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10.3.1 Pakistan (2d part)

- Some $10bn (£5bn) in aid promised to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban has still to be delivered, a group of 94 aid agencies has said.

- The Agency Coordinating Body For Afghan Relief (Acbar) says that two-thirds of aid bypasses the Afghan government.

- Forty per cent of aid goes back to donor countries in consultant fees and expatriate pay, the group says.

- As a result, it warns that the prospects for peace in Afghanistan are being undermined.

- On Monday February 25, 2008, Pakistan arrested a suspected al-Qaida militant who slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto named before her death as one of those involved in an attempt on her life in October. Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who has been in Pakistani custody before, was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore for alleged involvement in the October suicide bombing in Karachi that hit Bhutto's homecoming parade when she returned from exile. The bombing narrowly missed Bhutto but killed about 150 others. Bhutto was killed in a subsequent suicide attack on December 27 in Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad.

- On Thursday February 28, 2008, a suspected US missile strike destroyed an Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideout in the Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan, killing 13 alleged militants including several Arabs. Residents said that a house was blown up by a missile fired from a pilotless drone and the loud blast was heard miles away. US drones have launched several strikes on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border targeting members of Osama bin Laden's network, although Islamabad never confirms such attacks due to issues of national sovereignty.

- The leaders of the two parties that won Pakistan's elections have signed an agreement on a coalition government on March 9, 2008. Asif Ali Zardari, widower of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, and ex-PM Nawaz Sharif called on President Pervez Musharraf to convene parliament immediately. The coalition deal will bring together the Pakistan People's Party, which was led by Benazir Bhutto until her assassination, and the PML(N) party of Mr Sharif.

- At least 24 people have been killed and 100 injured in two suspected suicide car bombings in the city of Lahore in eastern Pakistan on March 11, 2008. A majority of the victims died in a car bomb attack that hit a federal police building in the heart of the city. Another bomb in a suburb killed three, including two children.

- A suicide bomber Thursday March 20, 2008, rammed his explosives-laden car into a military vehicle outside a brigade headquarters in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Five soldiers were killed and 11 wounded.

- On March 23, 2008, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf pledged full support to the incoming coalition government, which will be made up of his political opponents. Mr Musharraf said a new era of democracy was beginning. The remarks came a day after his political opponents nominated Yusuf Raza Gillani as candidate for PM.

- Pakistan's new Prime Minister, Yusuf Raza Gillani, told parliament in Islamabad on March 29, 2008, that his top priority will be the fight against terrorism. The National Assembly endorsed him with a vote of confidence.

- Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who went missing in February, appeared in a video on April 19, 2008, saying he is being held by Taleban militants. He urged Pakistan's government to meet a demand for an exchange of captives. It is the first public statement by the envoy since he disappeared in the border area between the two countries, on his way to the Afghan capital Kabul.

- A missile strike late Wednesday May 14, 2008, destroyed a house and killed about a dozen people in a Pakistan border village. Residents said at least two explosions rocked Damadola village, in the Bajur tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. They reported seeing drone aircraft flying in the area before the blasts and said Taliban militants cordoned off the area afterward. There was no immediate official confirmation of the incident or any claim of responsibility. Pakistan's army said it had no information about a missile strike.

- A suicide bomber killed at least 11 people in northwestern Pakistan on May 17, 2008, in an attack aimed at sabotaging peace talks between the government and pro-Taliban militants. Fourteen people were injured when the bomber blew himself up outside a bakery in the city of Mardan. Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was to avenge a missile strike last week that killed 14 people in the town of Damadola.

- Pakistan's government on Wednesday May 21, 2008, signed a controversial peace agreement with hard-line Islamic militants, with the government accepting the introduction of Islamic "Shariah" law to the region and agreeing to free dozens of prisoners. In return, militants loyal to Maulana Fazlullah, a powerful cleric in the Swat valley, agreed to stop attacks on government forces and installations in the area, to stop carrying weapons in public, and to let girls attend school. Security officials say the government has agreed to free between 65 and 300 prisoners, mostly men loyal to Fazlullah, who have been cleared by national security agencies as posing little threat.
- At least six people have been killed and 30 injured on June 2, 2008, in a car bomb attack near the Danish embassy in the Pakistani capital Islamabad. An embassy worker was among the dead and three were hurt but no Danish citizens were killed or injured. Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the act "cowardly" and said it would not change Danish policies.

- Pakistan's foreign minister said on June 5, 2008, government peace deals with pro-Taliban militants are aimed at establishing a "peaceful coexistence" with the groups; he also said critics of the deal are "cynical." Pakistan's peace agreements with Taliban militants have drawn concern from NATO forces, Afghan officials and the U.S. government who worry they will be short-lived truces that only undermine the war against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

- Suspected Taliban militants killed four policemen in an ambush in Matani, near Peshawar, the capital of troubled North West Frontier Province, while an Islamist leader escaped a bomb attack in the same area on Monday June 9, 2008. The incidents came despite peace talks between the new government and the hardliner militants aimed at stopping a wave of extremist violence in Pakistan's troubled mountain regions bordering Afghanistan.

- On June 10, 2008, an air strike by US-led forces killed 11 Pakistani troops. The attack took place as US-led forces operating in Afghanistan were tackling pro-Taleban militants. The US military confirmed it had carried out the operation. The soldiers' deaths occurred overnight at a border post in the mountainous Gora Prai region in Mohmand, one of Pakistan's tribal areas, across the border from Afghanistan's Kunar province. Eight Taleban militants were also killed in the clashes.
- Pakistan summoned the U.S. ambassador Wednesday June 11, 2008, to protest a U.S. airstrike that it says killed 11 of its forces who were cooperating with the U.S.-led war in the mountain areas of the Pakistan and Afghanistan border in Mohmand. The U.S. military said it carried out an airstrike and fired against "anti-Afghan forces" shortly after they attacked coalition forces in Afghanistan's Konar province. Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned an air strike by Afghanistan-based US forces that Islamabad says killed 11 of its troops.

- Afghan President Hamid Karzai's threat to send troops across the border into Pakistan to crush pro-Taliban forces sparked angry protests in Pakistan's border areas this week. Describing the situation as "extremely alarming", Pakistan blamed "foreign powers" for turning the region into a battlefield.

- Pakistan said on Wednesday June 25, 2008, it would not allow militants to attack Afghanistan from its territory and it would never let foreign troops operate on its soil. The declaration came after threats from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to send troops into Pakistan to fight Taliban militants he says operate from border sanctuaries, and after 11 Pakistani border soldiers were killed in a U.S. air strike.

- On June 26, 2008, the Afghan Government has for the first time publicly and specifically accused Pakistan's secret service of organising a failed attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai in April. Afghanistan said it had evidence of the direct involvement of Pakistan's main intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, in the assassination attempt at the April 27 National Day parade in Kabul, which killed three people. Evidence consists of documents, confessions from 16 suspects and mobile phone contacts.

- On June 28 2008, hundreds of Pakistani military and police forces moved into the key northwestern city of Peshawar to head off a possible attack by the Taliban and other Islamist insurgents, marking the first major military operation in Pakistan's fractured border region since a new government was elected in February. The build-up of security forces in Peshawar, a provincial capital of 3 million about 30 miles from Afghanistan, and a nearby tribal area may signal a strategic shift in the country's struggle to quell extremist activity. Meanwhile, a top Taliban leader in Pakistan said he was suspending talks between his allies and the government.

- A Pakistani woman mysteriously disappeared from Karachi five years back. She was thought to have links with al Qaida; she has been arrested on charges of attempted murder and assault of US soldiers and FBI agents working in Afghanistan. Thirty-six year old Aafia Saddiqui, a neuroscientist trained in US, who was arrested in the USA after being brought from Afghanistan, will appear in court. If convicted, she could get prison sentence of 20 years on each of the two charges. Saddiqui, who studied at the Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, disappeared from her house while visiting her parents at Karachi along with her three children.
- Pakistani officials said government forces have killed at least 25 pro-Taliban militants in fighting in the Bajaur tribal region near the border with Afghanistan on August 6, 2008. The militants attacked government forces at a security checkpoint, killing two soldiers. Pakistan also said security forces have killed a top militant commander; Ali Bakht was a close aide to pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah, and eight other insurgents in the Kabal area of Swat Valley, in the country's northwest region. At least 125 people have been killed in clashes with security forces in the region this week.
- On August 7, 2008, Pakistan's ruling coalition parties have agreed "in principle" to start impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf. Party representatives are said to be looking at a draft impeachment resolution, but further details about how it may proceed were not available. The president's allies were defeated in elections in February, but he has so far resisted pressure to quit. Mr Musharraf has cancelled a trip to the Olympics.
- At least seven Pakistani troops and 30 militants have been killed in two days of clashes in the semi-autonomous Bajaur tribal district, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the army said Friday August 8, 2008. Helicopter gunships pounded militant positions as fierce gun battles resumed between Taliban rebels and troops. On Thursday 25 militants and 10 paramilitary troops had been killed.

- More than 100 militants have been killed in four days of heavy fighting in a tribal area near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan we were told on August 10, 2008. Pakistan said nine of its soldiers were killed in the battles in Bajaur. The Pakistani Taliban said that only seven of their men died. Neither claim has been independently verified.

- A roadside bomb destroyed an air force truck on a bridge Tuesday August 12, 2008, in Pakistan's northwest and killed up to 14 people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it "an open war" and retaliation for recent military operations in the region. The blast tore a large hole in the bridge and reduced the truck to a smouldering wreck, and the site was littered with debris and blood.
- At least seven people, including two policemen, were killed and more than a dozen injured on Wednesday August 13, 2008, in a suicide attack that targeted the police in Lahore. The blast occurred near a police station in a busy market in the Iqbal Town area of the city as people were making preparations for the country's 61st Independence Day celebrations to be held the following day.

- On Friday August 15, 2008, we were told that over 460 Islamic militants and 22 soldiers have been killed in more than a week of fighting in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan. More than 3,000 armed militants, most of them foreigners, are taking part in the clashes in the Bajaur tribal region.

- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, facing impeachment on charges drawn up by the governing coalition, announced on August 18, 2008, that he is resigning. He said that while he was confident the charges would not stand, this was not the time for more confrontation. He is accused of violation of the constitution and gross misconduct. The Speaker of the Pakistani Senate, Muhammad Mian Sumroo, automatically took over as caretaker president.

- At least 25 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a hospital in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on August 19, 2008. The attack happened as Shia Muslims gathered at the hospital in Dera Ismail Khan District to mourn a local leader who had been shot dead. There was also more fighting between militants and soldiers in the Bajaur district on the Afghan border. The violence comes a day after Pervez Musharraf resigned as president.

- Pakistani troops killed seven militants in clashes near the Afghan border while Taliban rebels slaughtered an alleged spy, we were told on Sunday August 24, 2008. Troops launched a mortar attack on suspected militant hideouts in the Bajaur tribal district overnight after their check posts came under attack.

- At least five people were killed when a missile fired from Afghanistan hit a suspected rebel hideout Saturday August 30, 2008, in Pakistan's South Waziristan, a known hub of Al-Qaida. The missile struck the house of a tribesman in the Zelli Noor area just outside Wana, the region's main town. The owner of the house had recently rented it out to some "foreigners", a term used in Pakistan to describe Al-Qaida fighters. Unconfirmed reports from the area said among the dead were four foreigners.

- Shots have been fired at the motorcade of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on September 3, 2008, although it is not clear if he was in the convoy at the time. Interior ministry officials said the car was on its way to collect Mr Gilani from Islamabad's airport but earlier, his press secretary said that unidentified gunman fired on Mr Gilani's car as he was travelling from the airport into the city.

- At least 20 people were killed in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday September 3, 2008, after US and Afghan troops crossed from Afghanistan to pursue Taliban insurgents in an early morning attack that marked the first known instance in which US forces conducted an operation on Pakistani soil since the US-led war in Afghanistan began. The United States has conducted occasional air and artillery strikes against insurgents lodged across the border in Pakistani territory, and "hot pursuit" rules provide some room for US troops to manoeuvre in the midst of battle. But the arrival of three US helicopters in the village of Musa Nika, clearly inside the Pakistani
Border, drew a sharp response from Pakistani officials.

- Helicopters ferried US-led troops to a border village in a raid that left at least 15 people dead on Wednesday September 3, 2008, including civilians. It was unclear whether any militant leader was killed or captured in the operation, which penetrated a notorious stronghold in the frontier zone considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri. The attack was the first ever ground incursion by foreign forces on its territory and warned that it undermined efforts against terrorism. American officials say Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghan border have turned into havens for al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants involved in attacks on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The accusations -and suspected American missile strikes- have strained relations between the United States and Pakistan's new civilian government in the days before it elects a successor to ousted President Pervez Musharraf.

- Five militants were killed on Friday September 5, 2008, in a missile attack by a suspected US drone in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. The attack was on a house in the Guvrek area.

- Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was e3lected Pakistan's president on Saturday September 6, 2008. Mr Zardari faces severe economic problems and a rampant Islamist insurgency that are threatening Pakistan's stability. During the voting a bomb killed at least 15 people near Peshawar city.

- A car full of explosives drove into a security checkpoint outside Peshawar in north-west Pakistan on September 6, 2008, killing at least 12 people and injuring 50 others. Many people were trapped under the debris of two damaged buildings in a nearby market. Television footage showed wrecked cars and pieces of the destroyed checkpoint scattered across a large area.

- At least 20 people were killed and 25 were injured Monday September 8, 2008, when missiles fired by US Predator drones hit a religious school and the house of a powerful Taliban commander, Commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, in the village of Dande Darpakhel, northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border. Two US Predators fired six missiles in rapid succession at the village, hitting the seminary, which is run by Haqqani, his nearby house and several others.

- A missile from a suspected US drone killed 14 people when it hit a house in the outskirts of Miranshah in North Waziristan tribal area on Friday September 12, 2008. It was the fourth such strike in a week. Another 14 people were wounded.

- On September 16, 2008, Pakistan's military ordered its troops to fire on US troops if they entered Pakistani territory, after a cross-border raid inflamed public opinion. The country's civilian leaders, who have taken a tough line against militants, have insisted Pakistan must resolve the dispute with the US through diplomatic channels. But the military has taken a more robust line.

- A suspected US missile strike killed at least six people Wednesday September 17, 2008, hours after the top US military officer told Pakistani leaders that America respected Pakistan's sovereignty amid a furore over American strikes into Pakistan's northwest. Several missiles hit a compound in the South Waziristan tribal region.

- Pakistan's new president said on September 20, 2008, that his country cannot accept violations of its sovereignty "by any power", in a clear warning to the US over recent cross-border military strikes. Asif Ali Zardari has faced mounting anger within the country following a series of American missile attacks and ground assaults in Pakistan's north-west tribal regions, near the Afghan border.

- A suicide bomber attacked a Pakistani military convoy near the Afghan border Saturday September 20, 2008, killing two soldiers and four civilians. Five security forces persons were also injured.

- On September 21, 2008, rescuers in the Pakistani capital are searching for bodies and survivors of a suicide bombing at the Marriott hotel, which killed at least 53 people. Some 266 others were hurt in the blast. Most of the dead were Pakistani. The Czech ambassador was among at least four foreigners killed. US and Vietnamese citizens were also killed in the blast and at least a dozen foreign nationals were wounded. The Danish foreign ministry said one of its diplomats was missing. Six Britons and an unknown number of Saudi, German, Moroccan, Afghan and US citizens, were among those hurt.

- Afghanistan protested to Pakistan on September 22, 2008, over the lack of safety for its diplomats after the abduction of the Afghan consul general in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Unknown assailants opened fire on the car of the consul general, Abdul Khaliq Farahi. Farahi, who has been consul general since 2002, was kidnapped, while his driver-cum-bodyguard was killed in the attack. He was to become the Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan.

- A pilotless aircraft that crashed in the northwestern region of South Waziristan had been recovered on September 24, 2008, but the Pentagon denied any US drone had been lost in the area. Other countries with troops in the Nato-led force in neighbouring Afghanistan use unmanned aerial vehicles, but the United States is the only one known to fly them inside Pakistan. Britain also said none of its aircraft operating in Afghanistan were missing.

- Pakistan's security forces pounded militant positions near strategic areas in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing 25 suspected insurgents. Security forces on Friday September 26, 2008, cleared militant compounds near Bajur's Rashakai and Loi Sam areas. Three soldiers were killed including two officers. The weekslong military operation in the Bajur tribal region has already killed more than 1,000 militants and some 66 soldiers.

- Gunmen kidnapped a Polish engineer in Pakistan on Sunday September 28, 2008, after shooting dead his Pakistani driver, body guard and translator. The engineer is an employee of the Polish oil company Geofizyka Krakow and was visiting one of the company's sites near Attock city.

- Pakistan replaced the head of its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on September 30, 2008, in an apparent effort to clean up the military spy agency amid western claims that it secretly backs the Taliban. Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha had been appointed director-general of the ISI, replacing Nadeem Taj, a loyalist of the former president Pervez Musharraf.

- A suspected US missile strike on a Taliban commander's home in Pakistan killed six people on Wednesday October 1, 2008, an indication that Washington was moving ahead with cross-border raids despite protests from the new government. The attack was the first since President Asif Ali Zardari warned that its territory cannot "be violated by our friends."

- Two suspected US missile strikes close to the border with Afghanistan killed three civilians Friday October 3, 2008. The strikes took place in two villages in North Waziristan. In Addition militants on Saturday buried the bodies of Arab comrades who were among at least 20 people killed when suspected US missiles hit a house near the Afghan border.

- The death toll from a suicide attack during a gathering of tribal elders in the northwest part of the country has risen to more than 60. The suspected suicide bombing rocked the assembly of a jirga, or tribal council, of more than 1,000 members of the Alikhel tribe in Khadezai village of Orakzai district on Friday October 10, 2008.

- A suspected US missile strike killed four people and wounded two others in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on Saturday October 11, 2008. The strike hit a home in the village of Khatai Qila. A second strike hit the village of Matches but did not wound anyone.

- On October 12, 2008, Pakistani security forces killed 10 militants in the northwestern Bajaur tribal region and arrested two suspected would-be suicide bombers in the southwestern Balochistan province. The death toll in clashes in Bajaur since yesterday has risen to 23.
The Pakistan Army has claimed that it has killed more than 1,000 militants in Bajaur since it launched an operation in the region in August.

- A missile fired by a U.S. drone, was fired into Pakistani territory on the Afghan border Thursday October 16, 2008, killing at least one militant. Impatience has been growing in the United States over what Washington views as Pakistan's failure to eliminate the militant threat from their sanctuaries in remote ethnic Pashtun regions.

- Pakistani forces killed about 40 Taliban militants on Sunday October 19, 2008.

- On October 23, 2008, US missiles rained down on a Pakistani school linked to a Taliban leader in an attack that killed at least nine people just hours after the country's parliament warned against incursions into its territory.

- Pakistan captured a key militant stronghold (Loi Sam) near the Afghan border, in an ongoing offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the Bajaur tribal region. Pakistani security forces have been battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Bajaur since August. Khan says nearly 1,500 suspected militants and 73 troops have died in the operation so far.

- A suspected US missile strike on a militant training camp in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan killed a top Taliban commander - Haji Omar Khan, a lieutenant of veteran Afghan Taliban chieftain and former anti-Soviet fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani - and at least 15 other people we were told on Monday October 27, 2008.

- Pakistan on Wednesday October 29, 2008, registered "a strong protest" with Washington's ambassador to Islamabad over a number of missile attacks by US drones inside its territory. There have been a total of 16 US missile strikes against suspected extremist hideouts in the Pakistani tribal regions since August 13 this year. The attacks have sharply raised tensions between Washington and its key ally in its "war on terror" against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

- At least 27 people have been killed October 31, 2008, in two suspected US missile strikes in north-western Pakistan. Iraqi al-Qaida operative known as Abu Akash was killed in the first raid near the village of Mirali, North Waziristan. About two hours later, a second set of missiles hit a village in South Waziristan, killing seven people, including an unspecified number of foreign fighters. Suspected US unmanned planes have fired at alleged militant targets in neighbouring Pakistan at least 17 times since mid-August. The latest attack came two days after Pakistan summoned the US ambassador to protest against missile strikes and demanded that they be stopped immediately. An Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative -described by the United States as the terror network's propaganda chief- was killed in the missile strike. The United States has offered a one-million-dollar bounty for the death or capture of al-Masri, who has appeared in an anti-Western video introduced by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's number two.

- On November 2, 2008, a bomber rammed his car into the checkpoint near the main gate of the Zalai Fort near Wana, killing eight troops and injuring four more as they were washing military vehicles. The "large" explosion also damaged the front wall of the fort.

- A suspected U.S. missile strike targeting a Taliban commander killed 13 people on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan on November 8, 2008.

M- ilitary jets pounded suspected Taliban hide-outs Sunday November 9, 2008 in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, killing at least 13 suspected militants. Elsewhere in northwestern Pakistan a local journalist was shot dead by security forces late Saturday in Swat Valley when he failed to stop his vehicle, despite warnings. In southwestern Pakistan, a remote-controlled bomb planted on a motorcycle killed a pedestrian and wounded at least four others in a market. An ethnic Baluch nationalist group has claimed responsibility.

- Pakistani Taliban militants hijacked a convoy carrying wheat and military vehicles headed for Afghanistan Monday November 10, 2008, underscoring for NATO forces the vulnerability of their only practical supply route into landlocked Afghanistan. In an attack in Jamrud, near the capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, 60 masked militants held up a convoy of 13 trucks. The trucks, 12 of which were carrying wheat and one carrying two Humvees for Western forces in Afghanistan, were hijacked without the militants having to fire a single shot. The highway on which the incident took place connects Peshawar, the largest city in northwestern Pakistan, to Jalalabad and Kabul in Afghanistan. Coalition forces receive their food and weapons from the nearest warm-water port in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, over 1,000 miles away, through this route.

- In Pakistan, an American aid worker was killed Wednesday November 12, 2008. Stephen Vance was heading to work in Peshawar when he was shot and killed, along with his driver. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

- Gunmen have wounded a Japanese journalist in north-west Pakistan on November 14, 2008, the latest in a spate of attacks on foreigners,

- Suspected US missiles killed 12 people on November 14, 2008, in an al-Qaeda stronghold. Several of the dead in the missile strike close to the Afghan border were foreign militants.

- On November 15, 2008, Pakistan closed the Torkham border crossing in the Khyber tribal agency. The road through the Khyber Pass is NATO's primary supply line into Afghanistan. The government claimed poor security on the strategic road into Afghanistan forced the closure. The road has been shut down exclusively for NATO traffic.

- Suspected U.S. missiles killed 12 people Friday November 14, 2008, in northwestern Pakistan, and Pakistani troops in attack helicopters killed 20 insurgents. Several of the dead in the missile strike near the border with Afghanistan were foreign militants.

- On November 16, 2008, we were told that Law enforcing agencies have so far arrested more than 2,700 foreigners for their suspected links with Al-Qaeda or other militant organisations in Pakistan or Afghanistan. After the fall of Taliban government in Afghanistan, hundreds of foreigners who fought against the US and its allied forces in Afghanistan had illegally entered into Pakistan's tribal and settled areas.

- Pakistan has re-opened a route critical to transporting supplies to NATO and U.S.-led forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistani security forces escorted a convoy of about 30 food trucks and oil tankers through the Khyber Pass Monday November 17, 2008. Pakistan closed the route last week after gunmen hijacked about 15 supply trucks destined for Afghanistan.

- A fugitive British militant linked to an alleged UK plot to use liquid bombs to blow up transatlantic airliners has been killed in Pakistan on November 22, 2008. Rashid Rauf was killed in a US air strike in North Waziristan. Mr Rauf, on the run after escaping from Pakistani custody, was seen as a link between the UK plotters and Pakistan.

- At least 30 Taliban militants were killed Wednesday December 3, 2008, during military air strikes. The strikes were carried out by Pakistani jets and helicopter gunships at militant hide outs in Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the military is hunting Al-Qaida linked Taliban militants.

- At least six people have been killed and several wounded on December 4, 2008, in a suicide car bomb attack in Orakzai, north-western Pakistan. Orakzai is the only tribal region that does not have a border with Afghanistan.

- Six more bodies have been found in the wreckage of a huge bomb blast that ripped through a crowded marketplace in troubled northwest Pakistan, taking the toll to 27, we were told on Saturday December 6, 2008. An explosives-laden car blew up in a busy shopping area late Friday in Peshawar. A 12-year-old boy was among the victims of the explosion, which hit the city as crowds of people were out shopping ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid, destroying shops and hotels.

- More than 90 lorries supplying US forces in Afghanistan have been set on fire in a suspected militant attack in north-west Pakistan on December 7, 2008. At least one person was killed as about 300 gunmen using rockets overpowered the guards at a terminal near the city of Peshawar. Some of the lorries were laden with Humvee armoured vehicles. The road from Peshawar to Afghanistan is a major supply route for US and other forces battling against the Taleban.

