30 June 2011
President Obama’s counterterrorism strategy is narrowly focused on al-Qaeda and its ability to strike the U.S. homeland and is “not designed to combat directly every single terrorist organization in every corner of the world,” White House counterterrorism chief John O. Brennan said Wednesday. Acknowledging that the president’s goals “track closely with the goals” of the George W. Bush administration, Brennan said...
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Pakistan's Border Regions Vulnerable amid Planned US Withdrawal
27 June 2011
Fighting across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will overshadow talks when the two countries meet along with the United States on Tuesday to map out plans for reconciliation with the Taliban. Pakistan on Monday rejected Afghan allegations it had fired 470 rockets into Afghanistan over the past three weeks, saying only that "a few accidental rounds" may have crossed the border when it pursued militants who had attacked its security forces. But the...
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Kabul Calls for End to Cross-Border Attacks from Pakistan as "Artillery Shells Kill Four Children"
24 June 2011
Afghanistan on Friday complained to Pakistan for a second time in a week about its shelling of Afghan villages in which four children were killed, fighting that threatens to raise regional tensions as the United States begins a gradual troop withdrawal. The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs first complained on Monday about Pakistan shelling soon after an assault by Pakistani forces drove militants across the border. The two sides blame each other...
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Obama "Insists" Pakistan Fulfills Counterinsurgency Promises as US Prepares Afghanistan Withdrawal
23 June 2011
President Barack Obama on Wednesday vowed the United States will “insist” Pakistan fulfill its promises to counter militant sanctuaries on its soil. “We will work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keep its commitments,” Obama said in a televised speech on troop withdrawal plans for the war in Afghanistan. Obama’s comments underscored festering tensions...
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India, Pakistan Hold Peace Talks in Islamabad after "Two-Year Freeze"
23 June 2011
India and Pakistan held talks on peace and security issues in Islamabad on Thursday, part of efforts to stabilise South Asia as the United States prepares to draw down troops from Afghanistan. Concerns over terrorism are likely to dominate India’s agenda since US troops killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and since a four-year peace process collapsed when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008. India blamed the attack on Pakistani...
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Militants Kill At Least Six in Khyber District Ambush
22 June 2011
At least five militants and a tribal policeman were killed in a rebel ambush and a bomb attack at checkpoints in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on Wednesday, officials said. The ambush took place before dawn at the Sarband checkpoint just outside the town of Bara in Khyber district, part of Pakistan's tribal region on the Afghan border where Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked networks have bases. "More than 30 militants launched a two-pronged attack on...
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Pakistan Seeks Greater Role in US-Taliban Talks
21 June 2011
Pakistan on Monday sought ‘greater transparency and clarity’ from the United States in its plans to reach out to the Afghan Taliban in a move that indicates Islamabad’s unease over Washington’s recent overtures with insurgents. The Obama administration has recently confirmed that it had established contacts with the Afghan Taliban though it insisted the negotiations were at a preliminary stage. It is widely believed that the...
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Suspicions Rise as Pakistan Bomb Labs Empty Before Raids
20 June 2011
For the second time this month, bomb-making factories in Pakistan were evacuated shortly after American intelligence officials notified Pakistani security forces of their existence, fueling suspicions that such intelligence is being shared with insurgents. It remains unclear whether the evacuations — four of them in the past month alone — were the result of deliberate or inadvertent leaks or were planned in advance of the intelligence...
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Zawahiri's Succession "Carries Particular Dangers for Pakistan"
17 June 2011
Ayman al Zawahri's succession to the leadership of al Qaeda, announced over the Internet Thursday, carries particular dangers for Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country reeling from an Islamic insurgency, a faltering economy, endemic corruption and poor governance. Like al Qaeda's late founder Osama bin Laden, Zawahri is believed to be hiding in Pakistan since fleeing the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Unlike bin Laden, though, Zawahri has been closely...
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Summary of Recent Security Incidents
16 June 2011
More than 200 militants crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan early Thursday and attacked a border village with rockets, mortars and machine guns, killing five people and kidnapping more than 20, officials and residents said. The deadly raid underlines challenges ahead for the U.S. and Pakistan when Washington begins withdrawing troops from Afghanistan later this year. Pakistan maintains that NATO already needs more troops along the Afghan side...
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