PESHAWAR: The internally displaced persons of North Waziristan Agency on Tuesday warned that they would march on Islamabad after three days if the authorities didn’t ensure their repatriation. The warning was issued by the members of Dandi Darpakhel tribe, including students, after they set up a protest camp outside the Peshawar Press Club. The participants shouted slogans for the early ...

With Iran’s top military official warning Pakistan of reprisals for sheltering Sunni militias attacking targets in Iran, three of Islamabad‘s neighbours have accused it of cross-border terrorism. Iran’s warning that it might be considering its version of“surgical strikes”+ comes after 10 of its border guards were killed by a group identified as Jaish-al-Adl which Tehran believes is sheltered in Pakistan. ...

INDONESIA: Jakarta’s Christian governor was sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy, a harsher-than-expected ruling that critics fear will embolden hardline Islamist forces to challenge secularism in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. Tuesday’s guilty verdict comes amid concern about the growing influence of Islamist groups, who organized mass rallies during a tumultuous election campaign that ended with Basuki ...

KABUL: Around 3,000 more US troops could be sent to Afghanistan to stem a spike in insurgent-related violence, international media reports said on Tuesday. Under the proposals from the Pentagon and State Department, military commanders might be empowered again to hit Taliban leaders with air strikes, the BBC reported. The plan, including a request that other NATO members send 3,000-5,000 ...

KABUL: Former President, Hamid Karzai in a meeting with the famous saffron producer Mohammad Akbar aka Baba-e-Zaferan (father of saffron), praised him for his efforts in the increase of saffron cultivation and its quality, especially the saffron of Herat province. Karzai’s office said Monday that the ex-president said that the situation for saffron cultivation is suitable in the country, expressing ...

IRAN: The head of the Iranian armed forces warned Islamabad on Monday that Tehran would hit bases inside Pakistan if the government does not confront militants who carry out cross-border attacks. Ten Iranian border guards were killed by militants last month. Iran said Jaish-al-Adl, a militant group, had shot the guards with long-range guns, fired from inside Pakistan. The border ...

KIEL: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives secured a strong win on Sunday in state polls in northern Germany, early results showed, lending a boost to her bid to retain power in September’s national elections. Voters in the small, northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on the Baltic Sea handed her CDU party 34 per cent, while the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) clinched ...

KABUL: The head of the militant Islamic State (IS) group in Afghanistan, Abdul Hasib, has been killed in an operation led by Afghan special forces in Nangarhar province, President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday. Hasib, appointed last year after his predecessor Hafiz Saeed Khan died in a US drone strike, is believed to have ordered a series of high-profile attacks ...

KABUL: The Afghan government reacted at the remarks of a Pakistani general regarding the killing of at least 50 Afghan troops during the clash in Spin Boldak district located along the Durand Line, dismissing the claims as baseless. The head of the Government Media and Information Center Sediq Sediqi the Afghan government rejects the claim by Pakistani general regarding the ...

PARIS: Centrist independent is projected to win by 65.1% to 34.9% but defeat still marks historically high vote for France’s far right. The pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidency with a decisive victory over the far-right Marine Le Pen that his supporters hailed as holding back the tide of populism. Macron, 39, a former economy minister who ...