- On December 8, 2008, the militants struck a container terminal on the outskirts of Peshawar just over a mile from yesterday's attack, in which gunmen torched more than 100 trucks. About 50 containers were destroyed, which again targeted the main route for supplies to troops in land-locked Afghanistan from Pakistan.

- On December 9, 2008, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Swat Valley, near the border with Afghanistan, killing a child and wounding four other people. The Pakistani government has been trying to regain control of the Swat Valley in recent months, after militants regrouped there from other Pakistani border areas with Afghanistan.

- A missile fired from a US drone killed at least six militants close to Pakistan's Afghan border on December 11, 2008. The missile struck a house beside an Islamic school in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, which is seen by many as an al-Qaida sanctuary.

- Militants torched 25 supplies trucks for Afghanistan-based coalition forces in northwestern Pakistan Saturday December 13, 2008. The militants used patrol bombs to torch the supplies trucks and oil containers in Peshawar. It is the fifth attack on a Pakistani freight terminal near Peshawar within ten days; this latest attack raised the number of destroyed containers and oil tankers to around 325.

- An association of Pakistani lorry owners and drivers refused on December 14, 2008, to resume delivering supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan after a series of militant attacks on convoys plying the main supply route via the Khyber Pass.

- A US missile strike killed two people and wounded three in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border. The Monday December 15, 2008, strike in Tabi Tolkhel village in the North Waziristan tribal region appears to be the latest in a surge of alleged US missile attacks in Pakistani territory.

- On Wednesday December 17, 2008, Taliban militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a NATO supply convoy, killing a woman in a nearby house and wounding at least one of her children. The grenades missed the convoy and hit the house in Pakistan's Khyber tribal district. This is the latest in a string of attacks on convoys heading for the Khyber Pass. The convoy continued on its way to Afghanistan.

- Suspected Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan opened fire on an oil tanker used to supply fuel to foreign forces in Afghanistan. Two drivers and one assistant were killed in the incident late Friday December 19, 2008 in the Khyber tribal district.

- Taliban militants have killed two Afghan nationals on December 21, 2008, for allegedly acting as spies for US forces in Afghanistan. Police found the bullet-ridden bodies of two brothers in a village located in Pakistan's lawless tribal region of North Waziristan. A note found with the bodies said the two men were spies from the neighbouring Afghan province of Khost.

- Suspected US attacks by unmanned drones killed at least seven (or eight) suspected Taliban members in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan on Monday December 22, 2008.

- A suspected US drone fired two missiles on Thursday January 1, 2009, into Pakistan's South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing three foreign militants and wounding one.

- A teenaged suicide bomber attacked police in northwest Pakistan on Sunday January 4, 2009, as they investigated an earlier blast, killing seven people and wounding 28 others. The attack took place on a busy road in the town of Dera Ismail Khan near the border with Afghanistan, where police were called to the scene of a minor grenade explosion. Five police and two civilians were killed in the suicide attack.

- Pakistan Monday January 5, 2009, reopened during daytime hours a key northwest supply route for Western troops in Afghanistan. The curfew along the Khyber Pass had been lifted from 8:00 am until 7:00 pm

- On January 5, 2009, suspected Taleban militants have killed three men in north-west Pakistan after accusing them of spying for the United States. The bodies were found on a road near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan region.

- Al-Qaida's operations chief in Pakistan and another top aide have been killed we were told on January 8, 2009. Kenyans Usama al-Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were killed last week by a missile fired from a US drone near the Afghan border. Kini was believed to be behind last year's deadly attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

- Hundreds of Taliban poured into northwestern Pakistan in a large frontal attack on a paramilitary base late Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 January 2009 that left at least 40 militants and 6 Pakistani soldiers dead. The attack, on an outpost of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force in the Mohmand district, appeared to be the heaviest assault on Pakistani troops in months. At the same time, gangs of Sunnis and Shiites fought each other, rampaging through the villages of the Hangu district over the weekend, destroying dozens of homes and leaving at least 40 people dead between the rival groups.

- Violent religious extremists in Pakistan are moving to restrict girls' education as they seek to impose a draconian version of Islamic law on a beleaguered population. In a northern valley where Taliban guerrillas have been waging a bloody war against security forces for more than a year, hard-liners have blown up or burned down some 170 schools, most of them for girls. Then in December, a warning by militants in a pirate radio broadcast: All schools for girls should close by Jan. 15. An association representing 400 private schools for boys and girls in the Swat valley said they would all remain closed after the winter break because of the threat.

- Pakistan will push to quickly reopen girls' schools destroyed by Islamic militants in the country's lawless northwest we were told on Sunday January 18, 2009. The militants' efforts to deter girls from attending school in Pakistan are reminiscent of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which banned education for girls and forced most working women to return to their homes.

- Pakistani security forces, backed by artillery and tanks, have killed 14 Taliban in heavy fighting in the Mohmand region on the Afghan border on Sunday January 18, 2009. Two paramilitary soldiers were killed in the clash that went on for several hours.

- Militant attacks killed a Pakistani soldier and wounded 14 near the famed Khyber Pass, the supply route to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Monday January 19, 2009. The attack caused yet another temporary closing of the supply route. Also Taliban bombed five schools in a nearby valley in their growing campaign against girls' education.

- At least 20 people were killed in northwest Pakistan near the border of Afghanistan on Friday January 23, 2009 in two suspected US missile strikes, the first such attack in North Waziristan, Pakistan's tribal areas, since President Obama's inauguration. The precision strike levelled a compound, which was owned by local tribal elder Khalil Malik, killing at least 10 suspected militants, including five foreign nationals.

- At least five people have been killed and many more wounded in a bomb blast in north-west Pakistan on January 25, 2009. The bomb, attached to a bicycle, went off on a busy main road in the town of Dera Ismail Khan.

- A senior official of the United Nations refugee agency, John Solecki, has been kidnapped in the western Pakistani city of Quetta on February 2, 2009. Gunmen stopped his vehicle on his way to work, seizing him and killing his driver, a local man.

- A day after blowing up a crucial land bridge, Taliban militants torched 10 supply trucks returning from Afghanistan to Pakistan on Wednesday February 4, 2009, underscoring the insurgents' dominance of the main route used to transport supplies to Afghan-based US and NATO troops.

- On February 8, 2009, suspected Pakistani Taliban militants have released a videotape showing the beheading of a Polish engineer kidnapped four months ago. In another development, a suicide car bombing has wounded at least 18 people in northwest Pakistan.

- At least 27 militants have been killed in a suspected US missile attack in north-west Pakistan on February 14, 2009. The missile strike hit a house in the South Waziristan area, near the Afghan border, which used as a hide-out for Taleban militants.

- Suspected Taliban militants killed two policemen and injured three others in separate attacks An unknown number of militants ambushed a police patrol Friday February 13, 2009, in Chamkani on the outskirts of provincial capital Peshawar, killing a police officer and injuring two others. In a second incident a tribal policeman was killed and another injured when their check post was hit overnight by a rocket fired by suspected Taliban militants. Pakistani troops killed 52 militants in an operation aimed at flushing out Taliban fighters from the Khyber in early February as they regularly attack NATO trucks carrying supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan.

- Two missiles fired from American drone aircraft killed more than 30 people, including Qaida and Taliban fighters, near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan on Saturday February 14, 2009. The missiles struck three compounds, including one where the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, and foreign and local fighters loyal to him sometimes gather. Mehsud, one of the most feared leaders in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, was not among those killed.

- Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan said they are considering extending their cease-fire, but deny they reached a permanent agreement as local government officials had claimed. The head of the hardliner group of Taliban in Swat valley said Saturday February 21, 2009, that his group is reviewing its existing 10-day cease-fire.

- A Taliban commander announced a unilateral cease-fire Monday February 23, 2009, in Bajur region, northwestern Pakistan, region where the military says it has killed around 1,500 militants in an ongoing offensive. Bajur region is a major transit route for militants travelling to fight U.S. and NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. It follows the week-old cease-fire between the government and militants in the Swat Valley.

- A suspected U.S. missile killed seven people in a Taliban stronghold on Sunday March 1, 2009. The missiles landed in Murghiban village in the South Waziristan tribal region and also wounded three people. At least four of the dead were believed to be foreign militants.

- On Wednesday March 4, 2009, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari vowed that those who attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team will be caught, and punished "with iron hands". He said progress was being made on finding the gunmen who shot dead six policemen and drivers and injured eight Tour members in Lahore on Tuesday. ICC match referee Chris Broad accused Pakistani security forces of "vanishing" during the attack.

- A bomb-laden car exploded Saturday March 7, 2009, in northwest Pakistan as police tried to pull a body from it, killing eight people amid growing international concern over the nuclear-armed country's stability. Separately, Pakistani officials investigate reports that a pilotless U.S. drone had crashed elsewhere in the northwest. The drones are operated by the CIA and often launch missile strikes against militant targets in Pakistan.

- On Sunday March 15, 2009, Pakistan opposition leader Nawaz Sharif defied an apparent bid to put him under house arrest in Lahore ahead of a "march" on the capital Islamabad. Thousands of supporters joined him after he broke through a police barricade of his home to reach a rally. Police fired tear gas as protesters hurled stones. Sharif activists later managed to overcome barriers blocking access to the main highway to Islamabad and Mr Sharif left Lahore in a convoy. The Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) supporters plan a "long march" to the capital to demand judges sacked by the former government be reinstated.

- Two missiles fired by US drones have killed four anti-government fighters in northwest Pakistan on March 15, 2009. The house in the Jani Khel village near Bannu belonged to a fighter.

- Pakistan's government said on March 16, 2009, a sacked Supreme Court chief justice will be reinstated in March, prompting the opposition to call off a major rally in the capital. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif had joined campaigning lawyers in demanding the judge's reinstatement. Announcing that the march on Islamabad had been called off, Mr Sharif urged supporters to celebrate "with dignity".

- Suspected Taliban militants destroyed 15 trucks in a NATO supply convoy in northwestern Pakistan's tribal region on Monday March 16, 2009. Gasoline bombs and rocket fire rained down on Al Faisal Terminal, where the convoy packed with supplies bound for US forces in Afghanistan was being assembled. The route is used to move supplies from Peshawar through the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan.

- On March 23, 2009, the sole known surviving suspect from last year's Mumbai attacks appeared on a video link from a high security jail at the start of his trial. Charges against Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab include murder and "waging war" against India. The defendant confirmed that he was from Pakistan's Punjab province and asked for a lawyer. The trial was adjourned until 30 March.

- At least 11 people have been killed in a suicide-bomb attack at a restaurant. About two dozen people opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader, were in the restaurant when the suicide bomber struck on Thursday March 26, 2009. Several other people were wounded in the attack, which took place in the Jandola district of South Waziristan. Those killed were loyal to Turkistan Bittani, a pro-government Pakistani tribal leader.

- A suicide bomber attacked a crowded mosque in northwest Pakistan on Friday March 27, 2009, setting off explosives as a cleric intoned the holy prayers, bringing the roof crashing down and killing scores of people in what was the bloodiest attack this year. One local official said 37 people had died, but most accounts put the death toll at around 50. Hours after the attack, Pakistan television stations reported that up to 70 people might have died.

- The US military said on March 28, 2009, it has evidence elements within Pakistan's military intelligence, the ISI, continue to provide support for the Taleban.

- On March 30, 2009, security forces are battling to retake a police academy in eastern Pakistan after a group of gunmen attacked it with grenades and assault rifles; 40 people had been killed and 80 injured in the attack on the outskirts of Lahore. Firing was continuing more than seven hours after it began with about 30-40 people thought to be trapped inside. In that attack, six policemen were killed, while up to 14 gunmen escaped.

- The chief of the Pakistani Taleban, Baitullah Mehsud, said on Tuesday March 31, 2009, his group was behind Monday's deadly attack on a police academy in Lahore. He said the attack was "in retaliation for the continued drone strikes by the US in collaboration with Pakistan on our people". He also claimed responsibility for two other recent deadly attacks. Baitullah Mehsud said the attacks would continue "until the Pakistan government stops supporting the Americans". Security officials are interrogating at least four suspects captured after the attack.

- Eighteen people, including two civilians, eight policemen and eight militants, were killed and 95 people were injured during the eight-hour battle to wrest back control of the academy we were told on March 31, 2009. Pakistan's interior minister earlier identified the Taleban as well as other extremist groups as possible perpetrators and suggested a foreign state could also be involved.

- Pakistan's Taliban chief claimed responsibility Tuesday March 31, 2009, for a deadly assault on a police academy, saying he wanted to retaliate for U.S. missile attacks on the militant bases on the border with Afghanistan. Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States, also vowed to "amaze everyone in the world" with an attack on Washington or even the White House. The FBI, however, said he had made similar threats previously and there was no indication of anything imminent.

- A missile fired by a suspected US drone killed at least 10 people in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, on April 1, 2009. The missile hit a house in Orakzai tribal area. Residents and local journalists said the house had been converted into a Taleban camp. The Taleban have cordoned off the entire area.

- On April 4, 2009, a suspected US missile strike in north-west Pakistan, the second drone attack in four days, has killed 13 people. Local officials in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border, said the dead included women and children as well as militants -some of them foreigners. But a Taleban spokesman denied this, saying all those killed were civilians.

- An American UN official, John Solecki, the head of the UN refugee agency's office in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, who was kidnapped two months ago in southwestern Pakistan was released on April 4, 2009, after Pakistani authorities freed several separatists held by the security services for the past few years. He was found by the side of a road near Quetta, the provincial capital, with his hands and feet bound, pleading: "Help me, help me!" Ethnic Baluch separatists had earlier claimed responsibility for the abduction and at one point threatened to kill Mr Solecki. News of Mr Solecki's release came as a suicide bomber attacked a crowded Shia mosque in central Pakistan, killing at least 28 people.

- At least four militants were killed in a suspected U.S. missile strike in northwest Pakistan. A U.S. unmanned aircraft (drone) fired a missile that hit a vehicle near Wana in South Waziristan, Wednesday April 8, 2009, killing the four militants. More than 30 missile strikes have been carried out on suspected al-Qaida and Taliban targets in Pakistan since last year.

- Recent clashes between security forces and Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan left up to 21 people dead. The fighting broke out after Taliban militants crossed into the district of Buner late Monday April 5, 2009, from their stronghold in Swat Valley. Community leaders asked the militants to leave, but they refused, and the standoff turned violent. Three policemen, two tribesmen, and as many as 16 Taliban militants were reported killed. The number of Taliban deaths could not be verified.

- The bodies of six slain coal miners were found in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday April 11, 2009, and a policeman was shot dead as rioting over the slaying of three regional leaders continued for a third day. The dead miners were discovered in a village about 50 kilometres east of Quetta. All six men had been shot in the head. It was unclear who killed them. Also Saturday, unidentified gunmen killed a policeman in Quetta. The victim was in civilian clothes when he was attacked. Protesters also clashed with police in several other towns and cities, where they set fire to a string of government offices and a bank.

- On April 12, 2009, Taliban militants have set fire to about 10 trucks carrying cement to Western forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. The trucks were in terminals near the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Gun battles erupted at the scene. Several guards or truck drivers were wounded in the attack.

- A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint in a northwestern Pakistan town Saturday April 18, 2009, killing at least 20 security forces personnel.

- On April 23, 2009 militants have attacked a truck terminal in northwestern Pakistan and burned five tanker trucks carrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan. The attackers hurled gasoline bombs at the depot near the city of Peshawar.

- A missile strike by a suspected US drone on Wednesday April 29, 2009, killed at least six militants in northwest Pakistan's tribal area bordering Afghanistan. The strike took place in Kanni Garam village of restive South Waziristan tribal district. Pakistan said that six people were killed after a missile fired from a spy plane hit a vehicle.

- About 100 militants attacked the Spinal Tangi security post in the Mohmand tribal region near the Afghan border on Saturday May 2, 2009, triggering a battle that left 18 combatants dead including 2 security force personnel and cast doubt on claims by Pakistan's army to have regained control of a critical region. A separate clash in the Swat Valley put more pressure on a disputed peace deal there, while a Taliban commander suspected in attacks on trucks carrying supplies to NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan surrendered to authorities. Tree more troops were wounded.

- At least 10 soldiers have been killed and nine wounded in clashes with suspected Taleban militants in Swat Valley on May 7, 2009. The deaths came as fighting intensified in Swat and other areas of the north-west, and helicopter gunships and warplanes bombed militant targets. Thousands of civilians are fleeing the area, with fighting especially heavy in the main town of Swat, Mingora. Half a million are still trapped in the town, without water or electricity.

- Despite fresh pleas from Pakistan this week for an end to U.S. attacks on militants in Pakistan by pilotless drone aircraft, there was another attack on Saturday May 9, 2009. A suspected pilotless U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles into Pakistan's South Waziristan, a major al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary. According to local sources up to ten persons were killed in the attack in Pakistan's tribal region. U.S. drones fired four missiles at a house and a Madrassa at Sararogha area of South Waziristan, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

- A powerful car bomb blast at a movie house in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed six people Friday May 22, 2009, and injured 75, raising fears here that gains made by Pakistani troops against Taliban militants entrenched in the volatile Swat Valley will be answered with a wave of attacks in urban areas. The explosion was the second in a week in the provincial capital. On Saturday, a car bomb killed 13 people.

- Rescuers are searching the rubble of a police building in the Pakistani city of Lahore after a bomb attack killed at least 23 people and injured 200 on May 27, 2009. Gunmen opened fire on guards before detonating a car bomb which flattened the emergency response building at police HQ. Nearby offices of the ISI intelligence service were also damaged. The Taliban are thought to be responsible.
Fighting between Taliban insurgents and the army in Pakistan's northwest killed 18 militants on June 1, 2009. Security forces "launched an operation to gain control of Charbagh town" in Swat Valley and also destroyed a militant training centre. Two soldiers were killed, and 13 Taliban fighters were captured in Swat and the South Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

- On June 5, 2009, a suicide bomb attack in a remote village in Upper Dir district in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 32 people and wounded scores of others who were attending Friday prayers.
The region is near Swat valley, where the Pakistani military has been battling Taliban fighters for more than a month.

- 23 terrorists were killed June 9, 2009, in the northwestern Malakand and Dir districts. Two soldiers also died. Pakistani security forces say they are close to driving insurgents from the Swat Valley and neighbouring districts. More than 1,300 militants and over 100 soldiers have been killed in the six-week operation.

- On June 14, 2009, a bomb blast has killed at least seven people at a market in the north-western Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan. Many more people -about 50- were wounded in the blast.

- Suspected US missiles pounded militant hideouts Thursday June 18, 2009, in the tribal belt near Afghanistan where Pakistani troops are building up for a major offensive against the country's top Taliban leader. The strikes, which killed at least eight people and were described by Pakistani officials and witnesses as coming from unmanned drone aircraft, appeared not to be directly connected to Pakistan's preparations in South Waziristan. But they came as Pakistan's military on Thursday continued its own airstrikes and shelling, which for days has pummelled suspected militant positions ahead of an expected attack by ground forces. The military said it had killed another 34 militants in its separate, seven-week-old offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley region.

- A citizens' militia trying to drive out the Taliban killed seven militants in a two-hour clash as the president claimed the entire country backs the battle against the extremists. Another militant was wounded in the fighting late Saturday June 20, 2009, near the village of Patrak.

- Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery on Sunday June 21, 2009, as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud. Security forces have secured much of the scenic Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in the past six weeks and the military plans to extend its offensive to al Qaeda ally Mehsud, holed up in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border.

- The assassination of the leader of a renegade Pakistani Taliban faction by one of his own men Tuesday June 23, 2009, underscores a growing rift in the ranks of the militant group as it braces for an impending army assault in the volatile northwest. Qari Zainuddin's killing sets back government hopes of exploiting these internal divisions in the South Waziristan tribal region, where the army has been pounding strongholds of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in apparent preparation for a major, US-backed offensive.
- US missiles also hammered in the South Waziristan tribal Tuesday June 23, 2009, striking a purported Taliban training centre and then a funeral procession for some of those killed in the earlier attack. Up to 40 people were killed -including Sangeen Khan, a top aide to Mehsud- and 60 more wounded.
- President Barack Obama's national security adviser reiterated the United States' strong support for Pakistan in its battle with Taliban militants during talks with senior Pakistani leaders on Thursday June 25, 2008. Islamabad, meanwhile, called for an end to US missile attacks on its soil, two days after a suspected drone strike killed 80 people in the country's northwest.

- Militants bombed a girls' primary school on the outskirts of Pakistan's Peshawar city on Friday June 26, 2009. The school was badly damaged during the attack in Mattni village. There were no casualties as schools are closed for the summer in Peshawar.

- Pakistani aircraft bombed Taliban on Sunday June 28, 2009, in their bastion of South Waziristan on the Afghan border after the militants attacked two military camps, killing two soldiers. The air strikes were on two villages in Laddah district, a Mehsud stronghold, and two militant compounds were destroyed.

- On Sunday June 28, 2009, a stray mortar shell hit a mosque during prayers in Azam Warsak in South Waziristan, killing three tribesmen and wounding seven. The mosque was destroyed, and people could hardly bring out the dead and injured.

- More than 50 people have been killed in fighting in western Pakistan on June 29, 2009, including 34 in clashes near the Afghan border where security forces are searching for the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. The ongoing anti-Taliban offensive in North Waziristan and the greater Swat valley killed 18 suspected militants in the last 24 hours and 16 soldiers, including three officers, also were killed in the fighting.

- Pakistani fighter jets targeted suspected Taliban hide-outs in a tribal region near Afghanistan on Sunday July 5, 2009, killing as many as six people. Elsewhere in the northwest, two bomb explosions killed two people and wounded 15 more in Upper Dir district.

- Two missiles fired from a remotely piloted American aircraft struck a militant base on Tuesday July 7, 2009, in the South Waziristan tribal region, killing 16 militants.

- Remotely piloted United States aircraft killed at least 43 militants loyal to the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in two different attacks on Wednesday July 8, 2009.

- Pakistani intelligence officials say a suspected US missile strike has killed three militants in northwestern Pakistan. On Friday July 10, 2009, two missiles fired from US drone aircraft struck a communication centre of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in Painda Khel in South Waziristan.

- In Pakistan's east an explosion rocked a small village, killing at least nine people -seven of them children- wounding dozens and damaging tens of houses in a reminder that security in the country has deteriorated well beyond the northwest region bordering Afghanistan.

- A U.S. missile strike in a Pakistani tribal region killed at least five alleged militants Friday July 17, 2009. The missile strike hit a house in Gariwam village in North Waziristan

- Also Friday July 17, 2009, Pakistan's top court overturned opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's conviction on hijacking charges stemming from the 1999 coup against his government, clearing the last obstacle to his running for office.

- On July 17, 2009, militants in north-west Pakistan have destroyed two tankers carrying fuel for Nato forces in Afghanistan in two separate attacks. In the first attack, a bomb hit a tanker in Jamrud in the Khyber tribal region. The owner of a nearby grocery store died in the resulting fire. The second bomb damaged a tanker in Khyber's Landi Kotal area.

- Government warplanes flattened a suspected Taliban hide-out in the northwest Saturday July 18, 2009, killing nine associates of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The Taliban leader is accused of orchestrating the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and launching a string of suicide attacks across the country in recent months that have killed more than 100 people. Fighter jets destroyed hide-outs of Mehsud's deputy Hakim Ullah in the Orakzai region, part of Pakistan's lawless tribal belt. It was unclear whether Ullah was present at the time.

- Pakistani helicopter gunships struck four militant hideouts in the northwestern Khyber Pass region on Monday July 27, 2009, killing 20 insurgents. The Khyber Pass is a main route for supplies being trucked from the Pakistani port of Karachi to Western forces battling al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan. The airstrikes, launched in the remote Teerah Valley, follow a number of militant attacks in recent months on convoys transporting military equipment, fuel and food en route to Afghanistan.

- Two missiles suspected to have been fired by a US drone have killed one of the wives of a leading Pakistani militant on August 5, 2009. The missiles struck the house of top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud's father-in-law. They say that several other relatives of Mr Mehsud were injured in the attack in the South Waziristan tribal area.

- The Pakistani government has received reports that shooting broke out between two rivals for the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, and one of them may have been killed, the interior minister said on Saturday August 8, 2009. Pakistani news channels were carrying unconfirmed reports that Hakimullah Mehsud, one of the movement's most powerful commanders, had been killed at a shura, or council meeting, held to decide who would succeed slain leader Baitullah Mehsud. The infighting was between Wali-ur-Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud. Who was killed is not clear yet. A Taliban official in South Waziristan, where the meeting took place said the government had fabricated reports of fighting between the different factions.

