Pakistan International Airlines flight did not appear to be related to terrorism, but that police were still investigating. He requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation.

London (CNN) -- Police arrested two men Friday on suspicion of endangering an aircraft after a flight from Pakistan to the United Kingdom was diverted to Stansted Airport, outside of London.

The airline has confirmed it is for security reasons. There are understood to be 297 passengers on board. The plane was heading west towards Manchester when it was suddenly re-routed near York and headed back out to the North Sea, before travelling south to Stansted. It is believed to have now landed at the airport.

The US attorney general has acknowledged four US citizens were killed in drone strikes since 2011. The US specifically targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, Eric Holder wrote in a letter to the Senate judiciary panel. Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, Samir Khan and Jude Mohammad were "not specifically targeted by the US". The disclosure of the killings in Yemen and Pakistan marks the first formal public acknowledgement of the US citizen deaths in drone strikes. "The president has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified," Mr Holder wrote. 'Continuing threat' America's top law enforcement official...

'BRITISH Special Forces have captured the Taliban leader thought to be responsible for the roadside bomb that killed three British soldiers last month. The insurgent leader, who has not been named for operational reasons, commanded seven groups of Taliban fighters and bombers across southern Afghanistan. The dawn raid, carried out with Afghan forces, took place in the Marjah region near Nad-e-Ali, close to the British base in Lashkar Gah. It is believed the Taliban leader, who sources confirmed had regularly travelled between Helmand and Pakistan, had been hunted for a year after being linked to at least three other attacks.'

One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. The American responsibility for Mr. Awlaki’s death has been widely reported, but the administration had until now refused to confirm...

MOSCOW – A delegation of American lawmakers will travel to Russia next week in part to investigate last month’s Boston Marathon bombings, ABC News has learned. The group, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wants to find out why a 2011 Russian request that the United States investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected Boston bombers, did not raise more red flags. The Russians offered a vague warning that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, but an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time. The lawmakers also want to know why subsequent...

It was not immediately clear who killed Zara Shahid Hussain, 59, a senior member of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI). Hussain "was leaving her home for some work when three gunmen attacked her. She thought they wanted to snatch her purse and handed it over to them but they killed her", Firdous Shamim, a local PTI leader, said. Police said all three gunmen escaped after the attack late on Saturday. "They shot her with one bullet near her chin and she could not survive," senior police official Nasir Aftab told AFP. Around 150 people were killed in the run-up to national...

The jailed doctor who helped the U.S. track down Usama bin Laden was convicted by a tribal court on bogus charges, according to a classified Pakistani government report. Portions of the voluminous 357-page Abbottobad Commission Report, which has yet to be made public and were obtained exclusively by Fox News, acknowledge Dr. Shakil Afridi’s conviction last year by a government-sponsored Jirga has undermined Pakistan’s credibility. The report calls for Afridi to be given a new trial.

BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir. State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates. Update: MWRA: Quabbin Reservoir Water Safe The Quabbin, in Belchertown, is one of the country’s largest man-made public water supplies. Boston’s drinking water comes from the Quabbin and the Wachusett Reservoirs. State Police say there were no warrants or advisories on any of the...

Seven foreigners from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Singapore were arrested for trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir on Tuesday. The Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts is one of the country’s largest man-made water supplies. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) CBS Local reported, via Free Republic: Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir. State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates....

BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir. State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.

Lahore - Since 2004, the US has carried out over 350 drone strikes inside Pakistan, killing some of the top al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders. A number of civilians also died in the attacks. PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, who is poised to become Pakistan's new prime minister, today said he wanted to strengthen his country's testy ties with the US but insisted that the CIA's controversial drone attacks must end as it posed a "challenge" to national sovereignty. "Drones indeed are challenging our sovereignty. Of course we have taken this matter up very seriously. I think this is a very serious...

Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that it had detained men belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group who were planning a bomb attack on a foreign embassy in the country. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said Saturday that Egyptian security forces had intercepted a terrorist cell linked to al Qaeda that was on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack on a foreign embassy. “The Interior Ministry was able to direct a successful blow to a terrorist cell that was planning suicide operations,” Ibrahim said during a televised news conference. The minister did not specify which embassy was being targeted,...

Fox News' Megan Kelly interviewed the parents of SEAL Team 6 member Aaron Vaughn who perished in the tragic crash of a CH-47 helicopter on August 06 2011 in Afghanistan. During this interview the Vaughs stated that this crash was a direct result of traitorous rules of engagement ordered by the Obama administration that have consistently proven deadly to our troops (It should be noted here that "Over Twice as Many U.S. Soldiers Have Died in Afghanistan Under Obama In 3 1/2 Years Than Did Under Bush in 8 Years..") Although the exact number of SEALs killed has been misstated...

