Taliban blow up Pakistan girls school: official

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Taliban blew up a girls' school in Pakistan's Khyber district, where troops are fighting against militants in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday.

Militants detonated explosives overnight at the government-run school in Bazgarah town, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Peshawar, capital of the violence-plagued North West Frontier Province.

"The building had 21 rooms. All have been completely demolished," local administration chief Shafeerullah Wazir told AFP by telephone.

There were no casualties because the property was empty at the time.

"Taliban and their local allies are responsible. They are destroying educational institutions to avenge the military operation against their hideouts in the area," said Wazir.

"This was the ninth educational institution blown up in Khyber over the past six weeks," he added.

Islamist militants opposed to co-education and subscribers to sharia law have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in northwest Pakistan in recent years.

The fabled Khyber tribal region is the main land bridge to neighbouring Afghanistan and the principle supply route for NATO troops fighting an eight-year Taliban insurgency across the border.

Pakistani troops launched an offensive in Khyber in September in a bid to flush out the Taliban and homegrown militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam) led by local warlord Mangal Bagh.

The United States is increasing pressure on Pakistan to crack down more on militants hunkered down in its lawless tribal belt, branded the most dangerous place on Earth and the chief sanctuary of Al-Qaeda.

Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5izrDVEHq8nBxylR9Wv0o727NVDrw

Iran helping the Taliban, US ambassador claims

Iran has been providing weapons and other help to the Taliban, the US ambassador to Afghanistan has claimed.

Karl Eikenberry, a former commanding general in Afghanistan, said parts of the regime had transcended sectarian divisions within Islam to provide support for fundamentalist groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan.

"Iran or elements within Iran have provided training assistance and some weapons to the Taliban," said Mr Eikenberry.

"General Petraeus has reviewed these reports and said that the scope of Iranian support is nothing on the level that was given previously by Iran to various terrorist elements in Iraq.

"Still, the reports about this kind of low-level support and periodic co-operation between elements in Iran and militant extremist Taliban are disturbing and do not show good faith by Afghanistan's neighbour to the West."

Iran's Shia Muslim regime's has long been suspicious of the extremist Sunni Taliban and Tehran co-operated with the US-led effort to overthrow the movement in 2001.

But a Western official involved in Iran policy-making said yesterday that Iranian officials were now playing both sides of the Afghan conflict to ensure that the Western-backed Kabul government remained weak.

"Afghanistan should be an area of common interest between Britain and Iran because they don't want an extremist Sunni government on their border," an official said.

"But Afghanistan, like Iraq, is in its backyard and Tehran just does not want a Western victory or a strong pro-Western government on its eastern flank. It is now playing two roles there, assisting the insurgency even as it provides aid."

Source:telegraph.co.uk

US says Pakistan holding up visas

Pakistan has been holding up visas for US officials and contractors and continued delays could have an "impact" on the effectiveness of aid programmes in the country, the US State Department said on Thursday.

Hundreds of visa applications and renewals for US personnel have been delayed and the United States has raised the problem with Pakistan's senior leadership, deputy spokesman Robert Wood said.

"We've expressed our concern about the delays and the impact that this could very well have on our programmes and activities," Wood said, adding, "Should this continue, it indeed will have an impact."

The New York Times reported the delays were part of a campaign by Pakistan's intelligence services and military to harass US diplomats who have been pushing for the Pakistani government to intensify the fight against the Taliban in Pakistan.

Cracking down on the Taliban is seen as critical for the US effort to defeat the militant group across the border in Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama is sending an additional 30,000 troops.

The United States gives the Pakistani military millions of dollars in annual aid for counter-terrorism operations, and earlier this year Congress approved a $7.5-billion aid package over five years to help build democratic institutions and the economy in the country.

The United States is concerned some of the aid programmes "are grinding to a halt," a diplomat told the Times.


Source:hindustantimes.com/

'Shots and explosion' heard in Pakistan's Rawalpindi

Pakistani police have reported gunfire and at least one explosion in the city of Rawalpindi.

One report said the firing was close to a military parade ground, another that it was an attack on a local mosque.

"We have reports that firing was heard," Mumtaz Ahmed, a police officer, told the Reuters news agency.

The Pakistani security forces have been targeted in a series of recent attacks. Nineteen people were killed in an attack in Rawalpindi in October.

That incident was a raid on an army base for which the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the headquarters of Pakistan's navy in Islamabad, killing a security officer.

The Associated Press quoted local police as saying the latest attack was on a mosque close to the Pakistani army headquarters.

Police official Waqas Ahmed says gunfire was continuing in the area and at least one explosion was also heard, AP reported.


Source: bbc.co.uk