- Pakistani gunship helicopters attacked Taliban bases on Thursday August 13, 2009, killing 11 militants and keeping up pressure after the reported death of the Pakistani Taliban leader in a U.S. missile strike last week. The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said (or is it wishful thinking?) on Wednesday said there were signs of disarray within the group following the apparent death of Baitullah Mehsud.

- A suicide bomber killed at least five people in Pakistan's Swat Valley on Saturday August 15, 2009. The bomber steered a small truck loaded with explosives into a military checkpoint killing three soldiers and two civilians.

- A bomb exploded on a truck at a fuel station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday August 17, 2009, killing seven people. Three children were among the dead in the truck bombing, which wounded at least 15. A timed explosive device fashioned from a mortar had been loaded onto the truck in a package marked "medicine" without the driver's knowledge. The truck functioned as a taxi service between towns. Six of the dead were believed to have been passengers. Gunmen also assassinated the leader of a feared Sunni sectarian group, triggering rioting in three southern cities.

- Pakistani Taliban leaders acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday August 25, 2009, that their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was dead, confirming claims of American and Pakistani officials.

- The bodies of 22 suspected militants have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley in the past day we were told on August 25, 2009. Corpses allegedly began appearing several weeks ago and 18 were found in the region last week. Local residents say the Pakistani security forces have been carrying out extra-judicial killings as part of their offensive against the Taliban. The army and police have denied the accusations, saying locals could be behind the killings for "revenge".

- A suicide bomber killed 22 Pakistani border guards on Thursday August 27, 2009, in an attack at the main crossing point into Afghanistan. The bomber struck as the guards were sitting down at sunset to break their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Also a suspected U.S. drone attack killed at least six people and wounded another nine in northwestern Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region. Two missiles were fired at a suspected militant hide-out in the stronghold of top Taliban commander Waliur Rehman. Information showed that Taliban fighters were removing the bodies from a destroyed compound.

- Bombings targeted a Pakistani police station and set a NATO fuel convoy ablaze Sunday August 30, 2009, killing 16 cadets in the northwest's Swat Valley and threatening the supply line to international forces in Afghanistan in a separate attack near the border.

- Pakistani forces on Sunday September 6, 2009, killed 33 alleged militants in the lawless northwest Khyber district. The military launched an offensive in the tribal district, home to the fabled Khyber Pass into neighbouring Afghanistan, six days ago after a suicide bomber blew himself up near a border post killing 22 policemen.

- A U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan on the Afghan border on Tuesday September 8, 2009, killing at least three militants in the second strike in as many days.

- Militants have killed three soldiers in a roadside bombing in a western tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Sunday September 13, 2009's attack targeted a Pakistani military convoy in the Khyber region, where Pakistani forces launched an offensive against Taliban militants earlier this month. Several troops also were wounded in the blast.

- At least 33 people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide car bomb attack at a village market in north-west Pakistan on September 18, 2009. The explosion has taken place at a busy intersection close to the garrison town of Kohat. Most of the dead are said to be members of the Shia Muslim minority. The area has a history of sectarian tension.

- The attack took place in the Shiite-dominated village of Usterzai, raising speculation that it may have been a sectarian assault by Sunni extremists. It occurred just days before Muslims from both sects celebrate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

- A suspected U.S. drone fired a missile at a house in a northwest Pakistan militant stronghold on Thursday September 24, 2009, killing three people. The attack came hours after Pakistani Taliban killed 11 pro-government militiamen in an ambush. The suspected U.S. missile struck a house near a religious school run by Afghan Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border. The identity of the dead was not known.

-Two suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region bordering Afghanistan killed at least 12 militants Tuesday September 29, 2009. In the first attack in South Waziristan, missiles fired from an unmanned aircraft hit the compound of Taliban commander Irfan Mehsud, killing at least five militants and wounding six others. The compound was completely destroyed in the strike. Hours later, another missile hit militants associated with the al-Qaida-linked network of Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani in neighbouring North Waziristan. Seven insurgents were killed in that attack.

- In northwest Pakistan a roadside bomb has wounded three Pakistani troops on October 1, 2009. Militants detonated the bomb Thursday as they passed a group of soldiers in a town near Peshawar.

- Suspected Taliban militants fatally shot a tribal elder, Malik Abdul Majeed, while he was riding in his car in the Damadola area of Bajur Saturday October 3, 2009, in northwestern Pakistan. He went there to discuss anti-militancy efforts with government authorities. The dead body of a man accused of spying for the U.S. also turned up in the Bajur tribal region.

- A suicide bomber dressed in military uniform has attacked the UN World Food Programme offices in Pakistan's capital Islamabadon October 5, 2009 killing five people. Four of the dead are Pakistanis, the fifth is an Iraqi. The bomber died too. It is unclear who is responsible but suspicion will fall on the Pakistani Taliban.

- At least 49 people have been killed in a bombing in a crowded area of the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar on October 9, 2009. More than 100 people have also been injured in the suspected suicide bombing. A vehicle laden with explosives had been detonated near the city's Khyber Bazaar.

- Six soldiers and four gunmen have been killed in an attack on Pakistan's army HQ outside the capital Islamabad on October 10, 2009. Troops battled the gunmen after they attacked the heavily armed complex in Rawalpindi in army uniforms. One of the dead soldiers was a brigadier; two gunmen remained at large.

- At least 41 people have been killed in a suspected suicide car bombing in Pakistan's Swat valley on October 12, 2009. The explosion hit a security convoy in Shangla district.

- A series of gun and bomb attacks on security forces in Pakistan has killed about 40 people on October 15, 2009. In Lahore, police and militants fought gun battles at a federal security building and two police academies that left at least 26 people dead. A suicide car bomb at a police station in the north-western town of Kohat left 11 dead, while another car bomb in the nearby city of Peshawar killed a child. More than 150 have died in Pakistan in militant attacks in the past two weeks.

- Pakistani warplanes and artillery pounded a Taliban stronghold Friday October 16, 2009, as a suicide bomber killed 12 people in the city of Peshawar in the latest in a bloody wave of militant attacks.

- On October 17, 2009, fierce fighting has broken out as Pakistan's army launched an air and ground offensive against Taliban militants in the South Waziristan area. 30,000 troops, backed by artillery, had moved into the region where Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is based. Militants are offering stiff resistance as troops advanced from the north, east, and west.

- On Sunday October 18, 2009, we were told that Taliban militants are putting up fierce resistance to the Pakistan army as it attempts to oust them from strongholds in the remote South Waziristan region. The army say about 60 militants and five soldiers have now been killed. Up to 20,000 people have fled the area in the past few days, and aid agencies say many more could be displaced.

- Pakistan soldiers moved to try to encircle Taliban and al Qaeda militants in the South Waziristan mountains near the Afghan border, in a high-stakes offensive aimed at crushing the insurgency in its toughest stronghold. Military reports Sunday October 18, 2009, indicated soldiers, whose offensive began before dawn Saturday, were making advances amid stout resistance. Some 30,000 Pakistani soldiers were moving into the area from three directions to face as many as 10,000 Pakistani and foreign militants, many of them veterans of battles in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

- At least four people have been killed and 18 wounded in bomb explosions at a university in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on October 20, 2009. One unconfirmed report says up to seven people died in the blasts at the International Islamic University, including two suicide bombers.

- Saudi Arabia has insisted its forces only attacked Yemeni rebel positions on Saudi territory. This contradicts a number of separate reports on Thursday November 5, 2009, that air strikes had taken place on rebel strongholds in northern Yemen. The government said it would continue fighting to drive out all the rebels who had infiltrated across the border. The rebels say that Saudi airplanes are bombing northern Yemeni villages and that a Saudi air strike hit a market in Saada in north Yemen, killing a group of civilians.

- On Sunday November 8, 2009, Saudi Arabia has regained control of territory seized by Yemeni rebels in a cross-border incursion. Saudi forces struck after Shia rebels attacked a patrol in the Asir region, killing one soldier. Three more soldiers died in the fighting but they deny rebel claims that others were captured.

- Shia rebels in northern Yemen said on November 14, 2009, that Saudi Arabia has carried out more bombing raids, targeting several villages along the border. The rebels said Saudi planes also struck a mountainous area more than 10km inside Yemeni territory. There's been no word on any casualties from the recent raids. Earlier this week, the Saudi authorities said they would keep bombing northern Yemen until the rebels had pulled back from the border.

- A suicide bomber blew himself up outside Pakistan's naval headquarters in Islamabad on Wednesday December 2, 2009, killing a guard and critically wounding two navy personnel.

- Attackers lobbed grenades and opened fire on worshipers, mostly active and retired military officials, at a mosque in the garrison city of Rawalpindi during Friday Prayer, December 4, 2009. At least 36 people -including high-ranking military officials- were killed and more than 45 wounded. At least one of the attackers was a suicide bomber. Those killed in the attack included a major general, a brigadier and two lieutenant colonels. The wounded included General Muhammad Yousaf and other officers.

- Pakistan's prime minister said on December 12, 2009, that its military has completed an offensive against the Taliban in the tribal region of South Waziristan. The operation might now move north to the Orakzai region, where many militants are thought to have fled.

- A fleet of US predator drones fired a barrage of missiles inside Pakistan's main Al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold on Thursday December 17 and Friday December 18, 2009, killing at least 20 people in total. The third strike, on Friday, killed at least three militants. A top Al Qaeda operative and seven foreign militants were said to be among the dead.

- Five people have been killed in a U.S. drone attack on a suspected militant target in Pakistan's northwest tribal region. Missiles hit a house Saturday December 26, 2009 in the North Waziristan tribal district. Two people were wounded. It is not clear if the casualties were militants.

- A US missile attack that demolished a compound in Pakistan's tribal belt used by militants crossing into Afghanistan killed 13 fighters, we were told on Sunday December 27, 2009. A US drone slammed two missiles into the building on Saturday in Saidgi village. One local commander, Abdur Rehman, was killed.

- A suspected U.S. drone missile strike has killed at least two people in North Waziristan tribal region. The missiles hit a home near the main city Miran Shah. It is not known if the dead are militants or civilians.

- At least four militants were killed when a suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles we were told on Sunday January 10, 2010. Missiles hit a compound in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal agency.

- A suicide bomber detonated his explosives on Saturday January 16, 2009 in a rare attack on the Pakistani military in Kashmir. The bomber blew himself up as a military vehicle passed, wounding two soldiers. The attack took place near the town of Rawalakot, in the Pakistani part of Kashmir.

- Missiles fired from American aircraft killed as many as 15 people in western Pakistan on Sunday January 17, 2010. The target of the strike was a compound owned by a member of the Mehsud tribe, which leads the Pakistani Taliban, in the Shaktu area of South Waziristan.

- A missile strike by a remote-controlled U.S. drone plane killed 15 people Monday January 18, 2010, in the tribal area of South Waziristan. The strike, which hit the home of a well-known Taliban supporter, was the third such attack in four days against the militant sanctuary.

- Three militants were killed Tuesday January 19, 2010, in a suspected U.S. drone strike on a compound near the Afghan border. The drone fired two missiles on the compound in Daigan, a village in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan.

- Missiles fired by a suspected US drone aircraft have killed at least five people in north-west Pakistan on January 20, 2010. The attack targeted a compound in the Deegan area west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, on the Afghan border.

- A NATO convoy bringing supplies to Afghanistan suffered a rare attack in Karachi on Thursday January 28, 2010, the first such ambush in the relatively secure port city. A day earlier NATO said it had secured an alternate supply route through Russia.

- A suicide bomber killed at least 16 people near a security checkpoint in Pakistan's northwest Bajaur region. The attacker struck near the market area of the region's main town, Khar. More than 20 others were wounded in Saturday January 30, 2010's blast, with some hospitalized in critical condition.

- Pakistani forces backed by helicopter gunships have killed 15 Taliban in clashes that erupted after militants attacked a military post and convoy in the northwest of the country, we were told on Monday February 1, 2010.

- Three US soldiers have become the first known American military fatalities in Pakistan as they died on February 3, 2010, in a bomb near a school in the north-west. Three schoolgirls were among the dead while 70 people, including another 63 schoolgirls and two US soldiers, were injured in the explosion in Lower Dir. The military personnel had been training Pakistan's Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency.

- Pakistani forces have captured a stronghold of al Qaeda-backed militants near the Afghan border after days of clashes in which 60 militants were killed we were told on February 7, 2010.

- Terror leader Hakimullah Mehsud died after his base was hit during a spate of CIA-led strikes in mid-January it was confirmed on February 10, 2010. The Taliban have repeatedly denied his death, but ditched an initial promise to prove the 28-year-old was still alive.

- Two suicide bombers attacked police officers in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday February 11, 2010, killing 15 people and wounding 20 others.

- Taliban militants bombed a government boys' school in northwest Pakistan early Saturday February 13, 2010. Explosives placed at five spots destroyed nearly the whole school, which had 28 rooms. The school is in Qamar Din village along the Afghan border. No information on casualties was available.

- A U.S. drone aircraft killed five militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border on Sunday February 14, 2010.

- A man described as the top Afghan Taliban military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has been captured in Pakistan we were told on Tuesday February 16, 2010. He was seized in a raid on a madrassa near Karachi by Pakistan's ISI intelligence service on 8 February. The government has yet to confirm the arrest; the Taliban have denied it.

- A bomb attack and a US missile strike killed 20 people in northwest Pakistan Thursday February 18, 2010. The bomb exploded in a market controlled by Islamist militants in Khyber. A militant commander and 15 others were killed in the explosion in the village of Dars in the Upper Tirah valley. In total 16 people were killed and more than 20 injured.

- A Pakistani air strike killed 30 militants in mountains on the Afghan border Saturday February 20, 2010. The air raid was in Shawal, a militant bastion near the border of the South and North Waziristan regions, where many Taliban are believed to have sought refuge from the October offensive. Al Qaeda militants are also known to be in the area.

- On February 21, 2010, we were told that Mulvi Kabir, the former Taliban governor in Afghanistan's Nangahar Province, and a key figure in the Taliban regime was recently captured in Pakistan. Kabir, considered to be among the top ten most wanted Taliban leaders, was apprehended in the Naw Shera district of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province by Pakistani police forces in recent days. The intelligence that led to Kabir's capture was gathered from Mullah Baradar, the Taliban's second in command, who was picked up roughly two weeks ago in Karachi. Baradar's capture has been followed by a series of major detentions within the Taliban's ranks.

- On February 24, 2010, we were told that Pakistan has arrested nearly half -7 of 15- members of the Afghan Taliban's senior leadership council in recent days, including the Taliban head of military operations in Afghanistan.

- A suicide car bomber attacked a police station in Karak in North-West Frontier Province on Saturday February 27, 2010, killing four people and wounding about two dozen. A paramilitary commander said his forces had killed 25 militants in another area. Two police officers and two civilians were killed; police officers and civilians were among the wounded.

- On March 2, 2010, Pakistani forces seized a key al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold, Damadola, a district in the Bajaur tribal region, along the border with Afghanistan that once served as a hideout for Ayman al Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama bin Laden. The area had long been dominated by insurgents operating on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

- A top Pakistani Taliban commander close to al-Qaida is believed to have been killed in an army airstrike we were told on Saturday March 6, 2010. Maulvi Faqir Mohammed was believed to be among a number of insurgents killed Friday at a sprawling compound in the northwest Mohmand tribal region. Authorities have not identified the bodies of Mohammed or his fellow commander Qari Ziaur Rehman, but all the militants hiding at the site were killed after the helicopter gunships were dispatched on "real-time" intelligence.

- A five-year-old boy from the UK who was kidnapped in Pakistan last week has not been released we told on Thursday Mar 11, 2010. Earlier reports suggested Sahil Saeed, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, had been freed on Wednesday but police said it was untrue.

- Two suicide bombers have killed at least 45 people Lahore on Friday March 12. 2010. The attacks occurred within seconds of each other and targeted military vehicles as they passed through a crowded area. At least nine soldiers were killed and some 100 people were wounded. The explosions took place near the RA Bazaar, in a busy residential and shopping area where army and security agencies have facilities. Late on Friday, a third blast was reported in Lahore.

- The family of a five-year-old British boy who was kidnapped while in Pakistan say they are "ecstatic" after he was found safe and well on Tuesday March 16, 2010. Sahil Saeed, from Oldham, had been snatched from his grandmother's house in Jhelum by armed robbers on 3 March. He was left near a school before wandering into a field where he was found by locals.

- An U.S. missile attack destroyed a suspected militant compound in a tribal region of northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday March 16, 2010, killing at least nine people. It was not immediately clear who was targeted in the strike, in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan. An unknown number of people were injured. The area is the home of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a powerful warlord whose fighters are battling U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

- Five young American Muslims detained in Pakistan in December on suspicion of seeking to join jihadists in Afghanistan were formally charged Wednesday March 17, 2010. The five men pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include plotting attacks in Afghanistan, raising money to commit terrorism and planning attacks against Pakistani allies and targets within the country. Some of the charges carry life imprisonment sentences. Pakistani authorities said the men, encouraged by Internet contacts with a Pakistani militant, went to Pakistan last year seeking to wage jihad against American troops in Afghanistan. They were arrested in early December in the city of Sargodha and have been jailed there since.

- Hussein al-Yemeni, a top al-Qaeda planner, wanted for a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan has been killed in a US drone strike on March 17, 2010. He died in the strike in the city of Miranshah. He was believed to have helped plan an attack on a base in Khost in December in which a suicide bomber killed seven CIA agents and a Jordanian officer.

- Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles Sunday March 21, 2010, at a house and car in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, killing at least four people.

- A U.S. drone aircraft fired two missiles into a major al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in the Machis area near Miranshah town in the North Waziristan tribal region on Tuesday March 23, 2010, killing four militants.

- Two men have been arrested in Pakistan on March 25, 2010, on suspicion of kidnapping five-year-old British boy Sahil Saeed. They were arrested in Jhelum, the city where the boy was kidnapped on 4 March. None of Sahil's family was involved in the kidnapping and it was a "random" attack carried out by a gang.

- Air strikes by Pakistani fighter jets on Taliban hideouts in the country's northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan killed 30 militants on Thursday March 25, 2010. Fifteen militants were killed in a strike on Mamozai village in Orakzai tribal district and another 15 in Kurram, another tribal district along the Afghan border. Fighter jets also destroyed seven hideouts of Taliban. On Wednesday Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 21 militants in firefights and bombing raids in the same area.

- On March 26, 2010, Pakistani troops have killed at least 84 Taliban fighters and lost five of soldiers in two days of clashes in a northwestern tribal region believed to be a militant stronghold.

- Pakistani helicopter strikes killed six militants and one member of the country's security forces on Saturday March 27, 2010. The strikes targeted four militant hideouts in Orakzai Agency, one of the seven districts of Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. In two other districts of the tribal region, militants blew up boys' schools overnight. Militants destroyed one school in the Mohmand Agency and another school in the Khyber Agency. There were no injuries in the attacks.

- Six soldiers and at least 20 militants have been killed in a clash. Up to 100 militants armed with guns, rockets and suicide vehicles attacked a security checkpoint in the Bara area of the Khyber tribal region on Wednesday March 31, 2010. Troops retaliated and destroyed the vehicles that were rigged with explosives. At least 15 soldiers and 30 militants were wounded in the fighting. Elsewhere in the northwest, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least six militants near the town of Miranshah, in the North Waziristan tribal region. A U.S. drone fired three missiles at a compound owned by a local tribesman and used by militants.

- Thirty militants and six Pakistani soldiers died Saturday April 3, 2010, during a gun battle. The fighting took place in Orakzai Agency, one of seven districts of Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan.10 soldiers and several militants also were injured in the fighting. Security forces have taken control of key ground in the region after tough resistance from the militants.

- Pakistani troops backed by attack helicopters on Sunday April 4, 2010, killed at least 16 militants in fierce clashes with rebels. The clashes took place in Said Khalil village of Orakzai tribal area, a day after troops killed 30 militants and captured key heights in Betozai village of the same region.

- Multiple blasts struck the U.S. consulate in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday April 5, 2010, hours after a suicide attack at a political rally killed at least 41 people. The Peshawar attack began when a car bomb was detonated at a checkpoint outside of the consulate, followed by rocket-propelled grenades. Militants dressed as security officials tried to make their way inside the heavily-fortified compound but failed. No Americans died in the assault, but at least six people were killed outside the consulate and another 20 were wounded.

- A bomb attached to a tanker carrying fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan exploded in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday April 7, 2010, destroying the vehicle and killing a boy who was riding in a van behind it. The explosion wounded four other passengers in the van. Also Wednesday, an explosion in the parking lot of a market in the centre of Islamabad, caused minor damage but no casualties.

- Pakistani soldiers backed by jets and helicopters attacked Taliban positions in the northwestern Orakzai region on Sunday April 11, 2010, killing 12 militants. The assault came a day after fighter jets bombed a militant stronghold in the neighbouring Khyber region on the Afghan border, killing 45 people. Three Taliban hideouts have been destroyed and 12 militants have been killed in Orakzai.

- A US drone fired missiles at a car travelling through Pakistan's lawless tribal badlands on the Afghan border Wednesday April 14, 2010, killing at least four militants. It took place at Amboor Shaga village.

- Up to 50 people have been killed in a series of suicide bombings in southern Pakistan we were told on Sunday April 18, 2010. A suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 26 when he rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a police station in the town of Billitung, in the Kohat region on the border with Afghanistan. The vehicle was carrying around 550lb of explosives. Twin suicide attacks in the neighbouring town of Kohat on Saturday killed 41 refugees from the Orakzai tribal area. The victims were queuing to register for food and relief supplies. The bombers were men disguised in burkas. They struck within minutes of each other, with the second blast the bigger and more deadly.

- Twelve Nato oil tankers have been set alight and four policemen killed when unknown gunmen opened fire in Talagang, Pakistan's Punjab province on April 24, 2010. The gunmen opened fire on the tankers and escaped after police returned fire. A nearby petrol station also caught fire.

- Nine militants were killed and 10 others wounded in clashes with Pakistani troops near Afghanistan. The militants attacked a checkpoint near Goain village in Orakzai tribal region Sunday April 25, 2010, but security forces fought back. Troops then used heavy artillery to target militants' positions, killing at least nine.

- A US drone attack has killed at least six people and wounded several others in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan, on May 3, 2010. The drone fired three missiles in the Mir Ali area in Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border. The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are reported to be in critical condition.

- A U.S. drone attack targeting militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan has killed six of them on May 3, 2010. The unmanned aircraft fired three missiles at a vehicle in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan. The casualties include 'some foreigners,' a term used by local people referring to al-Qaeda-linked militants of Arab and Central Asian origin.

- American drone aircraft fired 18 missiles at militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region on Tuesday May 11, 2010, killing at least 14 fighters and wounding 4. The missiles struck a region known as Datta Khel on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border where Taliban and Qaeda fighters prepare for operations against United States and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

- US Predators fired missiles a Taliban compound and a vehicle on May 15, 2010, in the first recorded airstrike in Pakistan's Khyber tribal agency. The unmanned Predators attacked a home "and two trucks loaded with militants" in Khyber, Pakistan's gateway to Afghanistan. Between five and 15 Taliban fighters were reported killed in the attack, which took place in the Tirah Valley. The target of the attack is not clear, and no senior Taliban or al Qaeda leaders or operatives have been reported killed.

- Military fighter jets and helicopter gunships pounded tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday May 16, 2010, killing at least 30 insurgents and destroying seven militant hide-outs. Pakistan launched the offensive in Orakzai to rout Taliban fighters from the mountainous area near its border with Afghanistan. Elsewhere in Pakistan's tribal region, suspected militants released 50 of the 60 people kidnapped at gunpoint in Kurram on Saturday. Tribal elders are helping to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages.

- Pakistan's military killed more than 60 suspected fighters close to the country's border with Afghanistan. Fighter jets and ground forces attacked targets in the Orakzai tribal region. Up to 42 people died in Monday May 17, 2010's air raids, with a further 18 killed by Pakistani troops on the ground. One soldier died and 10 were wounded in the fighting.

- On May 28, 2010, gunmen have launched simultaneous raids on two mosques of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect in Lahore, killing more than 80 people. The attackers fired guns and threw grenades at worshippers during Friday prayers. Three militants later blew themselves up with suicide vests. It is unclear who carried out the attacks, but suspicion has fallen on the Pakistani Taliban.

- U.S. missile strikes have killed at least 18 suspected militants in the northwestern tribal region since Thursday June 10, 2010. Two drone strikes on Friday killed at least 15 alleged militants in attacks targeting militant compounds near the town of Miran Shah in North Waziristan. Foreigners were among those killed. On Thursday a similar strike killed three other militants near the town of Miran Shah in North Waziristan. U.S. President Barack Obama has increased the use of the unmanned aircraft to target al-Qaida and Taliban hideouts in the tribal belt along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. There have been more than 35 suspected missile strikes this year alone, the highest rate since the attacks began in earnest in 2008.