KABUL -- The U.S. wants to keep nine bases in Afghanistan after American combat troops withdraw in 2014 and the Afghan government will let them as long as it gets "security and economic guarantees," President Hamid Karzai said Thursday in his first public offer in talks about the future relationship between the two uneasy allies. U.S. officials have made no final announcement about how many troops might remain in Afghanistan after 2014, although they have said as many as many as 12,000 U.S. and coalition forces could remain to train and advise Afghans and continue counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida and...

Woman refuses judge’s suggestion to marry man in consensual sex case Duo admit to having sex outside of marriage Dubai: A woman startled a judge on Tuesday when she refused to marry a worker, with whom she is accused of having consensual sex, in order to be granted a suspended prison sentence. The suspects, a Filipina and the Pakistani worker, pleaded guilty when they appeared before the Dubai Misdemeanour Court on Tuesday. “In an obvious attempt to convince the defendants to get married and obtain a lenient judgment, the judge asked the worker: “Are you willing to marry her?” “I...

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When Pakistani voters go to the polls later this week, the choice they face includes parties tainted by corruption allegations and those led by politicians appealing to anti-Western sentiment. The man favored to become Pakistan’s next prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, on Saturday called into question the U.S.-backed campaign by the Pakistani military against Taliban insurgents in the country. “I think guns and bullets are always not the answer to such problems,” Sharif, a former two-term prime minister who was overthrown in a 1999 military coup led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, told the Reuters wire service. In a separate interview with...

United Arab Emirates said they would break ties if Saudi Arabia did...now its only Pakistan which has ties with the Taliban...they are running out of friends quicker than Saddam did in 1991.

US, Israel, India: the real axis of evil threatening the worldZafar Bangash Under George Bush the US is well on its way to establishing a commonwealth of social and moral lepers whose members include such outcasts as the zionist State of Israel and Hindu-ruled India. The real “axis of evil” is formed by this unholy trinity, not North Korea, Iran and Iraq, as claimed by Bush in his State of the Union address on January 30. Not surprisingly, the speech was roundly condemned worldwide, even by America’s allies — Germany, France, Spain, the European Union and even NATO Secretary General...

The computer at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia chooses random names for topics and operations it deals with. "Deep Blue" is the name given to an aggregate of troubling information received by the agency at the beginning of 1988. The source of most of the reports is the NSA's monitoring of communications by the Chinese administration and military. According to these, Saudi Arabia was conducting advanced negotiations with China about the acquisition of dozens of surface-to-surface missiles built to carry nuclear weapons. The intelligence communities of both the US and Israel were totally stunned, as until then they did not...

Ahead of Pakistan's election next week, there is little cause for celebration. [snip] In a country where almost no-one pays income tax, including more than two thirds of MPs, it only took seven months for Ali Arshad Hakeem to become a hated man. As Pakistan's newly minted chief taxman, he built a database designed to monitor the spending habits of millions of people, and work out how much tax they owed. [snip] This [snip] came to a juddering halt last month, when Mr Hakeem was suspended by judges over allegations that his appointment breached government rules that demand each job...

In a country where almost no one pays income tax, including more than two thirds of MPs, it only took seven months for Ali Arshad Hakeem to become a hated man. As Pakistan’s newly minted chief taxman, he built a database designed to monitor the spending habits of millions of people, and work out how much tax they owed. … This quiet, technocratic revolution came to a juddering halt last month, when Mr. Hakeem was suspended by judges over allegations that his appointment breached government rules that demand each job be filled from a shortlist of three. In Pakistan’s murky...

Researchers examined the chemical composition of teeth from a Harappan cemetery used from roughly 2550 to 2030 B.C. The analysis showed that the city was a cosmopolitan melting pot. Many of the deceased had grown up outside Harappa... Many of the outsiders, surprisingly, are men buried near women native to Harappa. The findings are preliminary, but they suggest men moved in with their brides, even though in South Asia women traditionally move to their husband's homes... Bones from about 1900 to 1700 B.C. -- more than a millennium later than those examined by Kenoyer -- make it clear that at...

>Thousands of Islamist protesters marched the streets of Bangladesh’s capital, calling for the death penalty for bloggers who insult Islam. The city ground to a halt as demonstrators demanded the government change the law to punish blasphemers. The activists gathered in their thousands at Dhaka’s commercial hub on Friday night in protest over blasphemous bloggers who offend Islamist sensibilities on social networks. In a demonstration that lasted well into Saturday, they urged the government to introduce a new law with the provision of the death penalty for those who defame Islam. As the protesters advanced they chanted: "God is great,...

The Libyan militia group that the State Department hired to defend its embattled diplomatic mission in Benghazi had clear al-Qaida sympathies, and had prominently displayed the al-Qaida flag on a Facebook page for months before the deadly attack. That organization, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, was paid by the U.S. government to provide security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But there is no indication the Martyrs Brigade fulfilled its commitment to defend the mission on Sept. 11, when it came under attack.