Paris (AFP) – Several people taken hostage Friday evening in a Paris travel agency were released safe and sound, police said, but the armed robber who seized them was on the run. “Armed robbery on Massena Boulevard in Paris: operation over,” police tweeted. “Six people have left. The thief is not on the premises.” Sources said seven hostages had been ...

A police officer remained unhurt in a roadside blast targeting his vehicle in Peshawar’s Chamkani area on Friday, police said. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Chamkani Abdul Salam was on a routine patrol when the remote-controlled bomb exploded near his vehicle on the Northern Bypass, Superintendent of Police (SP) rural Furqan Bilal said. However, the police official remained unhurt, Police ...

KABUL: China has suggested construction of railroads that would link Quetta and Peshawar to Afghanistan’s modern capital city, Kabul. Beijing is mulling to cash in on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) by linking Afghanistan, the gateway to Central Asia, to the corridor. Quetta and Peshawar, two major cities inhabited by Pashtuns on the other side of the Durand Line, would ...

Afghanistan may seek additional military assistance from India in battling a relentless Taliban insurgency, a New Delhi-based newspaper reported on Wednesday. President Ashraf Ghani is expected to present Prime Minister Narendra Modi a wish list at their meeting on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia Conference in the Amritsar city of Punjab state next week. As the strategic partnership ...

After a massive riot which saw hundreds of Afghans fight with police and destroy parts of Bulgaria’s largest asylum camp, authorities have chosen to deport 250 migrants who took part. In the aftermath of a massive riot that engulfed Harmanli for almost an entire day, authorities have announced the plans to deport 250 Afghans who contributed to the disturbance. The ...

Greek authorities picked up about 70 migrants, including children, in a snowy forest near the northern city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday, as smugglers turned to previously popular routes into the European Union rather than the sea crossing from Turkey. Members of the group, who said they were from Syria, told Greek police they had crossed the Evros River on the ...

Breaking the Bofors jinx, India and the US on Wednesday inked a nearly Rs 5,000 crore deal for 145 M777 ultra-light howitzers, which will be mostly deployed near the borders with China. This is the first deal for artillery guns since the Bofors scandal in 1980s. “India has signed the Letter of Acceptance which formalises the contract between India and ...

The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) cleared the strategic Pacher Agam district of the loyalists of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group. The provincial police commandment in a statement said at least 17 loyalists of the terror group were killed or wounded during the latest counter-terrorism operations. The statement further added that the dead bodies ...

Pakistan’s Press Information Bureau on Wednesday released a readout of a phone call on Monday between Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and the U.S. president-elect, Donald Trump. The readout is unusual in that it focuses almost entirely on Trump’s contributions to the conversation, and reproduces them in a voice that is unmistakably his. The readout is reproduced in full below: ...

KABUL: Twentieth death anniversary of the modern Afghan-Pashtun poet and artist of the 20th century, Khan Abdul Ghani Khan, was commemorated here on Tuesday. In the commemoration ceremony, organized by the Hamid Karzai Foundation, hundreds of poets, academicians, writers, researchers, current and former Afghan officials and nationalists from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan participated. Ex-Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Awami National Party ...