- Pakistani fighter jets have destroyed several militant hide-outs in the northwest, killing 10 insurgents. The strikes Saturday targeted remnants of the Pakistani Taliban in the Orakzai tribal region, where the army declared victory last week over the militants. Some militants were also wounded in the attacks.

- On June 13, 2010 we were told that it is the Pakistanese intelligence agency policy to support the insurgency in Afghanistan. The claims are the strongest yet. Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency not only funds and trains Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but also maintains its own representation on the insurgency's leadership council.

- Fourteen of about 40 Pakistani soldiers who went missing after a militant attack on a security checkpost this week have been found in Afghanistan and flown home by helicopter, we were told on Thursday June 17, 2010. Afghan authorities handed over the 14 Frontier Corps soldiers to the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad city. The 14 soldiers include five who were handed over to the consulate in Jalalabad on Wednesday.

- A missile strike in North Waziristan killed at least 16 militants on Saturday June 19, 2010. A single missile from a drone aircraft struck a government water-supply plant in the village of Haider Khel, near the town of Mir Ali, where the group was meeting. Most of the concrete, government-built structures in the area, like schools, hospitals and water plants, have been occupied by militants, who use them to meet and for training. Residents said that 11 of the dead were foreigners, mostly Arabs and some Uzbeks. An additional 19 people were wounded.

- On June 24, 2010, five Americans have each been sentenced to 10 years in jail by a court in Pakistan after being found guilty of terrorism charges. The five men -aged between 18 and 25- were convicted of conspiring to commit terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil and of funding banned jihadist groups. They were arrested in the north-eastern city of Sargodha in December. The case is one of several involving alleged "home-grown" American Muslim militants linked to Pakistan. The men have been identified as Ramy Zamzam, of Egyptian descent, Waqar Khan and Umar Farooq of Pakistani descent, and Aman Hassan Yemer and Ahmed Minni, who are of Ethiopian descent.

- Suspected U.S. missiles struck a militant compound in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday June 27, 2010, killing at least three people. It was the second strike in as many days in North Waziristan. The compound struck by two U.S. missiles was located in the village of Tabbi Tolkhel. There were conflicting reports about how many people were killed in the attack. The tribesmen said they have recovered five bodies from the rubble. Pakistani intelligence officials said three militants were killed and five others were wounded.

- Police are on high alert across Pakistan, after a deadly suicide attack on a Sufi Islamic shrine in the eastern city of Lahore. Security has been increased in Lahore and at Sufi shrines across the country, after 42 people died at the Data Darbar shrine on Thursday July 1, 2010. The popular shrine holds the remains of a Persian Sufi saint, Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery. It is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year from both Sunni and Shia traditions of Islam. The impact of the two blasts ripped open the courtyard of the shrine. Rescuers had to clamber over rubble as they carried out the victims. The first attacker struck in the underground area where visitors sleep and prepare themselves for prayer, officials said. As people fled, a second bomber detonated his explosives in the upstairs area. The bombers are thought to have used devices packed with ball-bearings to maximise the impact of their attack.

- A pair of suicide bombings killed 62 people Friday July 9, 2010, outside a government office in a region along the Afghan border. The assault, which wounded at least 111 people, was one of the deadliest in Pakistan this year. The bombers were targeting anti-Taliban tribal elders visiting the government office in the village of Yakaghund, part of the Mohmand tribal area in the country's northwest. The attackers struck within seconds of each other. One of the bombs appeared fairly small but the other was huge. At least one bomber was on a motorcycle. The bombers detonated their explosives near the office of Rasool Khan, a deputy Mohmand administrator who escaped unharmed. The tribal elders, including those involved in setting up militias to fight the Taliban, were in the building, but none was hurt.

- Eleven Pakistanis were killed and three others wounded when unidentified gunmen opened fire on Saturday July 10, 2010, on a vehicle in Afghanistan's Paktia province bordering Kurram Agency. Investigations revealed the deceased were from Parachinar, a Shia-dominated area, but it was unclear if the incident was the result of Sunni-Shia differences in the Kurram Agency or there were some other motives behind the attack.

- A bomb blast has killed at least eight people in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region. Friday July 16, 2010's explosion rocked a crowded bazaar in Khyber, home to a major supply route for NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. At least 14 people were wounded when the bomb exploded near a shop. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack

- A convoy of civilian vehicles was attacked in a tribal region near the Afghan border on Saturday July 17, 2010, with numerous casualties. At least 14 people were killed, while residents of the area, the Charkhel village in the Lower Khurram region, put the death toll at 18, including five women. A senior government official said five people were killed and nine wounded. The travellers in the convoy were Shiite Muslims, and the dangerous road they were travelling on toward Peshawar was a Sunni stronghold.

- On July 18, 2010, Pakistan and Afghanistan signed a cross-border trade agreement, decades in the making, that the Obama administration hopes will significantly reduce tensions between the historic rivals and aid the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The transit-trade pact could bolster Afghanistan's war-ravaged economy by opening dozens of new roads into Pakistan and two new ports, through which Afghan farmers and merchants can export their products to the region, said officials involved in the negotiations

- At least 2,500 people have been killed as a result of U.S. drone and Taliban attacks in Pakistan since January 2009 we were told on Saturday July 24, 2010. The number of drone attacks rose to 88 times during the 18 months of the President Obama's tenure from January 20, 2009 to the end-June 2010 as compared with the 25 drone strikes between January 2008 and January 2009. Over 700 people have been killed in the US drone strikes in the afore-said period. Meanwhile, the Taliban militants have also stepped up their retaliation by launching more than 140 attacks in various locations across Pakistan since the beginning of 2009, killing over 1,700 people and injuring hundreds more.

- Unmanned U.S. aircraft fired missiles at houses in two different parts of northwestern Pakistan on Sunday July 25, 2010, killing at least 12 militants. The U.S. has launched more than 100 missile strikes in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal area along the Afghan border over the past several years. Most of them have targeted militants in North and South Waziristan, important sanctuaries for Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters. In the first strike aircraft fired four missiles at a house in Shaktoi, a village along the border of North and South Waziristan, killing five suspected militants; it also wounded four suspected militants. Later two missiles hit a house in Taipi village near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, killing seven suspected militants. The strikes came a day after U.S. missiles targeting a compound in the Nazai Narai area of South Waziristan killed 16 suspected militants. The hide-out was known to be frequented by foreign fighters who were among the dead.

- At least 13 people have been killed in a suspected US missile strike on a compound in Pakistan's North Waziristan district, close to the Afghan border. At least five other people were wounded in the strike on Saturday August 14, 2010, in Essori, a village 20km east of Miranshah, the main town in the tribal district.

- Missiles fired from a U.S. pilotless drone aircraft killed 13 militants and 7 civilians in Pakistan's North Waziristan on Monday August 23, 2010. The missiles were fired at a militant hideout. Most of the militants killed were members of the Afghan Taliban. Four women and three children were among the dead. Members of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network -- one of the most effective militant forces fighting Western troops in Afghanistan -- had been using the compound.

- A suspected US drone strike in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border has left at least six people dead on Friday September 3, 2010. At least three missiles fired from US drones struck a militant compound near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan district, destroying the building and killing six local militants.

- An apparent U.S. drone strike killed four suspected militants in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border on Saturday September 4, 2010. Missiles from the drones hit two vehicles in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. Saturday's drone strike was at least the second in the past 24 hours and the 49th strike this year.

- A suspected US drone attack in Pakistan's tribal region on Wednesday September 8, 2010, killed at least six people. The target of the strike was the Haqqani network, a Pakistani militant group blamed for attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan. The strike, which targeted at least one house in North Waziristan, was the sixth drone attack in the area this week. The missile hit a house in the village of Dande Darpa Khel just outside North Waziristan's main town of Miran Shah. The house was owned by Maulvi Azizullah, a member of the Haqqani network, a militant group based in North Waziristan that U.S. military officials have called the most dangerous threat to NATO troops in Afghanistan.

- A suspected U.S. missile strike Sunday September 12, 2010, killed at least five associates of a warlord who is fighting Western troops in Afghanistan. Powerful militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur struck a truce with the Pakistani military and agreed to stay on the sidelines last year as it waged an offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area against the Pakistani Taliban. Two missiles targeted a home in the village of Datta Khel in the North Waziristan tribal area where Bahadur's associates were believed to be staying. They said five people were killed and three were believed to be wounded.

- An Afghan Taliban commander and close relative of Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani was among those killed in a recent US missile strike we were told on Wednesday September 15, 2010. A US drone fired two missiles into a vehicle in Qutabkhel village in North Waziristan tribal district on Tuesday, killing four militants. Saifullah is the first cousin of Sirajuddin Haqqani, who runs the Haqqani network created by his father, Afghan warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani.

- Fighting between two tribes near the border with Afghanistan has killed 102 people over the last two weeks we were told on Friday September 17, 2010. 48 people died Friday in the dispute over access to water in the Kurram region. One tribe consists of minority Shia Muslims while the other is Sunni.

- A US drone on Sunday September 19, 2010, fired two missiles at a vehicle travelling in Pakistan's lawless northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border, killing four militants including Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. The strike hit in Dehgan, a village in the Datta Khel area west of Miranshah.

- Suspected U.S. missiles targeted a vehicle Saturday September 25, 2010, in northwestern Pakistan, killing four alleged militants. It was the 17th such attack this month. Shortly before the attack, the vehicle left a militant hide-out in Datta Khel, a town in the North Waziristan tribal area that is controlled by insurgents.

- At least 30 people were killed as two NATO helicopters struck inside Pakistan in its northwest tribal area bordering Afghanistan on Monday September 27, 2010. The Afghanistan-based NATO helicopters fired at the militants hiding in the Pakistani side who earlier launched an attack at a NATO check post in the Khost area of Afghanistan. Most of the people killed in the incident were believed to be militants. At least nine people were killed and another two injured in three U.S. drone strikes launched on Sunday in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan. The U.S. drones launched three strikes at different targets in Miranshah, North Waziristan. At least two people were killed in the third U.S. drone attack launched Sunday in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of North Waziristan. The third attack took place in the same area of the previous two strikes launched on Sunday. Minutes before the third strike, the U.S. drones launched two strikes in the area of Miranshah of North Waziristan which borders Afghanistan.

- Two U.S. drone attacks killed 18 militants in Pakistan on Saturday October 2, 2010. The United States has escalated pilotless drone aircraft missile strikes against al Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan's northwest, with 21 attacks in September alone, the highest number in a single month on record. Angered by repeated incursions by NATO helicopters over the past week, Pakistan blocked a supply route for coalition troops in Afghanistan after one such strike killed three Pakistani soldiers on Thursday in the northwestern Kurram region.

- Three people were killed on Monday October 4, 2010, and up to eight others wounded when about 20 NATO oil tankers were attacked and set ablaze near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. It follows a similar incident on Friday in the south, when heavily armed gunmen set ablaze more than two dozen trucks and tankers bound to Afghanistan.

- NATO's chief expressed regret on Monday October 4, 2010, for the deaths of Pakistani soldiers last week and said he hoped Pakistan's border would reopen for NATO supplies to Afghanistan as soon as possible. Angered by repeated attacks by NATO helicopters on targets within its borders, Pakistan blocked one of the supply routes for NATO troops in Afghanistan after a strike killed three Pakistani soldiers in the Kurram region.

-At least two Germans and three others were killed in a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike Tuesday October 5, 2010. They were involved in plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. The investigation of the European plots is focusing on three German brothers: Imram al Amani, who was killed in Tuesday's strike, a second brother who survived the attack, and a third brother in Germany.

- A US drone strike on Thursday November 11, 2010, targeting fighters returning to Pakistan's tribal belt from neighbouring Afghanistan, killed at least six militants. The missiles targeted the group returning on foot to North Waziristan, the main hideout of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked networks in Pakistan, from Afghanistan's eastern province of Khost. The unmanned US aircraft fired six missiles targeting militants in Gulli Khel village near the Ghulam Khan District of North Waziristan.

- A suicide bomber blew himself up him in a busy market in northwest Pakistan's border regions with Afghanistan on Wednesday December 8, 2010, killing 15 people while 25 were injured. The attacker struck as a bus left the site. On Monday, 50 people were killed in two blasts at a government compound in Mohmand, also in the border area.

- Three suspected U.S. drone strikes in the Khyber Agency in Pakistan's tribal region killed at least 21 suspected militants Friday December 17, 2010. The first attack was on a militant hideout in Sippah village, in the area of the Tirah valley, where seven people died. The second was on a militant hideout in the village of Nakai, where eight more were killed. In the third strike, two missiles were fired on a militant training centre in the village of Sangana in Tirah Valley, killing six suspected militants. The strikes targeted a local militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam (Mangal Bagh group) in Khyber Agency. Ali Marjan, an important local commander of Lashkar-e-Islam, was killed in the first strike.

- A woman suicide bomber dressed in a burka killed at least 41 people queuing for emergency food rations in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan on December 25, 2010. She was stopped at a security checkpoint as United Nations officials distributed aid in Khar, the main town of Bajaur. She hurled a hand grenade before detonating an explosive-laden vest as she was being searched.

- Unidentified gunmen on motorbikes opened fire and killed the driver of a supply truck for NATO troops in the area of Khad Kocha in southwest Pakistan on Sunday December 26, 2010. The truck was going to Afghanistan from the southern city of Karachi.
The gunmen escaped after killing the driver.

- Suspected US missiles struck two vehicles in the North Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan on December 27, 2010, killing 18 militants. At least 110 such attacks have been launched in 2010, more than double the total for 2009. Nearly all were in North Waziristan, a sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who attack US-led troops in Afghanistan. The latest strikes targeted Shera Tala village in Mir Ali district, where militants are heavily concentrated.

- A US missile strike targeting two militant compounds killed five rebels in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan Tuesday December 28, 2010. The strike, the second in little over 24 hours, took place in Ghulam Khan Village.

- Four US missiles strikes on Saturday January 1, 2011, killed 17 suspected militants and injured several others in North Waziristan, tribal district along the Afghan border. A pilotless aircraft fired two missiles at a compound and two at a vehicle in the Mandikhel area. Four people died in each attack. Five people were injured in the compound attack. Three more missiles were fired into a vehicle in the nearby Ghor Ghushti area, also killing four people. When a vehicle carrying suspected Taliban militants arrived at the targeted compound for rescue work, a drone aircraft fired one missile into it, killing five and injuring four. A suspected US drone also fired two missiles into a vehicle in Boya area of North Waziristan. Five people have been killed in the attack and two injured. It was the fourth strike on the New Year's Day, but fifth in the last 24 hours. Five alleged Taliban insurgents died on Friday afternoon when two missiles hit their vehicle in the same district. Some 700 people died in the air raids. Intelligence officials say most of them were suspected militants, but verification of the claims is difficult since the area remains almost inaccessible for journalists and aid workers.

- Mortars allegedly fired from Afghanistan killed eight people in North Waziristan on Thursday January 13, 2011. The mortars hit a house in Tity Mada Khel village in the North Waziristan tribal area and killed eight people, including five men and three women. Moreover 11 people were wounded in the attack.

- Eight gunmen attacked tankers carrying fuel for United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan, setting 14 of the vehicles ablaze on Saturday January 15, 2011. The trucks were parked at a roadside restaurant in southwest Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault, in which one driver was wounded.

- An oil tanker carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan has been gutted after a bomb planted in the vehicle exploded in northwestern Pakistan. The blast took place Monday January 17, 2011, at a terminal near the Torkham border crossing in the Khyber tribal district.

- At least four people have been killed in an attack by suspected US drones in North Waziristan we were told on Tuesday January 18, 2011. Two missiles were fired on a building used by the Pakistani Taliban resulting in deaths of the operatives.

- Security forces on Saturday January 29, 2011, engaged militants' positions near Afghan border in Saafi tehsil of Mohmand Agency and killed nine Taliban fighters. The security forces launched an air offensive against terrorists' hideouts in Inzary, Sagi, Awrdewazgi areas bordering Afghanistan as 28 terrorists were killed in the aerial strike in the same region yesterday. Separately the security forces apprehended six suspects from an IDP camp in Nahqi area of Mohmand Agency.

- Gunmen near the town of Wadh in southwestern Pakistan attacked three trucks after they returned from delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, we were told on Sunday January 30, 2011. The unknown gunmen fired at three NATO trucks, one of them overturned and the two other trucks were set ablaze by the attackers. There were no injuries to drivers.

- Seven people have been killed in two attacks by US pilotless aircraft in Pakistan's north-western tribal regions bordering Afghanistan we were told on Thursday February 24, 2011. Three missiles were fired at a residential compound in Dattakhel Mohammedkhel area near Miranshah in North Waziristan. Five people died in the attack which completely demolished the house. Two people were also killed when a missile strike from another drone hit a vehicle proceeding towards the house that was targeted earlier.

- One civilian was killed when bullets fired by Pakistani troops crossed into a residential area in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday March 12, 2011. Pakistani soldiers fired light weapons on residential areas in Goshta district and one civilian was killed in his house.

- At least six alleged militants were killed and five more injured in a US drone attack on Sunday March 13, 2011, in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The unmanned drone aircraft fired two missiles into a suspected centre of Taliban activity and two more into a vehicle in Spalga village.

- On Monday March 14, 2011, an American missile has killed two Arab militants and two local fighters who were travelling in a vehicle close to Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. The vehicle was laden with explosives when it was struck in the village of Malik Jashdar in North Waziristan. The identities of the men were not released.

- More than 38 suspected militants were killed by US Predator drones in Pakistan's lawless tribal area close to the border with Afghanistan on March 17, 2011. The attack targeted commanders associated with Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a senior leader of the Pakistan Taliban, whose forces regularly launch cross-border raids on NATO forces in Afghanistan.

- Four militants in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan torched two tankers carrying fuel for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Armed militants initially opened fire on tankers and then set them on fire in the Bolan district on April 6, 2011. They managed to escape. No one was injured, but the tankers were destroyed.

- US missiles have killed 25 people in an al Qaida and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border on Friday April 22, 2011. Some of the missile victims were militants loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadar, a commander known to stage attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan, but two women and five children were also killed. The officials said up to 10 missiles destroyed a compound in Spinwam village in North Waziristan, home to militants targeting American and Nato troops just across the border in Afghanistan, as well as to al Qaida terrorists.

- The main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan was closed on Sunday April 24, 2011, after thousands of people blocked a key highway in Pakistan to protest against U.S. drone strikes. The call for blocking the supply line came from cricket-turn-politician Imran Khan after U.S. officials rejected Pakistan's demand for sharp cuts in drone strikes in its tribal regions.

- The security of Nato's main supply line into Afghanistan came under threat on Saturday May 14, 2011, as Pakistani parliamentarians voted to review all aspects of their relationship with the US amid worsening political fallout from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The unanimous motion was passed at the conclusion of an extraordinary 10-hour parliamentary session when the military's top brass offered apologies and admissions of failure, and the country's spy chief offered to resign. Condemning the 2 May raid on bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, 35 miles northeast of Islamabad, as a "violation of Pakistan's sovereignty", parliament voted unanimously to review the country's terms of engagement with Washington.

- Pakistani paramilitary troops shot at NATO helicopters that crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan Tuesday May 17, 2011, triggering a firefight that left two soldiers wounded. The incident, which coalition officials in Afghanistan said they were investigating, served as a new threat to U.S.-Pakistani relations. Pakistan, facing domestic criticism over the operation and international suspicion for its failure to locate bin Laden, had warned it would resist any future U.S. incursions into its territory. After a NATO airstrike killed three Pakistani soldiers last September, Pakistan retaliated by shutting a key border crossing used as a supply route for coalition troops in landlocked Afghanistan. The crossing stayed closed for 11 days, and the United States apologized for the incident.

- At least 15 people were killed when a damaged oil tanker carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan exploded Saturday May 21, 2011. The tanker was damaged when a bomb went off near a boys' college in Landi Kotal in the tribal region of Khyber Agency. The people died when they gathered around the truck to siphon fuel and it exploded. Two survivors were being treated for burns at the Landi Kotal Hospital. In a separate attack, 16 oil tankers were damaged Friday night in the nearby town of Torkham, at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, when a remote-controlled bomb exploded. No one was hurt. The tankers were idling at a parking lot, waiting for their turn to enter Afghanistan. Also on Friday, a bomb aimed at a two-car convoy carrying American consular officials exploded in Peshawar. A Pakistani motorcyclist was killed, but no Americans died or were seriously wounded.

- Pakistani authorities on Thursday June 2, 2011, that an estimated 200 militants crossed the border from Afghanistan and attacked a Pakistani border post starting a lengthy battle that has left at least 27 security troops and three civilians dead. Pakistani officials say more than 35 of the militants were also killed. The clash in the Dir tribal area of Pakistan began Wednesday and lasted well over 24 hours, although Pakistani officials say the area had calmed by midday Thursday, with Pakistani forces regaining control of the area. The location borders Afghanistan's Kunar province and has been a centre for al-Qaida and other militants in the past.

- On June 4, 2011, we were told that Ilyas Kashmiri, a top Pakistani militant and senior Al Qaeda operative, reportedly has been killed in a US drone strike in the tribal territory of South Waziristan. Kashmiri is believed to be behind some of the deadliest attacks in India and Pakistan, including a 2009 suicide attack on Pakistan's spy agency and attacks on US forces in Afghanistan. He is the operations chief of a group called Harakut-ul Jihad Islami, which has some 3,000 militia members and is classified by the US as a terrorist organization tied to Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Punjabi Taliban.

- A Taliban leader who is supported by the Pakistani state has vowed to ramp up attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan after the US launched several Predator airstrikes in his tribal areas over the past week. Maulvi Younus, a senior Taliban commander and spokesman for Mullah Nazir, who leads Taliban forces in the Wazir areas of South Waziristan, said on Wednesday June 8, 2011, his group would "send more fighters" into Afghanistan in an effort to kill US soldiers. Pakistan's military and intelligence services consider Nazir and his followers "good Taliban" as they do not openly seek the overthrow of the Pakistani state, despite the fact that they shelter top al Qaeda leaders and carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

- Up to 15 people have been killed in multiple attacks by suspected US robot-controlled aircraft in Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan, we were told on Wednesday June 15, 2011. The drone strikes began with an attack on a car near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. Barely a couple of minutes later, two more missiles were fired at a militant compound in the same region. Four people were killed in the attack on the car while six bodies were recovered from the rubble of the building hit by missiles. Those killed are believed to be supporters of pro-Taliban militant commander, Maulvi Nazir, whose fighters are known to carryout cross border attacks on NATO-led International Security Assistance Force(ISAF)in Afghanistan. Also on Wednesday, five people were killed in a drone attack on a car near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. The region is widely regarded as a stronghold of Islamist insurgents led by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistan Taliban as well as al-Qaeda militants.

- The United States is suspending some $800 million in military aid to Pakistan amid increased tensions between the two countries since the raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The White House confirmed the move on Sunday July 10, 2011, saying his country's relationship with Pakistan is "difficult" and must be made "to work over time."

- The Pakistani Taliban have released graphic video footage of the execution of 16 Pakistani policemen and tribal guards who were captured last month following a cross-border raid from Afghanistan. The video shows a masked Taliban commander angrily denouncing the men lined up before him, hours after they were captured in a firefight. Moments later the men are killed a hail of automatic gunfire, followed by individual shots to the head from a Taliban fighter who moves down the line of bodies, trailed by the camera. The footage was authentic and had been made in north-western Dir district in the aftermath of a 1 June cross-border raid by Pakistani militants sheltering across the border in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

- Pakistani officials say mortars fired from Afghanistan have hit a paramilitary post in Pakistan's tribal region, killing four soldiers. The latest incident of cross-border violence occurred Tuesday July 19, 2011, in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan. At least two other paramilitary soldiers were wounded. Pakistan says militants allegedly coming from Afghan bases have killed more than 55 soldiers in recent attacks. Pakistan has protested the cross-border attacks and called on Afghan and NATO forces do more to crack down on insurgents. Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of intentionally firing hundreds of rockets into its territory, killing at least 36 Afghan civilians. Pakistan says its security forces may have fired a few accidental rounds into Afghanistan while pursuing militants. Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants have save havens on both sides of the porous Afghan-Pakistani border.

- An anti-Taliban group killed 13 militants in clashes in north-western Pakistan near the Afghan border we were told on Friday July 22, 2011. Several members of the militia and insurgents were also wounded in the gun battles in the Kurram tribal region. Encouraged by Islamabad, tribesmen recently formed the militia to kill or evict Taliban militants and their supporters from the region. They have killed 25 insurgents in clashes this week. The Pakistani military has also carried out attacks against the Taliban who are hiding in the area after escaping last year's offensive in the nearby Orakzai tribal region. The Pakistani Taliban have links to the insurgent movement fighting foreign forces and their local allies in neighbouring Afghanistan, but separate goals. They are a sworn enemy of Pakistan and are focused on destabilising the country's US-allied government through violence.

