Taliban’s increasing writ in Pakistan could affect India, China : JUI-F chief

July 23rd, 2009 ON BOARD SPECIAL AIRCRAFT - Union Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna on Thursday said that Pakistan should show the same force in fighting anti-India terrorists and organisations in the same manner as it has done in fighting Taliban and other militant organisations in Swat. "Pakistan has taken certain steps in fighting Taliban in Swat and we expect that Pakistan should go after the Talibans who are directed against India with the same force that they have been going after Taliban in Swat.

July 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States has made it clear that India remains one of its most important allies. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert Blake told a US daily that Pakistan and Afghanistan are important allies of the United States, but not at the cost of India.

July 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday rejected India's concern over American assistance to Pakistan, said that the Indians should not worry about Washington's support for Islamabad, as the assistance is to overcome Pakistan's economic and militancy challenges. Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, rejected the concern, which asserted that Pakistan might divert U.S.

June 27th, 2009 MUZAFFARABAD - After purportedly being pushed out of the Swat and Malakand Divisions by the Pakistan Army, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in an apparent bid to expand its regime of terror, has claimed responsibility for the suicide strike in Muzaffarabad in which two security personnel were killed and three others injured here on Friday. Claiming the responsibility for the attack, a deputy to the TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud, Hakimullah Mehsud, said the attack was in retaliation against the recent strikes carried out on its hideouts.

June 26th, 2009 BEIJING - In a step further to embolden their military relationship, Chinese Defence Minister, Liang Guanglie met Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, here on Friday. Guanglie met Air Chief Marshal Suleman, who is currently on a visit to China, and vowed to further strengthen friendship between both countries.

June 22nd, 2009 ISLAMABAD - The United States' Central Intelligence Agency chief, Leon E Panetta, will visit Pakistan soon in a bid to persuade Islamabad to let New Delhi play an important role in the US-led counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Though US Embassy declined to comment on the matter officially, The Nation's diplomatic sources revealed that Panetta, in line with US AfPak policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, would discuss these proposals with Pakistani authorities during his upcoming visit.

June 15th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has raised fears over the Taliban's expanding writ in the country saying that the outlawed terror organization could spread its nefarious activities into neighbouring India. In an interview to a foreign newspaper, Qureshi expressed fears that the Taliban could expand its writ to regions as far as Persian Gulf.

June 1st, 2009 LAHORE - The North West Frontier Province Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain has blamed the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal's (MMA) five year regime for helping the Taliban flourish and expand its writ in the province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Hussain also blamed religious parties such as the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl's (JUI-F) for its dual policies regarding the Taliban, and said that such an attitude will ultimately help the NATO and US troops' to invade Pakistan.

May 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD - India Friday expressed its concern over the targeting of Sikhs by the Taliban in Pakistan as 35 Sikh families that have been living for decades in the northwestern Orakzai Agency began migrating from the area. 'The government of India has taken up the question of treatment of minorities in Pakistan with the government of Pakistan,' external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said in New Delhi.

April 25th, 2009 LAHORE - US Special Representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke has said there is no evidence that India is supporting violence in Pakistan. "If the Indians were supporting those miscreants in Pakistan that would be extraordinarily bad, really dangerous, but they are not doing so.

April 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The so called 'peace deal' between the government of Pakistan and the Taliban in the Swat Valley has brought Washington and Islamabad at loggerheads, with the United States considering that the accord would only provide an opportunity to the insurgents to build terror safe havens in Pakistan's heart. US diplomats see the peace accord of the Swat Valley, which is located just 60 miles away from Islamabad, as a threat to the region, and to the western world too.

April 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Worried and highly concerned by the Taliban's invasion into new territories inside Pakistan, the United States has warned Islamabad that its failure to take stern action against the expanding writ of the insurgents may endanger the relationship between both the countries, as well as the US strategies in Afghanistan. According to a report in the Washington Post, US President Barack Obama is very concerned over the issue.

April 24th, 2009 LAHORE - Questions are being raised over Pakistan's capability and willingness to counter the expanding writ of the Taliban, and now a US expert has said that Islamabad does not have any strategy in place to counter the threat. "I don't think the Pakistani establishment knows what they're going to do with this problem, and when I say the establishment, I mean the political-military establishment.

April 23rd, 2009 LAHORE - The United States while expressing serious concerns over the Pakistan Government's decision to implement Islamic law is Swat Valley has raised questions over Pakistan army's capability to counter insurgency inside the country. Senator Jack Reed, who accompanied another Senator Ted Kaufman on a visit to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, said that the increasing writ of Taliban in the country posed the greatest threat to the region.

February 5th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that the government's writ would be established in the Swat Valley at any cost, Pakistan's Online news agency reported. The security forces were undertaking operations against anti-state elements in the Swat, Gilani said while talking to Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani Thursday.