- At least 27 militants and four tribesmen were killed in gunfights in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan we were told on Monday July 25, 2011. The gun battles between a local tribal force and Taliban insurgents erupted in Kurram district late Sunday when Pakistani forces later reinforced the tribal fighters and pounded militant positions with artillery.

- At least 35 Pakistani Taliban fighters have been killed in US air strikes in Afghanistan after they attacked a convoy of foreign troops we were told on Tuesday July 26, 2011. A group of 100 Pakistani Taliban militants fired missiles and rockets at a convoy of foreign forces in Paktiya on Friday. US ground forces sought air cover and NATO fighter jets targeted the Pakistani militants, killing 35 of them. Over a dozen rebels were injured. They were brought to hospitals in North Waziristan Agency. Those who were killed included militants from Pakistani Taliban groups led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Mullah Nazir. Punjabi Taliban militants too were among the dead and injured.

- On Saturday August 6, 2011, a bomb attack in Pakistan has destroyed 16 tankers carrying fuel for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. The attack took place at a terminal close to the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan. Many of the non-lethal supplies for the war in Afghanistan are trucked overland through Pakistan after being unloaded at the port city of Karachi. Islamist militants frequently attack the trucks, though the vast majority of supplies makes it through unscathed.

- Gunmen in south-western Pakistan set fire to at least 19 oil tankers carrying fuel for US-led NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. The gunmen fired at the tankers as they were waiting for a police escort on the main highway at Kolpur village, south of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. Thirteen oil tankers were completely burnt, while six were partially damaged and seven others remained safe; there were no casualties.

- A US spy plane crashed into Pakistani territory in Chaman, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Balochistan, on Thursday August25, 2011. The drone was surveying the border when it crashed. The drone was not carrying any weapons systems and was probably for surveillance purposes.

- USA's top military official said Thursday September 22, 2011, that Pakistan's spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. It was the most serious charge that the United States has levelled against Pakistan in the decade that America has been at war in Afghanistan. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American effort in Afghanistan. The United States has long said that Pakistan's intelligence agency supports the Haqqani network, based in Pakistan's tribal areas, as a way to extend Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. But Admiral Mullen made clear that he believed that the support extended to increasingly high-profile attacks in Afghanistan aimed directly at the United States. These included a truck bombing at a NATO outpost south of Kabul on September 10, which killed at least five people and wounded 77 coalition soldiers as well as the embassy assault that killed 16 Afghan police officers and civilians.

- US drone missiles on Thursday October 13, 2011, killed 10 militants including a commander in the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, which the American military has linked to Pakistani intelligence. Two missiles slammed into a compound in Dandey Darpakhel village, about seven kilometres north of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district. Jamil Haqqani, an important Afghan commander of Haqqani network was the target and was killed. Jamil was working as a coordinator of the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. The three other people killed in the strike were Haqqani fighters guarding the commander in the compound.

- Pakistani officials said on Saturday November 26, 2011, that NATO aircraft had killed at least 25 soldiers in strikes against two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan, and the country's supreme army commander called them unprovoked acts of aggression. The Pakistani government responded by ordering the Central Intelligence Agency to vacate the drone operations it runs from Shamsi Air Base, in western Pakistan, within 15 days. It also closed the two main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, including the one at Torkham. NATO forces receive roughly 40 percent of their supplies through that crossing, which runs through the Khyber Pass, and Pakistan gave no estimate for how long the routes might be shut down.

- On Sunday November 27, 2011, the U.S. military began a high-level investigation to help salvage relations with Pakistan after an air strike by the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan killed 24 Pakistani troops at the border. The U.S. military's highest commander for the region, Marine General James Mattis named Air Force Special Operations Command Brigadier General Stephen Clark to lead the investigation. Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander in Afghanistan, had requested that Central Command take charge of the review.

- Pakistan said Tuesday November 29, 2011, it will boycott an upcoming meeting in Germany on the future of Afghanistan to protest the deadly attack by U.S.-led forces on its troops, widening the fallout from an incident that has sent ties between Washington and Islamabad into a tailspin.

- The United States and dozens of other countries convened in Bonn, Germany, Monday December 5, 2011, to discuss Afghanistan's future. But Pakistan, a key player in any Afghan settlement, boycotted the conference. Pakistani leaders were deeply angered by the killing of 24 of their soldiers in a NATO airstrike along the Afghan border last month. Pakistan erupted in fury over the NATO airstrike that killed two dozen soldiers on November 26. Thousands of protesters in Karachi and other major cities chanted, "Anyone who is America's friend is a traitor." There were indications that the airstrike was a friendly-fire incident that began when NATO troops and Pakistani soldiers each thought they were being fired upon by the Taliban. But Pakistani political leaders swiftly denounced the attack, calling it deliberate and demanding an apology and punishment for those responsible.

- Assailants torched more than 20 tankers in Pakistan carrying fuel for U.S. and NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan on Thursday December 8, 2011, in the first reported attack since Islamabad closed the border to protest coalition airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops last month. Several hundred trucks have been stranded at poorly guarded terminals around the country as they wait for Pakistan to reopen its two border crossings into Afghanistan. Around 40 percent of the non-lethal supplies for U.S.-led troops in landlocked Afghanistan travel across Pakistani soil. Unknown men fired rockets at a terminal for the tankers close to the southwestern city of Quetta. He said at least 23 tankers were set ablaze. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

- Pakistan may continue its blocking of Nato convoys into Afghanistan for several weeks, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the BBC on December 11, 2011. Pakistan stopped the convoys in protest at US air strikes which killed 24 of its troops at two checkpoints on the Afghan border last month. Mr Gilani refused to rule out closing Pakistan's airspace to the US.

- A United States military investigation has concluded that checks and balances devised to prevent cross-border mishaps with Pakistan failed to avert a deadly NATO airstrike last month in part because American officials did not trust Pakistan enough to give it detailed information about American troop locations in Afghanistan. A report by the inquiry concluded that mistakes by both American and Pakistani troops led to airstrikes against two Pakistani posts on the Afghan border that killed 26 Pakistani troops. But two crucial findings -that the Pakistanis fired first at a joint Afghan-American patrol and that they kept firing even after the Americans tried to warn them that they were shooting at allied troops- were likely to further anger Pakistan and plunge the already tattered relationship between the United States and Pakistan to new depths

- Pakistan held funeral services Thursday January 5, 2012, for 15 paramilitary soldiers abducted and killed by the Taliban in the country's northwest. A spokesman for the Islamic militant group said it killed the soldiers, kidnapped December 22 in the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in revenge for continued military operations against the militants near the Afghan border. Local authorities found the bullet-riddled bodies of 15 members of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary early Thursday in the tribal region of North Waziristan. They said the remains showed signs of torture.

- Pakistan has blocked NATO supply trucks from entering Afghanistan since November 26, when NATO attacks killed two dozen Pakistani border guards. So far, the only public signs in Pakistan are that the border will continue to remain closed indefinitely. On January 6, 2012, the chairman of Pakistan's Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Mian Raza Rabbani, said the embargo would remain so long as relations with NATO remain fraught.

- About 20 suspected insurgents have been killed in attacks by Pakistani jets in the Jogi area of the Kurram tribal region near the Afghan border on Wednesday February 1, 2012. The airstrikes were in response to an ambush by the Taliban on Tuesday in which at least eight soldiers were killed and 25 injured. A Taliban leader, Maulvi Moinuddin, was killed but there has been no independent confirmation of his death.

- A U.S. drone strike reportedly killed a notorious Pakistani al-Qaida operative before dawn Thursday February 9, 2012, in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, the latest sign that the United States and Pakistan are stepping up coordinated intelligence operations despite a downturn in relations. The CIA drone strike on a compound in Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area, killed four militants, including Badar Mansoor, the head of a small militant outfit that carries his name.

- Pakistan announced Tuesday February 14, 2012, that it has temporarily allowed NATO to ship perishable food to its troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan closed its Afghan border to NATO supplies in response to the deadly November 26 attack on two of its border posts. The government would only allow NATO to ship perishable items for a limited time and has asked the coalition not to order any more.

- President Asif Ali Zardari Friday February 17, 2012, said Pakistan along with Afghanistan and Iran was committed to jointly work to rid the region of the "menace" of terrorism. Addressing a joint press conference with the Presidents of Afghanistan and Iran here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr, at the end of the third trilateral summit, President Zardari said only joint efforts could help the region overcome terrorism, which he believed was being fuelled by billions of dollars of drug trade. President Zardari said he has repeatedly raised his voice internationally to urge the world to join hands in helping the region counter drug trade.

- The government cemented its grip on power on Friday March 2, 2012, with strong gains in Senate elections that represented a psychological victory for the beleaguered president, Asif Ali Zardari, and should ensure his party's influence for another three years. By late evening, the governing Pakistan Peoples Party and its coalition allies had won 32 of 49 possible seats; another 5 seats were to be announced, but the result could not prevent the government from taking control of the upper house of Parliament.

- The United States military has decided on March 24, 2012, that no service members will face disciplinary charges for their involvement in a NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, an accident that plunged relations between the two countries to new depths and has greatly complicated the allied mission in Afghanistan. An American investigation in December found fault with both American and Pakistani troops for the deadly exchange of fire, but noted that the Pakistanis fired first from two border posts that were not on coalition maps, and that they kept firing even after the Americans tried to warn them that they were shooting at allied troops. Pakistan has rejected these conclusions and ascribed most of the blame to the American forces.

- The United States is offering a $10 million bounty for the arrest of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the group blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The new reward appears intended to increase pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militant groups, but U.S. officials described the timing as coincidental. Saeed, 61, founder of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba(Army of the Pious) and its successor group, has long been designated an international terrorist. Yet he continues to preach jihad with impunity in Pakistan and operates a large campus for religious training in the eastern city of Lahore. U.S. and Indian officials allege that Saeed and other militant leaders operate with the tacit permission of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, the army's chief spy agency, but Pakistan denies it. Indian government officials and lawmakers immediately welcomed news of the U.S. bounty Tuesday April 3, 2012, and renewed calls to bring to justice those Pakistani radicals who planned the Mumbai attacks.

- Pakistan's Parliament unanimously demanded Thursday April 12, 2012, that the United States end its long campaign of drone strikes inside Pakistani territory, a vital component of the Obama administration's strategy against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. But lawmakers tacitly allowed the passage of oil, food and other nonlethal goods across the country's borders to supply NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan has barred NATO convoys for several months in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border outposts. The two countries are allies but their relationship has been plagued by mistrust over the last 50 years.

- The White House Sai on Friday April 13, 2012m that it has no intentions of ending CIA drone strikes against militant targets on Pakistani soil possibly setting the two countries up for diplomatic tensions after Pakistan's parliament unanimously approved new guidelines for the country's troubled relationship with the United States. U.S. officials will work in coming weeks and months to find common ground with Pakistan, but if a suspected terrorist target comes into the laser sights of a CIA drone's hellfire missiles, they will take the shot.

- The first high-level talks aimed at breaking a five-month diplomatic deadlock between the United States and Pakistan ended in failure on Friday April 27, 2012, over Pakistani demands for an unconditional apology from the Obama administration for an airstrike. The White House refuses to apologize. The special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, left the Pakistani capital Friday night with no agreement after two days of discussions aimed at patching up the damage caused by the American airstrikes last November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghanistan border.

- President Asif Ali Zardari will attend a summit of NATO leaders in Chicago this weekend (May 20-21), the Pakistan Embassy in Washington said on Tuesday May 15, 2012. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is also expected to attend the meeting, where NATO nations will hone their plans to withdraw most of their troops by the end of 2014. As the Western presence ebbs, Pakistan, whose tribal areas are home to Taliban and other militants, will be key in shaping Afghanistan's future.

- On Thursday May 18, 2012, we were told that the Obama administration may be not be able to strike a long-awaited agreement with Pakistan to help supply Western soldiers in Afghanistan as hoped in time for a major NATO summit in Chicago this weekend.

- An American drone strike in the frontier tribal areas of Pakistan killed 10 suspected militants Sunday June 3, 2012. It was sixth such strike in two weeks as the U.S. pushes ahead with its drone campaign in the face of Pakistani demands to stop. The continued attacks emphasize the importance the U.S. government puts on the drone campaign, which it considers to be a vital tool in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban. Two Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at targets in the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan. At the time of the attack, suspected militants were gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another American unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning strike. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners, and the rest were Pakistani.

- US missiles killed 15 militants in Pakistan's Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold of North Waziristan on Monday June 4, 2012, the third drone strike in three days and the deadliest this year. The attack looked set to inflame tensions with Islamabad ahead of a visit by a US assistant defence secretary, Peter Lavoy, on a mission to persuade Pakistan to end a six-month blockade on NATO supplies crossing into Afghanistan. Eight drone strikes have been reported in Pakistan since May 23, the same number as in the previous four months, and Monday's was the deadliest since 18 Pakistani Taliban were reported killed on November 16, 2011. Two missiles slammed into a compound in the village of Hesokhel, east of Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, before dawn.

- The U.S. team that tried for more than a month to negotiate a reopening of blocked Pakistani supply routes into Afghanistan is coming home without an agreement, we were told on Monday June 11, 2012. Both sides indicated they remain open to making a deal, but the departure of the U.S. negotiators appeared to signal that the Americans see little prospect of a breakthrough any time soon. Adding to the appearance of an impasse was the Pakistanis' refusal to grant a visiting Pentagon official a meeting with their top general. Several issues remain unresolved.

- The U.S. is spending an extra $100 million a month to get supplies into Afghanistan because of Pakistan's closure of key transit routes into the war zone, we were told on Wednesday June 13, 2012. Pakistan closed ground-resupply routes into Afghanistan after U.S.-led forces accidently killed two dozen Pakistani troops along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on November 26. Pakistan has demanded an apology for the deaths. The White House has offered condolences but has resisted apologizing, saying mistakes were made by both U.S. and Pakistani forces. In response to Pakistan's closure, the Pentagon has expanded an alternative northern distribution network and stepped up air shipments into land-locked Afghanistan to ensure troops have the supplies they need, officials say. But doing so has come at a price, which, until now, the Pentagon had declined to disclose.

- A car bomb exploded at a crowded bazaar in a northwestern Pakistani tribal region near the border with Afghanistan on Saturday June 16, 2012, killing at least 20 people and wounding over 50 others. Several shops and vehicles were also badly damaged in the attack in the town of Landi Kotal in the Khyber tribal region near the main border crossing point of Torkham.

- Militants crossed into the northwestern Pakistan's Upper Dir region from Afghanistan and killed 13 Pakistani troops, beheading seven of them, we were told on Monday June 25, 2012 (four have still not been found). The border skirmish is a new sign of tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, two uneasy neighbours. Pakistan has complained that militants use parts of Afghanistan for sanctuary to stage attacks inside Pakistan. That claim helps Islamabad counter frequent U.S. and NATO complaints that militants behind much of the violence in Afghanistan come from Pakistan.

- Four suspected militants were killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region Tuesday June 26, 2012. The strike targeted a militant compound in the village of Shawal in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The strike comes just one day before Gen. John Allen, the American commander overseeing the war in Afghanistan, meets with Pakistan's top general. One of the items on the agenda for Allen's meeting Wednesday with Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is reopening the border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

- The Taliban released a video Wednesday June 28, 2012, that they say shows the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers captured in a cross-border raid from Afghanistan this week and beheaded. A bomb in a railway station in Pakistan's southwest killed at least five people and the leader of an anti-Taliban militia was killed in Peshawar in the northwest.

- U.S. missiles fired from a drone in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border killed eight suspected militants Sunday July 1, 2012. The latest attack killed fighters loyal to militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Bahadur is believed by residents of the region to have an informal working relationship with the Pakistani army. Four Hellfire missiles were fired at a house used by suspected militants in Dre Nishter village of North Waziristan.

- Afghanistan accused Pakistan's army on Monday July 2, 2012, of launching months of rocket attacks on its territory and threatened to report Islamabad to the U.N. Security Council, straining already troubled ties between the neighbours. Kabul has regularly accused elements in Islamabad's government and army of backing militants and carrying out attacks inside Afghanistan's borders -charges denied by Pakistan. But it was the first time Afghanistan has held Pakistan responsible for hundreds of rocket strikes on the heavily forested Afghan border province of Kunar that it says have killed four civilians since March.

- Pakistan and the United States reached a deal on Tuesday July 3, 2012, to reopen land routes that NATO uses to supply troops in Afghanistan, ending a seven-month crisis that damaged ties between the two countries and complicated the U.S.-led Afghan war effort. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a telephone call with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, apologized for a November NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November and prompted an infuriated Islamabad to slam the supply routes closed.

- Trucks carrying NATO supplies rolled into Afghanistan for the first time in more than seven months Thursday July 5, 2012, ending a painful chapter in U.S.-Pakistan relations that saw the border closed until Washington apologized for an airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Thousands of trucks have been waiting at ports in Karachi for the transit ban to be lifted as the diplomatic wrangling dragged on. Drivers are eager to get behind the wheel and start earning a lucrative salary again in what can be a deadly journey because of attacks from the Taliban.

- Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire at a roadside restaurant in southwestern Pakistan on Friday July 6, 2012, killing 18 people. The people killed in the restaurant attack in the remote town of Turbat in Baluchistan province were Pakistanis travelling with smugglers to Europe through neighbouring Iran. Two people were also wounded. It's unclear what motivated the attack. Earlier, U.S. drones fired a total of five missiles at a compound in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area. In addition to the 12 suspected militants killed, six others were wounded, some of them critically. Those hit were believed to loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a militant commander whose forces frequently target U.S. and other NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. A similar drone attack Sunday killed eight of Bahadur's fighters.

- Bureaucratic delays have held up shipments to troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan, we were told on Wednesday July 11, 2012, a week after Islamabad reopened U.S. and NATO supply lines. So far, only a handful of supply trucks have crossed the border, which Pakistan closed to the convoys last November after American airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani border troops. Islamabad agreed to reopen the supply routes on July 3, after months of negotiations and a U.S. apology over the incident. Two trucks carrying supplies to U.S. and NATO troops passed through the Chaman border crossing in the southern province of Baluchistan last Thursday. A Pakistani customs official said no other trucks have crossed since then. Four trucks from the port city of Karachi arrived at the border Wednesday and were expected to cross on Thursday. Since the official resumption of the supply route, not a single fuel truck has left either of the two main ports in Karachi. He blamed bureaucracy for the delay, saying that procedures and paperwork must be completed before goods and fuel can even be loaded on the trucks. Goods shipments appeared likely to resume before fuel supply, Shinwari said, and the tankers are expected to move in about a week. Pakistan is a notoriously bureaucratic country where obtaining permits or processing paperwork can take a frustratingly long time. Before the closure, 150 to 200 trucks carrying NATO supplies crossed the border daily. Few expected shipments to reach those numbers immediately after Pakistan reopened the supply lines, and the delay did not appear to reflect a change of heart on the side of the Pakistani government. The trucks have been waiting in Karachi for months and need maintenance and proper customs clearance before any movement can take place.

- On Thursday July 12, 2012, NATO military supplies are rolling once again through Pakistan to help the alliance fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, saving an estimated $100 million a month over alternative supply routes. There are questions, however, whether this will lead to better relations between Washington and Islamabad, which had closed down the supply route for seven months after NATO planes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The so-called southern route, which runs through Pakistan, is the most direct and cost effective way to send supplies to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

- Dozens of militants coming from Afghanistan took scores of villagers hostage in Pakistan's northwest Thursday July 12, 2012, sparking fighting that killed at least 10 people, Pakistani officials said. In the eastern part of the country, Taliban gunmen opened fire on a compound housing policemen, killing nine of them. The militants who staged the cross-border attack appeared to be targeting members of an anti-Taliban militia in Kitkot village near Pakistan's Bajur tribal area. Pakistan has railed against Afghan and NATO forces for not doing enough to stop Afghanistan-based militants from launching cross-border attacks, but has received little sympathy. The U.S. and Afghan governments have long complained that Pakistan allows sanctuary to militants fighting in Afghanistan. The militants who attacked Thursday came from Afghanistan's Kunar province and took hundreds of villagers hostage, including anti-Taliban militiamen. The Pakistani army surrounded the village and killed eight militants, prompting the insurgents to retaliate by killing shooting to death two militiamen. Soldiers have retrieved scores of villagers, but dozens more are still held by the militants or trapped in their homes by the fighting. The army called in gunship helicopters for support but haven't used them yet for fear of civilian casualties.

- On Friday July 13, 2012, dozens of militants from Afghanistan who attacked a Pakistani village and took scores of hostages have fled back across the border, leaving the captives behind after a deadly battle with the army. The fighters who staged the cross-border attack on Thursday came from Afghanistan's Kunar province and appeared to be targeting members of an anti-Taliban militia in Kitkot village near Pakistan's Bajur tribal area, in the northwest.

- A mortar round hit a house belonging to a paramilitary soldier Sunday July 15, 2012, in northwestern Pakistan, killing his wife and three of his children, not far from the newly reopened NATO supply crossing to Afghanistan. The soldier in the Frontier Corps, Dolat Mir, was wounded in the explosion in Mera Sheikhan village near the Khyber tribal area. Mir's son and two daughters who died were between the ages of one and seven. It was unclear who fired the mortar or whether the house was intentionally targeted. The 27-year-old soldier has been serving in the North Waziristan tribal region.

- Thousands of Pakistani activists marched towards the Afghan border on Tuesday July 17, 2012,, condemning the government's decision to end a seven-month blockade on NATO supplies into Afghanistan. The march was organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, a leading member of the Defence of Pakistan coalition of right wing and Islamist groups that have demanded mass protests against the July 3 lifting of the blockade. Party leaders said 50,000 people would join the protest from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the nearby town of Jamrud, close to the Afghan border. But around 8,000 people gathered in Peshawar late Monday and the crowd thinned to half overnight as they camped out in a park, witnesses said. Banners in the park read "Yes to Peace, No to NATO" and "No more NATO, no more killings of Muslims".

- A suicide bomber attacked an anti-Taliban commander's compound in northeastern Pakistan on Saturday July 21, 2012, killing at least nine people and injuring more than a dozen others. The attack in Kurram, part of the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, was apparently directed at militant commander Mullah Nabi, who was formerly a member of the Pakistani Taliban but broke away to form his own group. Nabi was unhurt in the attack. At least three children were among the dead. The bomber reportedly tried to get into the guest quarters of Nabi's compound but instead detonated his explosives when stopped and questioned by security. The Pakistani Taliban has taken responsibility for the attack. The injured, several reportedly in critical condition, were evacuated to a hospital in a neighbouring district.

- Gunmen in northwest Pakistan attacked two trucks ferrying supplies to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday July 24, 2012, killing a driver and injuring another in what was believed to be the first ambush of an alliance supply convoy since Pakistani authorities ended a seven-month blockade of the supply routes. The trucks were moving through the tribal region of Khyber on their way to the Torkham border crossing when assailants on two motorcycles drove up and opened fire with AK-47 rifles. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but following Islamabad's decision earlier this month to reopen transit routes used by Afghanistan-bound NATO supply convoys, Pakistani Taliban militants had warned that they would begin launching attacks on the convoys.

- Pakistan and the United States signed a deal regulating the shipment of American troop supplies to and from Afghanistan on Tuesday July 31, 2012, prompting Washington to agree to release over $1 billion in frozen military aid. The developments represent the formal end to a crisis between the two countries that started in November when Pakistan closed its border to supplies meant for U.S. and other NATO troops in Afghanistan in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan reopened the route running overland through its territory from the southern port of Karachi to the Afghan border in early July after the U.S. apologized for the deaths, which the Americans said were an accident. But it took several more weeks for the two sides to finalize the new agreement. The deal codifies a largely informal arrangement that has allowed the international coalition to truck supplies through Pakistan over the past decade. Pakistan pushed for a written pact during months of negotiations, and it is expected to be extended to other NATO countries.

- The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, met Thursday August 2, 2012, with Pakistan's top military commander General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The two countries continue to disagree about how to deal with militants based along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The meeting was aimed at building cooperation between the two countries about how to best fight militants who operate in the porous border region between northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan.

- Militants killed a driver of a container truck carrying supplies for NATO in Pakistan's tribal region on Monday August 6, 2012. Three gunmen in a car opened fire on the truck in the Jamrud area of Khyber Agency, a district in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Three members of the truck crew were also injured in the incident as the vehicle moved towards the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

- On Thursday August 16, 2012, heavily armed Taliban fighters blasted their way into a Pakistani air force base with possible links to the country's nuclear program in a brazen assault that took two hours of fighting to put down, leaving a security officer and nine insurgents dead and underscoring the group's continued threat despite numerous military offensives. Hours later, Taliban gunmen in northern Pakistan forced 20 Shiite Muslims off buses, lined them up and killed them, the latest in a series of sectarian attacks that the government has seemingly done little to stop.

- A missile launched from a U.S. drone struck a suspected militant hideout in a tribal region in northern Pakistan where allies of a powerful warlord were gathered Saturday August 18, 2012, killing five of his supporters. The strike in North Waziristan against allies of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a militant commander whose forces frequently target U.S. and other NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, comes amid speculation over whether Pakistan will launch an operation against militants in the tribal region

- American drones fired a flurry of missiles in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan Sunday August 19, 2012, killing a total of 10 suspected militants. In the first strike in the Mana area of North Waziristan, missiles fired from unmanned American spy planes hit two vehicles near the Afghan border, killing at least seven militants. The area is dominated by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a commander whose forces often strike U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but they did not know whether his men were the targets of Sundays' strike. A U.S. drone strike Saturday also in North Waziristan killed five Gul Bahadur allies. Again on Sunday, two missiles destroyed a home also in the Mana area, killing three militants.

- An unmanned American aircraft fired missiles at a vehicle in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan (near Shana Khora village in North Waziristan) Tuesday August 21, 2012, killing five suspected militants and injuring two. Tuesday's was the third drone attack in North Waziristan within three days. On Sunday, drone-fired missiles killed 10 suspected militants in two strikes 12 hours apart.

- A United States drone strike has killed 18 suspected militants Friday August 24, 2012, in the northwest part of the country. The attack is the fifth of its kind in a week. The attack "targeted three walled compounds in the Shawal Valley, which is in the South Waziristan region on the border with Afghanistan.

- NATO said on Saturday August 25, 2012, that they had killed a senior Pakistani Taliban commander in an airstrike in Afghanistan. Mullah Dadullah, who led the Pakistani Taliban in the Bajaur tribal agency, was killed Friday in a strike on a compound across the border in the Afghan province of Kunar. 12 other militants, including Mullah Dadullah's deputy, were also killed. The death of Mullah Dadullah, a former prayer leader who rose through the Taliban ranks to become a commander, will have an impact on the fighting in Bajaur, where the Pakistani Army has been battling the Pakistani Taliban since 2008.

- Tuesday August 28, 2012, was the fifth day of battles between Pakistani security forces and anti-Taliban militiamen against militants who crossed from Afghanistan. 11 militants and three security personnel were killed in fighting Tuesday in the Bajur tribal area in northwest Pakistan. Two civilians were also killed. Many people are still stuck in villages in Salarzai where fighting has been most fierce.  31 militants, three security personnel and two militiamen were killed in the first four days of fighting.

- Taliban militants ambushed a Pakistani army post near the Afghan border before dawn Wednesday August 29, 2012, killing eight soldiers. The attack occurred in the South Waziristan tribal area. In addition to the eight soldiers killed, six others were wounded in the ambush near Ghatbadr village in the Shakai Valley. The assault followed the start of a new army operation to rout militants from the area. During the operation over the last two days, soldiers killed 18 militants and destroyed seven of their hideouts. Another 21 militants were wounded. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the post.

- U.S. drones fired a barrage of missiles at a vehicle and a house in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan on Saturday September 2, 2012, killing at least five suspected militants. The strikes in the North Waziristan tribal area were the first since news that a top commander of the powerful Haqqani militant network was killed in a drone strike late last month, also in the tribal region. U.S. drones fired seven missiles at targets in the village of Degan in an area of North Waziristan close to the Afghan border.

- A suicide bomber rammed a car filled with explosives into a U.S. government vehicle in the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan on Monday September 3, 2012, killing two Pakistanis and wounding 19 others, including two Americans. The bomber struck the armoured vehicle after it left the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar and as it was travelling through an area of the city that hosts various international organizations, including the United Nations. The attack killed two Pakistanis working at the U.S. Consulate and wounded 19 other people. The wounds to the Americans were not life-threatening.

- A car bomb ripped through a crowded market in a Pakistani tribal region bordering Afghanistan on Monday September 10, 2012, killing 12 Shiite Muslims. In addition to the 12 killed in the explosion in the town of Parachinar in the Kurram region, 45 people were wounded. Kurram is the only region along the Afghan border that is majority Shiite.

- Thousands of Pakistanis joined by a group of U.S. anti-war activists headed toward Pakistan's militant-riddled tribal belt Saturday October 6, 2012, to protest U.S. drone strikes, even as a Pakistani Taliban faction warned that suicide bombers would stop the demonstration. The motorcade march was led by Imran Khan, an ex-cricket star-turned-populist politician who heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Militants have dismissed Khan as a tool of the West despite his condemnations of the drone strikes, which have killed many Islamist insurgent leaders. Pakistanis in small towns and villages along the roughly 400-kilometer route warmly welcomed the 150-plus vehicle convoy. Footage broadcast on Pakistani TV showed people showering rose petals on the motorcade.

- Pakistan has freed eight Taliban prisoners and has agreed to release many more to help kick start a peace process that could lead to a political resolution of the 11-year-old Afghan war, we were told on November 15, 2012 Thursday. The U.S. and its allies fighting in Afghanistan are pushing to strike a peace deal with the Taliban so they can withdraw most of their troops by the end of 2014. But considerable obstacles remain, and it is unclear whether the Taliban even intend to take part in the process, rather than just wait until foreign forces withdraw. The officials said the first group of prisoners was released on Wednesday as a goodwill gesture, and that Pakistani officials had agreed to free anywhere from 15 to 32 more prisoners in the future to help build traction for formal talks with the Taliban. Former Taliban Justice Minister Nooruddin Turabi was among those released on Wednesday. Turabi, a native of Kandahar who is in his late 40s or early 50s, is missing an eye and has only one leg. He is believed to have played a role in the destruction of two, 1,500-year-old sandstone Buddha statues that once towered some 180 feet high in central Afghanistan. The Taliban, who considered them symbols of paganism, destroyed them in 2001.

- A roadside bomb killed at least seven worshipers during a Shiite procession in the northwest Pakistan city of Dera Ismail Khan on Saturday November 24, 2012.

- A suspected U.S. missile strike has killed three militants in a Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border. Two missiles fired from a drone hit a vehicle Saturday December 1, 2012, near the Sheen Warsak area of South Waziristan, killing a Yemeni militant along with two others. The attack was second this week in the same area. On Thursday missile strike hit a house killing three alleged militants. Two intelligence officials say another Yemeni militant was killed in that strike.

- An American drone strike in Pakistan has killed a top Taliban commander who sent money and fighters to battle the U.S. in Afghanistan we were told on Thursday January 3, 2013. Nazir was killed when two missiles slammed into a house in a village in South Waziristan while he was meeting with supporters and fellow commanders. Eight other people were killed.  A U.S. official confirmed the death of Nazir, along with an unspecified number of “trusted deputies.” Nazir and those killed were “directly involved in planning and executing cross-border attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, as well as providing protection for al-Qaida fighters in South Waziristan”. Earlier, Pentagon spokesman George Little described Nazir as “someone who has a great deal of blood on his hands.” At least four people were killed in a separate drone strike Thursday in the North Waziristan tribal region.

- Pakistan asked Afghanistan on Thursday February 21, 2013, to hand over senior Pakistani Taliban ‘commander’ Maulvi Faqir Mohammad because he has the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands. The capture of Maulvi Faqir, former deputy `commander’ of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan from Bajaur, by Afghan security forces was announced a couple of days ago. He was arrested when he entered Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province along with four accomplices identified as Shahid Umar, Maulana Hakeemullah Bajauri, Maulana Turabi and Fateh. Maulvi Faqir led the Taliban in Bajaur for a long time and reportedly has links with Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.

- A car bomb killed at least 17 soldiers in Pakistan. A car bomb was detonated close to an army post near the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan Saturday March 23, 2013, killing 17 soldiers and the driver of the car and injuring more than a dozen security personnel. The explosion went off next to two tankers that were supplying fuel to the post. The blast set the tankers on fire and destroyed a nearby barracks.

- In South Waziristan US drones killed five people classified as suspected militants but only one has been positively identified. In the village of Sararogha in South Waziristan US drones fired on a house destroying it and killing five people inside. Seven others were wounded. Local people tried to rescue survivors but their efforts were slowed when some fled as there were several additional drone overflights. Rescuers feared they might be attacked.

- A suspected U.S. drone strike killed the No. 2 commander of the Pakistani Taliban on Wednesday May 29, 2013. The militant group denied he was killed. If confirmed, the death of Waliur Rehman would be a strong blow to the militant group responsible for hundreds of bombings and shootings across Pakistan. The United States has a $5 million bounty out on Rehman, who Washington has accused of involvement in the 2009 suicide attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan that killed seven Americans working for the CIA. Missiles fired by a U.S. drone slammed into a house in Miran Shah, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal region, killing five people including Rehman.

- A suspected U.S. drone strike killed seven people Friday June 7, 2013, in northwest Pakistan, two days after the country’s new prime minister vowed to stop such attacks. The attack occurred shortly after sunset in a forested tribal area that straddles North and South Waziristan, not far from the border with Afghanistan. Four people were seriously hurt.

- A U.S. drone strike targeting a militant compound in Pakistan's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan has killed 16 people we were told on Wednesday July 3, 2013. The attack struck a compound of the Haqqani Network, a group that carries out attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan and travels back and forth across the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The strike killed 16 militants and wounded five others in the Dande Darpakhel area near Miranshah in North Waziristan. The U.S. government has said strikes by the unmanned aircraft are a necessary part of the fight against militant groups. But the attacks have drawn deep opposition in Pakistan because of civilian casualties and the violation of sovereignty.

- At least five persons were injured and 10 shops destroyed when mortars shells fired from across the border landed in the Pakistani territory on Saturday July 6, 2013. 60 mortar shells fired from Afghanistan landed in the border area of Angoor Adda in South Waziristan Agency. Unidentified people started indiscriminate shelling on Pakistani border villages, injuring five people. Ten mortar shells hit the Angoor Adda Market, which destroyed houses and shops, while the rest landed in unpopulated areas. No casualties were reported.

- On Thursday August 8, 2013, a suicide bomber killed 38 people and wounded 50 others, most of them policemen attending the funeral of a colleague killed earlier in the day in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta. The explosion in Pakistan Baluchistan province capped a bloody Ramadan for the country, where at least 11 attacks have killed more than 120 people.

- A two-star major general with the Pakistani army and two subordinate officers were killed Sunday September 15, 2013, by a roadside bomb in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the border with Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Sanaullah Niazi and the other officers were reportedly returning from an inspection of Pakistan border posts when their vehicle hit the mine in the Shahi Kot area of the Upper Dir district. The major general and his two colleagues died on the spot. At least two other soldiers reportedly were injured.

- Pakistan released its highest-ranking Afghan Taliban prisoner on Saturday September 21, 2013, in an effort to jump-start Afghanistan’s struggling peace process. The Afghan government has long demanded that Pakistan free Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s former deputy leader who was arrested in a joint raid with the CIA in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010. Pakistani intelligence and security officials confirmed that he left detention Saturday but did not provide any details, including where he was held.

- Pakistan Sunday September 22, 2013:

• A local Awami National Party (ANP) leader was gunned down by unknown gunmen in Balu Khan village's Peer Baba area in Buner district. Anwar Khan was also a member of a local peace committee which had formed a lashkar to resist the Taliban militants when they had taken control of the area in 2009.
• At least one person was killed and another injured when a suspected mortar shell fired from Afghanistan landed in a residential area in North Waziristan tribal region.
• The victim was a civilian who succumbed to his wounds suffered in an explosion, which was allegedly caused by a mortar/rocket shell which landed from Afghanistan at his house in North Waziristan's Saidgi area in the vicinity of the Pak-Afghan border region.
• An explosion at a hideout of the Lashkar-i-Islam organisation in Khyber tribal region's Nala area late on Saturday killed four militants, including the spokesperson for the outlawed outfit and two other militant commanders.
• Militant commanders belonging to the Lashkar-i-Islam and the Tehrik-i-Talban Pakistan (TTP's) splinter Tariq 'Gidar' Afridi group were killed while they were making an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) bomb at the said hideout.
• Pakistani security forces late Saturday claimed to have killed at least 12 militants and inured many others when a cross-border militant attack was repulsed by them in Lower Dir district; two solider have also been injured in the clash. At least 15 to 20 militants crossed into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan.

A bomb exploded aboard a bus carrying local government officials in northwestern Pakistan Friday September 27, 2013, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens. The attack in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, occurred as the workers were returning to their homes outside the city for weekly Friday Muslim prayers. It was the second deadly attack in less than a week in Peshawar, where residents still are grieving after 85 people were killed at a Christian church there on Sunday. A bomb had been planted on the bus. At least 42 people were injured.

A powerful earthquake in Pakistan has killed at least 15 people just days after hundreds were killed by a quake in the same area. The 6.8-magnitude quake hit the region of Balochistan in the south west of the country on Saturday morning September 28, 2013, sending people running into the streets in panic. On Tuesday a 7.8-magnitude tremor rocked the impoverished Awaran district killing 359 people, razing hundreds of mud-and-brick homes to the ground and leaving tens of thousands homeless. People still recovering from injuries sustained in the first disaster fled the hospital where they were being treated fearing the building would collapse.

A car bomb ripped through a crowded street in Peshawar’s oldest bazaar Sunday September 29, 2013, killing 40 people in the third blast to hit the troubled Pakistani city in a week. The explosion appeared to have been caused by a bomb planted in a parked car and detonated by remote control. It went off near a mosque and a police station, damaging the house of worship and nearby shops and engulfing many vehicles in flames.

A US drone strike killed six militants and injured three others on Sunday September 29, 2013, in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. The strike took place in the Dargamandi area, seven kilometres north of Miranshah which is the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region. The US drone fired two missiles at a compound which caught fire and six people died on the spot and three were wounded. The dead and the wounded belonged to Punjab and were associated with militant commander Qari Abbas who was killed in an earlier drone strike on a car in the area.

At least 39 people were killed and 70 wounded Monday September 30, 2013, in a car-bomb attack on a police station minutes away from Peshawar's All Saints church where terrorists killed 85 worshippers last Sunday.

On Tuesday October 1, 2013, we were told that the death toll from a strong quake that hit southwest Pakistan last week has risen to 376 as relief work in the shattered area continued. The deadly 7.7-magnitude quake shook the province of Baluchistan on September 24, making more than 100,000 people homeless. A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the area again on Saturday, killing at least 22 people. The figures did not include the second tremor. A previous death toll from the first quake stood at 359.

An improvised roadside bomb in the earthquake-hit Pakistani province of Balochistan has killed two soldiers and wounded three others working to help survivors. The explosion near the army vehicle happened near the town of Mashkay. The attack late on Tuesday October 1, 2013, highlights the difficulties and dangers inherent in providing relief supplies to an area where separatists have been battling the army for years. The vehicle hit by the bomb was carrying troops whose unit had been dispatched to the area to provide relief to disaster zone inhabitants. Rockets were also launched against members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps delivering earthquake relief in the Awaran district of Balochistan. There were no casualties. Insurgents have launched several attacks on rescue teams firing rockets at army helicopters and issuing threats.

A bomb that exploded near a polio vaccination team in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday October 7, 2013, killed at least two people, and possibly as many as six. The blast appeared to target police who were assigned to protect the vaccination team. Health workers have been attacked repeatedly since the Taliban denounced vaccination as a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. The bomb was placed directly outside a clinic in Sulemankhen, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Peshawar. Gunmen killed two female polio health workers in the same area earlier this year.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud said on Wednesday October 9, 2013, that he is open to "serious talks" with the government but says he has not yet been approached. He denied carrying out recent deadly attacks in public places but said he would continue to target "America and its friends". The chief loosely controls more than 30 militant groups in the tribal areas. The group has killed thousands of people in its war against the Pakistani state in recent years. They control areas in the north-west and have been blamed for a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks. ---

A model and beauty queen from Singapore who went missing in Pakistan has been found dead in a ditch on the edge of Islamabad we were told on Tuesday October 15, 2013. Fehmina Chaudhry, 27, a Singapore-based model originally from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, went missing last Thursday while visiting Islamabad to buy property. Police arrested the real estate broker and after interrogation, he told officers that he had murdered the model and dumped her body in a stream at the outskirts of the city.

A suicide bomber shot his way into the residence of a provincial government minister in northwestern Pakistan, killing the official and seven others in an explosion. The blast Wednesday October 16, 2013 near the town of Dera Ismail Khan also wounded more than 30 people. The minister of law for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Israullah Gandapur, was meeting with people at his house to celebrate the Muslim Eid holiday when the bomber struck. The attacker first shot dead the guard at the house before blowing himself up inside the guest room of the minister's residence. The minister died on the way to the hospital. About 50 people were in the room at the time of the explosion.

Pakistan has taken the first step to opening negotiations with the Taliban. Mr. Sharif used a meeting with Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister in London, on Friday November 1, 2013, to disclose that talks had been initiated two months after they were backed at an all-party conference. While the Taliban did not confirm it had responded to the overture, its leadership said earlier this month that it was open to conditional “serious talks”.

The head of the Pakistan Taliban, one of the country’s most fearsome terrorist leaders, has been killed by a US drone strike on Friday November 1, 2013. Hakimullah Mehsud, who carried a $5 million bounty on his head, was killed with other senior commanders when at least two missiles hit his vehicle in North Waziristan.  It is the fourth time he has been declared dead but this time his demise was confirmed by other figures in the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), marking a major success for the CIA and their drone programme.

On Saturday November 2, 2013, Pakistan's security forces have been put on high alert following the US drone strike on Friday which is believed to have killed Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. Mehsud's funeral has taken place at an unknown location in the tribal area of North Waziristan. A Pakistan government minister said the drone strike had destroyed attempts to hold peace talks with the militants. Mehsud was killed along with four other people -including two of his bodyguards- when four missiles struck their vehicle in the north-western region of North Waziristan.

The Pakistani Taliban's number two commander has been promoted to leader on Saturday November 2, 2013, after its previous chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike. Khan Said, also known as Sajna, now heads the militant group following a meeting of the supreme ruling council, according to security officials. The move comes as the fallout from the strike continues to grow, with Pakistan summoning the American ambassador to register a protest.

Pakistani Taliban fighters secretly buried their leader on Saturday November 2, 2013, after he was killed by a U.S. drone aircraft and quickly moved to replace him while vowing a wave of revenge suicide bombings. The Pakistani government denounced the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud as a U.S. bid to derail planned peace talks and summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest. Some lawmakers demanded the blocking of U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan in retaliation. Mehsud, who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, and three others were killed on Friday in the militant stronghold of Miranshah in northwest Pakistan. Mehsud's vehicle was hit after he attended a meeting of Taliban leaders adding that Mehsud's body was "damaged but recognisable". His bodyguard and driver were also killed. He was secretly buried under cover of darkness in the early hours by a few companions amid fears that his funeral might be attacked by U.S. drones.

On Thursday November 7, 2013, Pakistan's Taliban have named Mullah Fazlullah as their new leader, after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone attack. Mullah Fazlullah is a particularly hardline commander whose men shot the schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai. Mehsud was killed when missiles struck his vehicle in the North Waziristan region on 1 November. The government had been trying to set up peace talks, but the new leader has already rejected the initiative. The Taliban have indicated that Mullah Fazlullah wants revenge for the killing of Mehsud; the militants could target the military and the governing party.

Six militants of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi were killed during a gun battle with police on Thursday November 14, 2013. The militants were shot dead in Mauripur area after they holed up in a safe house. The terrorists were heavily armed and the shootout lasted for a while before they were shot dead. Among the dead militants were two would-be suicide bombers. Police recovered suicide vests, a car-load of explosives and a motorcycle that were to be used by the terrorists to attack an imambrgah or Shia prayer hall. On Wednesday paramilitary Pakistan Rangers foiled a terrorist bid to attack Muharram processions when they killed three alleged Taliban fighters. A Rangers personnel was also killed in the gun battle.

The Pakistani government imposed a rare curfew on Saturday November 16, 2013, in Rawalpindi a northern city where sectarian clashes during a Shiite religious commemoration broke out the day before when eight Sunni Muslims who were killed and 35 were wounded. In the wake of Friday’s clashes, residents of Rawalpindi were ordered to stay in their homes until further notice. Soldiers and police were patrolling the streets to enforce the curfew, and many of the streets leading into the city were blocked by shipping containers and trucks. The Sunnis who were killed were from an Islamic seminary affiliated with an anti-Shiite group, Ahle Sunnat Waljamaat. The clash started when hundreds of Shiites marched past the seminary in a procession to mark Ashoura, one of the sect’s most important religious occasions. But a spokesman for Ahle Sunnat Waljamaat, claimed 11 seminary students were killed and many more were still missing. Dozens of shops outside the seminary were set on fire during the clash. Two Shiite mosques were also set on fire overnight.

On Tuesday November 19, at least seven Pakistani Taliban militants have been killed in a suicide attack in a tribal area near the Afghan border. A local Taliban commander, Qari Saifuddin, was among those reported killed in the car bombing in North Waziristan, a militant stronghold.

A suspected US drone killed up to six people when it fired on an Islamic seminary in Pakistan's north-western region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa early on Thursday November 21, 2013. The unmanned aircraft fired at least three rockets at the madrassa in the Hangu district, killing two teachers and three students just before sunrise. Other reports said six people died. An intelligence source said that Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of Taliban-linked Haqqani network, had been spotted at the seminary two days earlier. It is one of the first drone attacks to occur outside Pakistan's remote tribal region and could increase tension between Islamabad and Washington. Most drone strikes occur in North Waziristan, a stronghold of the Taliban. The attack took place a day after Pakistan's foreign policy chief, Sartaj Aziz, was quoted as saying Washington had promised not to conduct drone strikes while the government tries to engage the Taliban in peace talks. The US has not commented on Aziz's remarks.

The former police chief of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan was arrested Thursday November 21, 2013, for allegedly accepting kickbacks for a Rs 7-billion arms deal with a Chinese firm. During preliminary investigations, Khan made "important revelations. Khan was also accused of misusing his position as the head of the Frontier Constabulary and conducting the illegal recruitment of about 500 people. The officers allegedly violated government rules and caused huge losses to the state exchequer. An inquiry revealed there was gross violation of procurement rules by the purchase committee, which allegedly awarded tenders to contractors who had no previous experience of supplying such items and for which payments were made in advance.

Militants kidnapped 11 Pakistani teachers involved in a polio vaccination campaign for school children on Saturday November24, 2013 the latest in a string of attacks on health workers trying to eradicate the deadly disease. The teachers were taken from the private Hira Public School in the Bara area of the Khyber tribal agency. The gunmen arrived just after teams administering the polio vaccines had left. Local official Khyali Gul said the gunmen took the teachers to an area controlled by militant leader Mangal Bagh and his Taliban-affiliated Lashkar-e-Islam group. There were just 223 cases last year, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, but as long as the disease remains in pockets it can re-infect countries previously cleared. The disease is highly infectious and can cause irreversible paralysis.

In southern Pakistan, six people were killed and 52 wounded when the Taliban bombed a predominantly Shi'ite neighbourhood in the southern city of Karachi.  On Friday November 23, 2013The attack was in retaliation for sectarian violence in the city of Rawalpindi a week ago. Eight Sunni seminary students were killed in clashes with Shi'ites. ---

On Saturday November 30, 2013, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has promised to help facilitate peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Mr Sharif was speaking after meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. He said that meetings would be encouraged between Mr Karzai's representatives and Mullah Baradar, a former Taliban commander released from detention in Pakistan last year. Afghan officials believe Mullah Baradar is key to the success of any talks. Mr Karzai has said he believes Pakistan has a high degree of influence over the Afghan Taliban.

Violence rocked Pakistan’s biggest city Tuesday December 3, 2013, as 13 people were killed in targeted shootings including five suspected Taliban activists, a Shia scholar and two Moroccan students at a religious seminary. The spate of targeted killings increased late this evening when seven people were shot dead in just an hour. In the latest incident at Nazimabad, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a car killing five people. The killed included two people who had links with militant outfits and used to raise funds for them in the city.

An angry mob killed a man and wounded three others in the southwestern city of Quetta over the desecration of a Koran. The violence began on December 11 after a man at Quetta's Hazar Ganji fruit market found a crate of Iranian-grown pomegranates that were wrapped in pages torn from the Muslim holy book. An angry mob quickly formed and began shouting slogans against Shi'a, who form a majority in Iran, and then marched to Quetta's main market, Liaquat Bazar, in the city center trying to shut down shops. Amid the chaos, a gun battle broke out at Liaquat Bazar that left one dead and three injured. Hundreds of Sunni men from Ahl-e Sunnat Waljamaat, a conservative Islamist party, were on the streets of Quetta protesting and calling for government action claiming that the fruit arrived from Iran already wrapped in the Koran pages. But police are also investigating the possibility of a provocation aimed at stirring up violence against Quetta's ethnic Hazara Shi'ite community. Police said that they have detained at least five men for questioning. They include the owner of the stall where the pomegranates and Koran pages were found on December 11, as well as the man who reported the discovery to police. Others detained for questioning were employees of the Hazar Ganji market fruit dealer, including a truck driver who transported crates of the pomegranates to Quetta from the Pakistani town of Taftan on the border with Iran. The truck driver told the authorities that the fruit had been bought from a private trader in Taftan who had purportedly brought them into Pakistan from neighboring Iran.

On Thursday December 12, 2013, gunmen have shot dead at least two policemen providing security to a team of polio workers in north-west Pakistan. A polio worker was also killed in a separate attack. The two policemen were travelling from the town of Swabi to Topi by motorbike when they were attacked. The polio worker was shot on the outskirts of Peshawar. The attacks are the latest in a series targeting polio teams in the country. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban oppose the polio vaccination schemes, which they see as a cover for international espionage. Islamist militants have been at the forefront of a decade-long campaign of violence against health workers, who they also accuse of being part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims.

A prominent Pakistani Shi'ite Muslim cleric has been shot dead in an apparent reprisal attack following the murder this month of a Sunni Muslim leader we were told on Monday December 16, 2013. Allama Nasir Abbas, leader of Tehreek Nifaz Fiqah-e-Jafaria, a banned Shi'ite organisation, was shot by unknown gunmen on a motorbike as he drove home after addressing a religious gathering in the city of Lahore on Sunday evening. Abbas died on the way to hospital. His driver and friend were unhurt. On December 6, Maulana Shamsur Rehman, the Punjab province leader of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, a Sunni organisation, was shot dead as he left a mosque in Lahore. Shi'ite Muslims make up about 20 percent of Pakistan's 180 million population. More than 800 Shi'ites have been killed in attacks in Pakistan since the beginning of 2012. ---

An American drone fired two missiles at a home in a northwestern tribal region of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, killing at least three foreign militants we were told on Thursday December 26, 2013. The latest strike took place in the village of Qutab Khel in North Waziristan. Initial reports suggested the slain men were Arabs.

A suicide bomber on Thursday January 9, 2014, murdered one of Pakistan’s most feared police officers, a figure credited with killing or capturing dozens of Taliban and al-Qaeda members. Chaudhry Aslam had a reputation for using unorthodox methods and had survived at least nine previous assassination attempts. He died along with at least two other officers when a suicide bomber detonated a powerful explosion close to the 4x4 vehicle in which he was travelling in the port city of Karachi. The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

At least eight people have been killed in two separate attacks targeting politicians in the country’s northwest. At least six police were killed in back-to-back bombings targeting an adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday January 12. A suicide bomber first blew himself up near the convoy of Ameer Muqam as he headed to a political meeting in the Shangla district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. Minutes later, a remote-controlled device went off. Muqam, one of the key leaders of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, was unhurt. In the other incident, two members of the Awami National Party were killed when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in Peshawar. No group has claimed responsibility for either attack.

A truck slammed into a bus bringing school children home from an outing in southern Pakistan on Wednesday January 15, 2014, killing at least 17 pupils aged 10 to 16 and three adults. It was a head-on collision when the truck slammed into the school van on a single track dirt road. Apparently, speeding and recklessness resulted in the accident. The collision occurred in southern Sindh province north of the provincial capital Karachi.

A bomb struck a military convoy in Pakistan northwest Sunday January 19, 2014, killing 20 soldiers and wounding more than 30. The police is trying to ascertain the exact nature of the explosion whether it was a planted device or a suicide attack. ---

Pakistan fighter jets bombed suspected Taliban hideouts in a tribal area on the Afghan border on Tuesday January 21, 2014, killing at least 15 people after a wave of insurgent attacks against security forces. It was the first time the air force has resorted to aerial strikes in the region since it struck a ceasefire agreement with local Taliban chiefs in 2007. Aerial strikes also took place in the nearby tribal region of Kurram.

Three polio workers have been killed in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, a day after authorities began a new vaccination drive we were told on Monday January 20, 2014. Gunmen opened fire in the Qayumabad area, killing one man and two women administering polio drops. No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban oppose the polio schemes, which they see as a cover for international espionage. Later on the government stopped the vaccination campaign.

At least 22 Shia pilgrims, many of them women and children, have been killed in a bomb attack on their bus in western Pakistan. The bomb exploded on Tuesday January 21, 2014, near the bus packed with passengers returning from Iran to their home city of Quetta in Balochistan. At least 20 people were wounded. 51 passengers had been on board at the time of the blast. Several were still unaccounted for. Two buses had been travelling with government security vehicles and that one of the buses was hit.

A bomb targeting a polio security team in north-west Pakistan has killed six policemen and a boy. The blast occurred near a police van in a market in Charsadda district, injuring at least nine others. On Tuesday, three health workers taking part in a polio vaccination drive were killed in the southern city of Karachi. Pakistan is one of three countries where polio remains endemic. Militants oppose the polio schemes which they see as a cover for international espionage. Militants also accuse health workers of being part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. Wednesday January 22, 2014's bomb in Sardheri Bazaar, about 30km (20 miles) north of the city of Peshawar, was detonated remotely.

A court in Pakistan has sentenced a British man to death for blasphemy for claiming to be a prophet of Islam, a prosecutor and police said on Friday January 24, 2014. Mohammad Asghar, a British national of Pakistani origin, was arrested in 2010 in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, for writing letters claiming to be a prophet. The special court inside Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, where Asghar is being held, rejected defence claims that the 65-year-old has mental health problems. Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan, where 97 percent of the population is Muslim, and insulting the Prophet Mohammed can carry the death penalty. But the country has had a de facto moratorium on civilian hangings since 2008. Only one person has been executed since then, a soldier convicted by court martial.

Pakistan has suspended buses carrying Shi'ite pilgrims from travelling through its Baluchistan province to neighbouring Iran due to security concerns after a suicide attack killed 27 pilgrims this week we were told on January 24, 2014n Friday. A 700 km highway connecting the Pakistani city of Quetta and Iran, home to many Shi'ite pilgrimage sites, has seen dozens of suicide and roadside bomb attacks claimed by radical Sunni Islamist groups. Sectarian attacks are on the rise in Pakistan, where minority Shi'ites make up about 20 percent of the 180 million people. Human Rights Watch says more than 400 Shi'ites were killed in 2013, including members of the Shi'ite Hazara minority group.

Negotiators representing Pakistan's government and Taliban insurgents are to meet for preliminary peace talks on Tuesday February 4, 2014, following a spate of killings but there is scepticism about their chances of success. Two teams, nominated by the government and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are due to gather in Islamabad to chart a roadmap for talks. In a surprise move last week, the Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, named a team to begin dialogue with the militants, who have been waging a violent insurgency since 2007. Many observers had been anticipating a military offensive against TTP strongholds in Pakistan's tribal areas, following a bloody start to the year. More than 110 people were killed in militant attacks in January, many of them military personnel. ---

Pakistan's fledgling peace talks with the Taliban suffered a fresh blow Friday February 7, 2014, as a negotiator for the militants said he would take no further part until the agenda included the imposition of Islamic sharia law. The intervention from firebrand cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz comes a day after teams representing the government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) held a preliminary round of talks in Islamabad. Aziz, the chief cleric at Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, said Pakistan's constitution should be replaced by the Koran and the hadith, or teachings of the Prophet Mohammad. He said he would remain part of the TTP's three-man delegation led by fellow cleric Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, unless told otherwise, but would not come to the negotiating table. On Thursday, the government and TTP negotiators, including Aziz, issued a joint statement agreeing to work within the framework of Pakistan's constitution. But Aziz's move threatens to undermine the talks and the government side has already voiced doubts about the composition and authority of the TTP's representatives. Professor Ibrahim Khan, another member of the Taliban peace committee said they had yet to hold talks with the militants to discuss the next step.

Pakistan Sunday February 9, 2014:

• A suicide bomber's explosive vest went off in the house of a pro-government tribal elder, Afridi, in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar killing four women. It was not known if Afridi, who was in the opposite part of the house at the time, was the initial target. Police surrounded the house and exchanged gunfire with the bomber. Half of Afridi's house was completely destroyed in the blast and that four bodies of women were recovered from the rubble. Five others in the house, including a woman and two children, were wounded. Afridi is a prominent member of the local "peace committee," a group that opposes militants in the area.
• In the northwest a roadside bomb struck a polio vaccination team in the village of Khugekhel in the Khyber tribal region, near the Afghan border, wounding three security troops who were escorting the team. The polio workers were unhurt and continued with vaccinations during what was the first day of the anti-polio campaign in the region.
• Gunmen shot and killed a local employee of the U.S. consulate in Peshawar. Attackers riding on a motorbike struck when Faisal Saeed was walking home in the Gulbahar area.
• Separatists from the southwestern Baluchistan province blew up three gas pipelines in the central Rahim Yar Khan district, cutting supplies to millions of households. The pipelines would take at least two days to fix.

 

Pakistan has agreed to release 27 Indian trucks which were detained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) almost three weeks after the incident we were told on Wednesday February 12, 2014. Authorities in PoK had detained the drivers and their trucks carrying goods from India to demand the release of their trucks and drivers detained by Jammu and Kashmir Police for allegedly carrying narcotics worth Rs 100 crore. The face-off started after the detention of Pakistani trucks which crossed the border as part of the cross-LoC trade with around 100 kg brown sugar. The drugs was seized at Salamabad trade facilitation centre in Uri.

Taking note of the current pause in American drone operations, Pakistan Wednesday February 12, 2014, emphatically called for a complete halt to attacks by the remotely controlled aircraft on its territory as the UN Security Council debated protection of civilians in armed conflict.

A bus carrying Pakistani police officers has been targeted by a suspected suicide bomber, killing at least 11 people on board. More than 40 others -mostly police officers- were wounded in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi. The bus was hit by an explosives-laden vehicle as it was leaving a police training centre. Thursday February 13, 2014's attack is one of the bloodiest on police in Karachi in recent months. Police said more than 50 officers were on board the bus as it prepared to leave a training centre in the east of the city. Apparently an explosive-laden car hit the police van transporting officials.

At least seven Pakistani nationals died on Sunday February 16, 2014, when their bus collided with a truck along the Makkah-Madinah highway. The bus was carrying the pilgrims from Madinah to Makkah when the accident happened at Al Hijra. The bus was carrying 49 pilgrims from Egypt, Pakistan and Syria. The injured were transferred to the King Fahd, the Saudi German and the Miqat hospitals in Jeddah. It was not clear if there were other casualties from the Egypt and Syria. Passengers said the bus was speeding when the accident happened.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban said Sunday February 16, 2014, that it executed 23 paramilitary soldiers who have been held captive since 2010. The Pakistani Taliban’s Mohmand wing said that the Pakistani soldiers were killed in retaliation for continued security operations against Islamist extremists. They also accused Pakistan’s military of extrajudicial killings.

A couple were stoned to death for adultery in a remote area of Pakistan's western Baluchistan province we were told on Monday February 17, 2014, leading to six men being held on suspicion of murder. The couple, both married to other people, were believed to be in their 30s. The woman's father and brother, and the man's uncle and father have been arrested, along with a cleric believed to have issued the order to kill them at the weekend. Another man linked to the cleric is also being held. The local police chief in the couple's home village of Loralai was dismissed for not taking action when the killings occurred.

Pakistani Taliban fighters opened fire at an army car and killed a senior officer on Tuesday February 18, 2014, in an attack certain to destroy any prospects of meaningful peace negotiations between the government and the insurgents.

Pakistani fighter jets bombed suspected militant hideouts in an ethnic Pashtun area on the Afghan border on Thursday February 20, 2014, killing at least 40 people after attempts to engage insurgents in peace talks collapsed this week. ---

Two security guards were killed Monday February 24, 2014, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Iranian Consulate in the northwestern city of Peshawar. At least 10 people were reported wounded in the attack, which occurred in an area housing offices of foreign diplomatic missions and nongovernmental organizations. The attacker "blew himself up when he was stopped by security men" at a checkpoint.

Recently Pakistani helicopter gunships shell militant hideouts in South Waziristan. More than a hundred militants reportedly killed in surgical air strikes following the suspension of peace talks by the government with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after the execution of 23 kidnapped soldiers by the Taliban.

• February 25, 2014: Airstrikes kill at least 30 militants as Pakistan’s federal cabinet approves a national internal security policy taking measures and tell TTP to stop its terror activities unconditionally.
• February 23, 2014: Pakistani fighter jets attack suspected militant hideouts in the tribal areas in Afghanistan killing at least 38 insurgents. The air strikes took place after peace negotiations with Taliban insurgents broke down.
• February 22, 2014: Pakistan army helicopter strikes militant hideouts in the Kybher Pakthtunkhwa province killing at least nine terrorists.
• February 20, 2014: Pakistani jets launch strikes on Taliban hideouts in the northwest, killing 40 people including foreigners. The airstrikes bombed the town of Mir Ali and the North Waziristan tribal district.
• January 21, 2014: Pakistani jets and helicopter bombard suspected Taliban hideouts in a northwestern tribal district, killing at least 25 people, after a Taliban suicide bomber kills 13 people in a blast near army headquarters.
• December 19, 2013: At least 23 suspected militants plus three civilians killed in raids by Pakistani forces. The violence in North Waziristan came after a suicide bombing at a military checkpoint kills five soldiers and wounds 34 others.

 

Pakistani warplanes bombed the hideout of a militant leader, killing five insurgents on Sunday March 2, 2014, only a day after the Pakistani Taliban declared a one-month ceasefire to pursue stalled peace talks with the government. The target of the attack, Mullah Tamanchey, directed a deadly assault against a convoy carrying a polio vaccination team and security forces on Saturday in which 12 people were killed. A government negotiator told Reuters they were open to restarting peace talks as long as the Taliban and its affiliates honoured the ceasefire.

A rare suicide-bomb and gun attack in central Islamabad has left at least 11 dead. Gunmen burst into a court in the heart of Pakistan’s capital on Monday     February 3, 2014. An explosion reverberated through the busy shopping area, followed by rounds of gunfire. Two suicide bombers purportedly blew themselves up outside the courtroom, while two other assailants were killed in the ensuing gun fight with the police. At least 30 people were wounded. Judge Rafaqat Awan was among those who died in the attack. Awan had famously rejected a 2013 petition to file a murder case against former President Perzez Musharraf over his order to storm a hardline mosque in the capital in 2007, killing over 100 people. The Pakistani Taliban was quick to distance itself from Monday’s attack, as well as a separate explosion on the Afghan border, which killed two soldiers.

The Pakistani government pushed forward with Taliban peace negotiations on Wednesday March 5, 2014, despite recent militant attacks that include a roadside bomb in the country’s northwest that killed six soldiers. Negotiators representing both the government and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, as the Pakistani Taliban is formally called, met for the first time in three weeks to find a way to end an insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. The government suspended the talks after a faction of the Pakistani Taliban killed 23 troops it had been holding captive. The security forces have been the target of many recent attacks. On Wednesday, six troops were killed and eight wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to a passing convoy in the country’s northwest near the Afghan border. On Monday a bombing killed two soldiers in the Khyber tribal region.

Despite ongoing attacks, Pakistan government representatives met Wednesday March 5, 2014, with Taliban representatives to try to restart stalled peace talks aimed at ending the country's bloody insurgency. Just hours after a roadside bomb attack on a military convoy killed six soldiers, Pakistani government and Taliban representatives said the high-stakes peace talks between them had entered a decisive stage. Government representative Irfan Siddiqui said the time had come for negotiators on both sides to make major decisions on how to move the peace process forward. Maulana Sami-ul Haq, named by the Taliban to represent them in the talks, said the militants want a revised government negotiating team to include Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other top officials.

The Pakistani government pushed forward with Taleban peace negotiations on Wednesday, despite recent militant attacks that include a roadside bomb in the country’s northwest that killed six soldiers. The six soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the country’s troubled northwest. The remote-controlled device hit a convoy of the paramilitary Frontier Corps as it was moving from the town of Hangu to Kurram district, one of seven tribal areas along the Afghan border where militants have stronghold. The blast killed six soldiers and wounded eight.

Pakistan's military says that Afghan security forces fired over two dozen mortars into its territory Saturday March 8, 2014, but no one was hurt. The incident occurred at a time when the execution of 23 Pakistani security personnel by the Pakistani Taliban and the killing of 21 Afghan soldiers in Kunar province increased diplomatic tensions between the neighbors. Pakistan says that the Pakistani Taliban had executed the security men on the Afghan side of the border last month. Afghan officials said the Afghan Taliban who had attacked a border post and killed 21 Afghan National Army troops had arrived from Pakistan. ---

A suicide bomb attack targeting police in north-western Pakistan has killed at least seven people. The blast happened on Friday March 14, 2014, in the city of Peshawar, close to the lawless tribal areas that are a haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda linked militants.

A court in Pakistan on Saturday March 16, 2014, reduced by 10 years the jail term handed down to a Pakistani doctor who helped the US track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Shakil Afridi, hailed as a hero by US officials, was arrested after US soldiers killed Osama in May 2011 in a raid in a northern Pakistani town that outraged Pakistan and plunged relations between the strategic partners to a new low. Pakistan arrested Afridi and sentenced him to 33 years in jail for being a member of a militant group, a charge he denies. On Saturday, a court in the city of Peshawar reduced his sentence to 23 years following repeated calls by the US and his legal team for his release.

On Wednesday March 26, 2014, a court in Pakistan has sentenced a Christian man to death for blasphemy, over an incident that triggered a riot in the country's second-largest city. Sawan Masih was convicted of insulting the prophet Muhammad during the course of a conversation with a Muslim friend in the Joseph Colony neighbourhood of Lahore in March last year. More than 3,000 Muslims rioted, torching about 100 Christian homes in Joseph Colony, after the allegations against Masih emerged.

Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf narrowly escaped an assassination attempt after a bomb exploded near a convoy carrying the former ruler on Friday April 4, 2014. The bomb was planted along the general's route from the military hospital in Rawalpindi where he has been staying to his home in the capital Islamabad.

Four Iranian soldiers seized by Sunni militants and taken into Pakistan have been freed. The border guards abducted by Jaish al-Adl in February were handed over to Iranian officials but the militants said they had killed a fifth man. Iran accused Pakistan of not doing enough to free the man and had threatened to send troops over the border to rescue them. The soldiers were handed over by the small terrorist group Jaish-ul Adl to Iranian representatives in Pakistan we were told on Friday April 4, 2014. Jaish-ul Adl said that it had freed the soldiers "at the request of eminent Sunni clerics in Iran". ---

At least 16 people were killed and 49 injured when an overloaded truck crashed into a ravine in Pakistan’s central province of Punjab on Saturday April 5, 2014. The accident happened at Mattan village near the town of Kalar Kahar, which lies 155 kilometres south of the capital Islamabad. The pickup truck carrying 65 passengers fell in a ravine due to being overload.

Pakistani security forces killed 30 separatist militants on Monday April 7, 2014, in an offensive in Baluchistan. Separatist insurgents fighting for independence accuse the government of exploiting the gas and mineral reserves of the southwestern province but neglecting the poverty of its people. Security forces seized a large quantity of weapons during the raids. Ten members of a government paramilitary force were wounded in the fighting.

On Tuesday April 8, 2014, a bomb ripped through a railway car parked at a station in southwestern Pakistan, killing 16 people and sending flames and smoke billowing into the air. The Pakistani television stations showed images of the burning car, with flames shooting out of the windows and smoke billowing into the sky. A little-known separatist group later claimed responsibility for the bombing.

A bomb ripped through a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Islamabad on Wednesday April 9, 2014, killing 22 people and wounding dozens more in a new attack in the Pakistani capital. A separatist group of ethnic Baluch claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack. Baluch separatists have been fighting a bloody insurgency for years in their heartland in the southwest of the country. They have rarely struck as far away as the capital, and if they were to blame, it could represent a worrying expansion of their reach. The bomb, hidden in a carton of fruit, went off as morning shoppers were buying supplies at the outdoor market.

Unknown gunmen killed a senior lawyer in Pakistan on Thursday April 10, 2014, prompting other lawyers to call for a boycott of court proceedings on Friday and a sit-in on the main roads of Karachi. In Gulshane Iqbal town, four armed assailants opened fire on the car of Syed Waqar Shah, a senior lawyer and vice president of Pakistan Muslim League’s Lawyers Forum. The incident led to tension in the area and shopkeepers pulled their shutters down. At least 12 people have been gunned down in renewed violence in the last 24 hours, as sectarian groups remained vulnerable targets.

Gunmen stormed a village gathering in north-western Pakistan on Saturday April 12. 2014, and kidnapped around 100 men. Officials suspect that the gunmen are Taliban who attacked because the villagers supported the government. Three local government officials told Reuters that the gunmen had initially taken around 100 villagers from a gathering in the remote region on the border of Orakzai and Khyber tribal areas, both of which border Afghanistan, but had later released around 40 of them.

Gunmen on Sunday April 13, 2014, freed most of the Pakistani villagers they had kidnapped from a hashish festival in the remote mountainous northwest. The gunmen, suspected to be Taliban, raided the festival on Saturday and seized around 100 men. Around 40 were released that day, and most of the rest on Sunday. Seven men were still believed to be held. The raid took place on the border between Khyber and Orakzai, two tribal regions in northwest Pakistan that border Afghanistan. Initial reports suggested the men may have been seized because they supported the government against the Taliban. But local media reported that the men had been attending a hashish festival, which local channels described as a gathering where men came together to smoke and sell large quantities of hashish. Large quantities of the drug were also seized. ---

Pakistani police, on Friday April 18, 2014, have arrested six men suspected of being behind a string of high-profile killings and assassination attempts linked to a banned sectarian group. The six suspects are responsible for killing 16 people over the last two years and for four attempted murders. Their victims are believed to include a lawyer, a well-known Pakistani journalist, and a prominent Shi'ite doctor and his 12-year-old son gunned down on their way to school. They are also thought to be behind an attack last month in which writer Raza Rumi, a vocal critic of the Taliban, was wounded and his driver killed. The men are connected to banned sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and have admitted receiving instructions from its leader Malik Ishaq.

On Saturday April 19, 2014, senior Pakistani TV journalist Hamid Mir, who faced threats from Taliban and other terror groups was shot at in Karachi by four unidentified motorcycle-borne gunmen near a bridge on way to his office. Mir, 47, sustained bullet injuries after he was shot soon after he left the Karachi airport for his office. Four gunmen riding two motorcycles opened fire on Mir’s car about six kilometers from the airport. The gunmen opened fire at the vehicle and Mir was admitted to hospital in a state of unconsciousness.

Gunmen have kidnapped two men working for the U.N. Children's Fund from Pakistan's southern city of Karachi. The two Pakistani men were on their way to a bus terminal to pick up some relatives when they were taken on Thursday April 17, 2014.

At least one person was killed and 33 injured in a bomb attack on a police van in Pakistan’s troubled northwest on Tuesday April 22, 2014. It was the second attack on police in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in less than 10 hours and comes less than a week after the Pakistani Taliban formally ended a ceasefire called to help peace talks. The incident in the main square of Charsadda bazaar left one civilian dead and two women and three children among the wounded. The seven policemen in the patrol van were also injured. The attack came after unidentified gunmen late Monday killed five police officers on patrol in the town of Badaber in the district of Peshawar. A civilian driving a passing car was also killed, with two policemen and another civilian left wounded in the attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest attacks.

In an operation which started early on Thursday April 24, 2014, and was still under way on Friday Pakistani fighter jets pounded suspected militant hideouts near the Afghan border in response to a spate of attacks around the country. The operation came despite efforts by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government to engage the Taliban in talks to end years of fighting. Terrorist hideouts were engaged by fighter jets in Khyber agency. It was a response to a number of recent attacks against police and civilians in Islamabad and Peshawar, a volatile Pakistani city near the Khyber tribal agency.

On Thursday April 24, 2014, at least three persons were killed and 22 injured when a powerful bomb exploded outside a mosque in Karachi’s Delhi Colony, minutes after Friday prayers in the Gizri area near the upscale Clifton locality. The bomb was planted in a rickshaw which was parked near the mosque.

A roadside bomb exploded in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border on Sunday April 27, 2014, killing at least three soldiers. The attack occurred in an area on the border of South and North Waziristan tribal regions where the military has been battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants. At least three security forces personnel including an officer embraced shahadat (martyrdom) and three others sustained critical injuries after an improvised explosive device planted by terrorists along the road went off. Nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the attack but Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants frequently launch attacks across northwest Pakistan and the lawless tribal belt.

An explosion has killed three children and injured at least 10 others, six seriously, at a religious seminary in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The attack at the Jamia Masjid Tahiriya madrassa on Monday April 28, 2014, was caused by a hand grenade thrown inside. Investigators are unsure who detonated the device. The mosque belongs to the country's majority Sunni sect and that there was so far no explanation as to why it had been targeted. The blast happened as students were in class.

At least five Pakistan Taliban fighters have been killed in a bombing in the South Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border. A commander of the Sajna group and his four associates were among those reported killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, believed to have been planted by rivals. More than 40 militants have been killed in infighting that broke out in the Pakistan Taliban in early April. The blast occurred on Tuesday April 29, 2014, in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.

The Taliban fired on some lorries carrying petrol to Afghanistan killing two drivers. The attack took place in the Jamrud area of the northwestern Khyber tribal region on Monday May 5, 2014. Three people were also wounded in the attack. A group of nearly 30 militants first opened fire at the convoy, then torched three trailers and five military mini-trucks loaded on them.

Pakistani forces killed at least 10 separatist militants in the province of Baluchistan on Monday May 5, 2014. The Frontier Corps, the main state security force in Baluchistan launched an operation against militant hideouts in the mountainous Panjgur district. Ten militants were killed in heavy exchange of fire this morning. Several militant hideouts were destroyed and three soldiers were also wounded.

A bomb planted by suspected Taliban insurgents ripped through a truck carrying troops in Pakistan's tribal region on Thursday May 8, 2014, killing nine soldiers and wounding more than a dozen with the death toll expected to rise. The bomb was planted in a truck carrying soldiers of the paramilitary Frontier Corps Militants have attacked a NATO supply convoy en route to Afghanistan,. It exploded as it was moving along the Afghan border where many al Qaeda-linked militant groups are holed up. The paramilitary forces were doing some internal movements along the Afghan border when their pickup truck was blown up.

Gunmen in the Pakistani city of Multan have shot dead a lawyer defending a university lecturer accused of blasphemy. Rashid Rehman was sitting in his office when he was shot. Two of his assistants were injured. Allegations of blasphemy against Islam are taken very seriously in Pakistan. Mr Rehman died amid "indiscriminate firing" in his office on Wednesday evening. He and his two injured colleagues were rushed to hospital where doctors pronounced him dead upon arrival. ---

Pakistani police have registered a case of blasphemy against 68 lawyers who made a public protest after a police officer detained one of their colleagues we were told on Tuesday May 13, 2014, the latest in a tidal wave of such accusations flooding the country. The colonial-era law does not define blasphemy, but the charge carries the death penalty. Presenting evidence can be considered a new infringement, so judges are reluctant to hear cases. Judges who free those accused of blasphemy have been attacked and two politicians who suggested reforming the law were shot dead. Those acquitted have often been lynched. The charges followed a protest in which lawyers shouted slogans against senior police officer Umar Daraz for allegedly illegally detaining a lawyer in the Jhang district of central Pakistan.

A shootout between Afghan and Pakistani border guards killed one Afghan policeman on Thursday March 15, 2014, in a remote southern region in the Afghan province of Kandahar where the border between the two countries is poorly marked. The skirmish started shortly after dawn and lasted for about two hours. The two sides engaged in sporadic exchanges, using rifles and firing rockets across the boundary.  The Afghans said that the battle was sparked by an attempt by the Pakistani border police to construct an outpost on the Afghan side of the border. But the Pakistani said that their country's paramilitary forces "only retaliated" after the Afghan forces started shooting first.

Gunmen stormed a tribal police post Sunday May 25, 2014, in southwestern Pakistan, killing six police officers and wounding three. The attack took place in Wadh area of Baluchistan province's Khuzdar district, where insurgents have launched previous attacks. Officers manning the post returned fire and pushed the gunmen back toward nearby mountains. Reinforcements from the paramilitary Frontier Corps later reached the post.

Pakistani police say gunmen have shot dead a visiting American cardiologist who belongs to the minority Ahmadi sect. Two gunmen riding a motorcycle shot cardiologist Mehdi Ali Qamar 10 times at close range Monday May 26, 2014, killing him in front of his wife and son, who were not harmed. The three were leaving a cemetery after praying at the graves of relatives in the central town of Chanab Nagar.

A pregnant woman was stoned to death on Tuesday May 27, 2014, by her own family outside a courthouse in Lahore for marrying the man she loved. The woman was killed while on her way to court to contest an abduction case her family had filed against her husband. Her father was promptly arrested on murder charges and police were working to apprehend all those who participated in this "heinous crime." Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, and hundreds of women are murdered every year in so-called honor killings carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behavior. Tuesday's attack took place in front of a crowd of onlookers in broad daylight. The courthouse is located on a main downtown thoroughfare. The slain woman was Farzana Parveen, 25, and she had married Mohammad Iqbal, 45, against her family's wishes after being engaged to him for years. Her father, Mohammad Azeem, had filed an abduction case against Iqbal, which the couple was contesting. She was three months pregnant. Nearly 20 members of Parveen's extended family, including her father and brothers, had waited outside the building that houses the high court of Lahore. As the couple walked up to the main gate, the relatives fired shots in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal. When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby construction site. ---

Taliban fighters attacked several Pakistani military posts along the Afghan border Saturday May 31, 2014, sparking an hour-long gun battle that included Pakistan launching airstrikes into Afghanistan. Pakistan said soldiers killed 16 militants, while Afghan officials said the airstrikes killed five civilians. The insurgents attacks at least two military checkpoints in the northwestern tribal region of Bajur, killing one soldier and wounding two others. The heavily armed attackers also targeted several military posts in the border village of Nao Top. The army responded, sending helicopter gunships into battle as troops chased the attackers. The assault killed 16 insurgents. The attackers then fled toward Afghanistan.

On Tuesday June 3, 2014 police in London have arrested the leader of Pakistan's powerful MQM party, Altaf Hussain, on suspicion of money-laundering. Officers are searching a residential address in north-west London where they say a 60-year-old man was detained. Mr Hussain has lived in the UK since 1991, saying his life would be at risk if he returned to Pakistan. His party, which controls Karachi, has urged supporters to stay calm amid outbreaks of violence there.

On Tuesday June 3, 2014, a suicide bomber has killed two Pakistani soldiers and three civilians near Islamabad. The two officers were on their way to work when they were attacked on the outskirts of the garrison city of Rawalpindi close to the capital. Meanwhile, four Pakistani soldiers have been killed by militants along the border with Afghanistan. Three others were injured, including an officer, when military posts came under attack in the Bajaur tribal region. The violence comes after the Pakistani Taliban ended a short ceasefire in mid-April which had been agreed as part of peace efforts with the government.

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday June 7, 2014, jailed the father of a young pregnant woman who was stoned to death for marrying a man of her choice. The judge sent Azeem to jail on judicial remand. Azeem did not confess to have taken part in stoning his daughter Farzana Parveen, 25.

Militants launched a brazen attack on Karachi’s international airport Sunday night June 8, 2014, killing at least 18 people and seizing control of part of the airport in Pakistan’s largest city for more than five hours. The well-coordinated attack involved 10 assailants who were armed with grenades, rocket launchers and assault weapons. Some of them were also said to be wearing suicide vests. They battled Pakistani security forces through the night before all the assailants were slain. Several large fires broke out at Jinnah International Airport, but all airline passengers escaped unharmed.

At least 23 people including several Shi'ite pilgrims have been killed in a gun and suicide attack on the Pakistan-Iran border. The attack came when a bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims returning from a visit to holy Muslim sites in Iran stopped at a restaurant in the Pakistani town of Taftan late on Sunday night June 8, 2014. Four attackers including two gunmen and two suicide bombers attacked the restaurant in Taftan.

The Pakistani military has carried out air strikes in tribal areas in the north-west of the country, killing at least 15 militants. The raids destroyed nine militant positions in the Tirah Valley in Khyber district. The strikes came after the Taliban stormed Karachi airport, in an attack that killed at least 30 people. The Pakistani Taliban said Sunday's assault (June 8, 2014) was in revenge for the killing of their leader last year. The Khyber tribal region, near the Pakistan-Afghan border, is believed to be a base for several militant groups and foreign fighters. ---

Pakistan army on Sunday June 15, 2014, formally announced to have launched a full scale operation 'Zarb-e-Azb’ against ‘local and foreign terrorists’ in North Waziristan Agency.

Pakistani fighter jets bombed suspected Taliban hideouts in the tribal North Waziristan region after the attack on the country's busiest airport a week ago. Nearly 80 militants, mainly ethnic Uzbek fighters, were killed in the latest air assault in the region bordering Afghanistan, where some of Pakistan's most feared militants and al-Qaeda commanders are based. They said that the man who masterminded the Karachi airport strike was among the dead. Fighter jets targeted militant hideouts in the village of Dagan near the Pakistani-Afghan border. An important Uzbek commander, Abdul Rehman, has been killed in the air strike on Sunday June 15, 2014.

Pakistan condemned Wednesday June 18, 2014 US drone attack in the North Waziristan tribal region that killed six people. The pilotless drones fired six missiles at Dargah Mandi area, targeting a compound and a vehicle parked inside it. Pakistan regards such strikes as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Pakistan's military says its forces killed 23 more militants in the North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan as Islamabad continues its offensive to clear the region of Taliban fighters and their foreign allies. The military said in a June 19, 2014, statement that helicopter gunship attacks on insurgent sanctuaries in the Zartatangi Mountains killed 15 fighters and destroyed a terrorist communication centre. The statement said in a separate attack that Pakistani troops killed eight Uzbek militants near Miranshah, North Waziristan's main city. Pakistan's military claims to have killed more than 200 militants in North Waziristan since the military operation started on June 15. And more than 100,000 residents are estimated to have fled the area since preliminary bombing began last month, with thousands of families crossing into Afghanistan.

At least 25 militants were killed on Monday June 23, 2014, in targeted airstrikes by Pakistan's military in the northwest tribal region ahead of a massive ground offensive which has been withheld to allow the civilians to move out. Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched last Sunday to purge the area of local and foreign militants. Jet fighters targeted eight hideouts of militants around Mirali this morning. 15 terrorists were killed in the strikes. Tunnels were spotted in the targeted areas. Another 10 militants were killed while fleeing from the cordoned off area in Spinwam and Mirali. Two soldiers were also killed in exchange of fire. Meanwhile, aerial surveillance, vigorous patrolling and cordon around the area housing terrorists continued. Nearly 280 militants, including foreign fighters, have been killed since June 15.

Gunmen have opened fire on a passenger plane arriving at Peshawar airport on Tuesday June 24, 2014. The Pakistan International Airlines flight PK756 had been carrying about 178 passengers from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. One female passenger was killed and two crew members were injured. Security forces had cordoned off the Bacha Khan Airport site in Peshawar and had launched a hunt for the gunmen.

At least 47 militants were killed on Tuesday June 24, 2014 in air strikes in Pakistan's two tribal districts in the troubled northwest. The first raid was carried out against 12 hideouts of rebels in Khyber tribal region which killed 20 terrorists. The other attack was launched at the Taliban positions in the North Waziristan, the hub of fighting; 27 terrorists were killed in jet strikes in Mir Ali and surroundings areas this afternoon, 11 terrorist's hideouts were destroyed and a huge cache or arms and ammunition were also destroyed. Two soldiers and one civilian were killed when an explosive laden vehicle exploded near a check post outside a civil hospital in Spinwarm area of North Waziristan.

A teenage girl died in Pakistan after being doused in petrol and set alight by a man who wanted to marry her but whose proposal had been rejected. It was the second brutal killing in Pakistan's Punjab province within days, after a 17-year-old girl and her husband were murdered by a group of relatives for marrying against their wishes. The latest incident took place Saturday June 28, 2014, in a village which is part of Toba Tek Singh town.

A Pakistani journalist escaped unhurt when a bomb exploded outside their home in Peshawar on Wednesday July 2. 2014. It was the third attack on Jamshed Baghwan, the bureau chief of Express News, in four months. He saw men who arrived on a motorcycle planting the bomb, enabling him and his wife enough time to take cover before the bomb went off. A bomb was planted at his home in March this year, which was defused. A month later, masked men hurled a hand grenade at his house. It was the fourth attack this year on a journalist associated with Express News, an Urdu-language TV news channel. In January, three employees were shot dead in Karachi in an attack on a van. In March, presenter Raza Rumi was attacked in Lahore and his driver was killed. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists accused the authorities of failing to protect Baghwan despite it having been targeted twice before. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) also condemned the attack, saying it was deeply concerned by "the deteriorating security situation for journalists in Pakistan."

Three Pakistani policemen were killed on Sunday July 6, 2014, after unidentified gunmen opened fire upon the vehicle they were travelling in at Hyderabad in Pakistan's Sindh province. The three policemen were killed and their colleague was injured when they were on patrol duty last night in the suburbs of Latifabad Township. Masked men on motorcycles opened indiscriminate firing on the police mobile killing three of them on the spot while another has been critically injured.

In what might spell trouble for India, a lesser-known Pakistani terror group named Tehreek-e-Khilafat has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (earlier ISIS – Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), becoming the first such group outside the Middle East to do so. The nondescript terror outfit Tehreek-e-Khilafat, which has claimed some terrorist attacks in Karchi, pledged to raise the Islamic State’s flag in South Asia and Khurasan –a term militants use for an area covering parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Militants killed a Pakistan army captain and two soldiers in a cross-border attack Saturday July 12, 2014, in a tribal region near Afghanistan, as an airstrike killed 13 suspected extremist fighters. A group of some 60 militants carried out the attack, entering from Afghanistan and firing on a vehicle carrying security forces in the Bajur tribal region. Another soldier and a civilian cook were injured in the attack, which ended with the assailants escaping to Afghanistan's Kunar province, some of them injured from the exchange of fire.

At least 13 militants were killed ON Sunday July 13, 2014, in air strikes on their hideouts in the ongoing military operation in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region. The attack was launched after terrorists hiding in Mirali town fired rockets at a security forces check post near the city. Most of the terrorists killed in strikes were foreigners. Two suicide bombers exploded their vests after they were chased by troops. They exploded when encircled close to Boya area. Three terrorists including one Uzbek were also apprehended from Boya. Separately, two explosive-laden vehicles were destroyed through an air strike at Degan. The forces also recovered six prepared motorcycle-borne IEDs, two vehicle borne IEDs, two 12.7 mm guns, one 14.5 mm gun, three vehicles, 11 suicide jackets and huge cache of arms during last 24 hours in Khar Warsak and Zartangi areas. More than 400 militants have been killed in the operation, which also displaced over 800,000 people. Army doctors are also helping the injured and so far have treated 12,587 people.

Pakistan Wednesday July 16, 2014:

• Pakistani security forces captured a key Taliban commander linked to a 2003 assassination attempt on former President Pervez Musharraf. Adnan Rashid, a former air force officer-turned-militant, was arrested during a raid last Friday on a militant hideout in Pakistan's troubled northwestern tribal region, following a tip from local sources. The troops raided a home in the town of Shakai in the South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Three associates of Rashid were also captured, and were being questioning at an undisclosed location. Rashid was also involved in several other terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
• An American drone fired four missiles at a militant-hideout in in the town of in Datta Khel in North Waziristan, killing at least 15 militants.
• The military carried out fresh airstrikes in the Shawal valley in North Waziristan, killing 35 militants. The air strikes came a day after the military said it had cleared the main North Waziristan town of Miran Shah of militants and also launched a ground operation in another key town of Mir Ali. 11 militants were killed in a gun battle in Mir Ali, as well as five soldiers.
• The military has killed more than 450 militants so far in the North Waziristan operation, while it lost over two dozen soldiers. Over 800,000 people have fled the area before and after the start of the operation, which the military says is aimed at "eliminating terrorists and their hideouts."

 

On Thursday July 17, 2014, Pakistani police fought for more than 10 hours with militants who were planning to attack the home of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. An intelligence officer and two militants were killed when the shootout erupted during an overnight operation in the eastern city of Lahore. The gunbattle took place at a house near Sharif's residence, which he said was the "prime target" of the militants. Sharif was away from the residence at the time.

Law enforcement agencies in Pakistan have arrested more than 500 people for their alleged links with different extremist and militant groups we were told on Wednesday July 16, 2014. Most of the arrests were made in the province of Punjab, where more than 300 people were arrested. The maximum arrests within Punjab were made from Bahawalpur district, where Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group of Maulana Masood Azhar is based. About 100 people were apprehended in southern port city of Karachi. Also arrested were 150 people from Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

Pakistan Army said its jets killed 35 suspected militants on Wednesday July 16, 2014, as part of an anti-Taliban offensive hours after a US drone strike killed up to 20 people. The attacks came in North Waziristan, where for the past month the military has been fighting to wipe out longstanding bases of Taliban and other militants. As 20 people may have been killed in the drone strike, 12 of them Uzbeks.

A US drone strike targeting a Pakistani Taliban compound on Saturday July 19, 2014, killed eleven insurgents in the country´s northwestern tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. The attack came in North Waziristan, where for the past month the Pakistani military has been fighting to wipe out longstanding bases of Taliban and other militants. The drone fired eight missiles on the compound around 2:00am (2100 GMT) on Saturday killing eleven members of the Punjabi faction of the Pakistani Taliban. The dead included two "important" commanders of the Pakistani Taliban. The strike took place in the Mada Khel suburb of Data Khel, a town that lies around 22 miles west of North Waziristan´s capital Miranshah. ---

Pakistani security forces in a troubled northwestern tribal region foiled an overnight cross-border attack from Afghanistan, killing six militants we were told Wednesday July 30, 2014. The foreign ministry lodged a protest over the attack on a Pakistani border post and urged Kabul to take steps to eliminate "terrorist sanctuaries" on Afghan soil. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to start peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, but approved the military operations after militants attacked the country's busiest airport in the port city of Karachi. Since then, the military has killed 570 militants and lost 34 soldiers. Authorities say over 800,000 people have also fled North Waziristan. The overnight attack took place in Pakistan's troubled northwestern Dir tribal region when a group of about 70 militants attacked a border post on Tuesday night. The troops returned fire, killing six attackers and wounding nine others; the rest fled back to Afghanistan.

On Tuesday August 5, 2014, Pakistan's military says it has killed at least 30 militants in air strikes in the North Waziristan tribal region. Six "militant hideouts" had been destroyed in the Dattakhel area west of the town of Miranshah. The army says it has killed more than 550 militants in N Waziristan since it launched an offensive in June. On Monday the army said it had killed seven Uzbek militants in a shootout in the same area.  At least two Pakistani soldiers also died in the gunfight. None of any known leaders of the Haqqani militant network or about half a dozen other high-profile local and foreign groups is known to have been arrested so far.

Militants from Afghanistan stormed the house of a local anti-Taliban militia chief in Upper Dir district, killing him and three members of his family - his two sons and a nephew; two other family members were wounded, including a women who was in critical condition- we were told on Saturday August 9, 2014. The incident occurred late Friday in Tenai Dara village north of Peshawar.

A man was killed and two policemen were wounded in an attack on Quetta airport in western Pakistan on Thursday night August 14, 2014, but the attackers did not breach the perimeter. The dead man was not immediately identified. He was killed near an air force base that shares a runway with the civilian airport. There were at least eight blasts and gunfire that continued for around half an hour. Helicopters buzzed overhead. Four bombs were defused near another air force base in Quetta called Khalid. ---

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan took a leaf out of Mahatma Gandhi's book on Sunday August 17, 2014, to announce a civil disobedience movement against the Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N government in the country. Imran also gave a two-day deadline to the Pakistan premier to step down from the top post. “Don't pay utility bills and sales tax until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tenders resignation," Imran told his party workers and followers in Islamabad. It was for the first time in the history of Pakistan that a political leader had urged his followers to stop paying utility and other bills.

Thousands of anti-government protesters armed with wire cutters and backed by cranes marched on Pakistan's parliament Thursday August 21, 2014, planning to remove barriers blocking them from soldiers guarding the seat of the country's government. The protesters called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down over allegations of fraud in last year's election. Sharif has refused and ordered the soldiers out into the streets, the first military deployment in the capital since Pakistan has been under civilian leadership. A total of 700 troops had been deployed to guard the "Red Zone." Another 30,000 members of the country's security forces also were in the area as shipping containers and barbed wire block many roads.

Following the release of 10 Pakistani detainees by the United States earlier this year, nine more captives have returned home from Afghanistan's Bagram prison we were told on Thursday August 21, 2014. All nine detainees were handed over to Pakistani authorities in Rawalpindi. The US authorities had released 10 Pakistani detainees from Bagram prison in May after the men had spent years in prison without trial. Nine out of them have reached their homes while one was still in the custody of Pakistani authorities.

At least 230 people were wounded in clashes between police and protesters in Pakistan's capital Islamabad we were told on Sunday August 31, 2014, as a fortnight-long political impasse took a violent turn. The violence, which began late Saturday and continued early Sunday, broke out after around 25,000 people marched from parliament to the prime minister's house, where some attempted to remove barricades around it with cranes. Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The protesters, led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and Canadian cleric Tahir ul Qadri, had been camped outside parliament house since August 15 demanding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif quit amid allegations of vote rigging. The crisis took on a new dimension earlier in the week after the government asked the powerful army to mediate, raising fears the military would use the situation to enact a "soft coup" and increase its dominance over civilian authorities.

Pakistani protesters flooded onto Constitution Avenue in Islamabad for another day of demonstrations Sunday August 31, 2014, demanding a solution to the growing political crisis wracking the country. At least three people have died in the fighting so far. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is vowing to remain on the job, despite the violent demonstrations against his government.

On Monday September 1, 2014, Pakistan's military says it has killed at least 910 suspected militants since launching an offensive in the tribal area of North Waziristan in June. Some 82 soldiers had died fighting the insurgents there and in raids across the country. The main towns in North Waziristan, which had been a Taliban stronghold, were now under its control.

A car bomb has exploded in a bazaar in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least three people and wounding 24 others. Saturday September 13, 2014's attack took place when a vehicle carrying security forces was passing through a bazaar near Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province.  The dead included a paramilitary soldier and two civilians. The bomb was planted in a car parked at the roadside.

On Sunday September 14, 2014, we were told that one of Pakistan's most deadly Taliban groups has abandoned its armed struggle and announced it will focus on a peaceful campaign calling on the country to adopt Islamic sharia law. The Punjabi Taliban is believed to have carried out a number of significant terrorist attacks, including the 2009 assault on the Pakistan army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, in which nine soldiers were killed; the commando raid on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the same year, and the 2011 attack on the naval airbase at Mehran in which 18 servicemen and two US-donated aircraft were destroyed. It has also been blamed for a number of sectarian atrocities, including attacks on the country's Ahmadi Muslims and the assassination of Pakistan's Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti in 2011. The announcement is seen as a further setback for Pakistan's alliance of 'Taliban' terrorist groups, which has suffered a number of fractures in recent weeks. The Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan umbrella group broke into three factions earlier this month after a group of commanders, mainly Mehsud and Wazir tribesmen from North Waziristan, announced they had broken away to form their own group.

Three people have been killed in attacks by suspected Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan fighters targeting police officers in Pakistan's northwest. On Monday September 15, 2014, a suicide bomber killed one policeman in Tahl while two brothers of a police station chief died in a separate attack on his home in Dera Ismail Khan. A group of up to six militants attacked Tahl police station and one of the attackers blew himself when police intercepted them and responded to firing. A policeman was martyred and another was wounded and the remaining attackers fled after the suicide bombing. Separately fighters attacked the home of a police station chief in Dera Ismail Khan and killed his two brothers. The police officer, Saifur Rehman, was not at home when the attack occurred. The brothers were killed in revenge for an operation on Sunday in which one fighter was killed and another wounded. Nobody has claimed the responsibility for the attacks but Pakistani Taliban fighters are known to routinely target police and security forces in the area.

A professor of Islam known for his liberal religious views has been shot dead in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Mohammad Shakil Auj, 54, dean of Islamic Studies at the University of Karachi, was on his way to an Iranian cultural centre to which he had been invited as a guest of honour. His car was being driven down a ramp from a flyover when bullets were fired, one hit the professor in the head and he died. Another bullet struck Auj's junior colleague –whom police named only as Amna– in the arm, wounding her. Auj, a recipient of a presidential medal of distinction, was known for his unorthodox views and was fighting a court case against his predecessor whom he had accused of circulating a text message that called him an apostate. The professor issued fatwas pronouncing, for example, that a Muslim woman could marry a non-Muslim man, and that women need not remove lipstick or nail polish before saying their prayers. Such views can cause offence to some conservative Muslims in Pakistan, which has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more than 10 years. ---

A suicide car bomber blew himself up near a convoy of security forces in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday September 23, 2014, killing five people and wounding 29 others. In another development, the military said it carried out airstrikes against militant hideouts near the Afghan border, killing 19 insurgents. The bombing in Peshawar took place as the deputy commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, Brig. Khalid Javed, was driving along a busy road in a convoy. Javed escaped unharmed, but one of the soldiers and four bystanders were killed and 29 people were wounded in the suicide attack.

An US drone strike has killed as many as ten Uzbek and local alleged militants near the Afghan border in northwestern Pakistan. Four missiles were fired on a vehicle carrying the group of targeted suspects a mere 500 meters from the Afghan border in the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan.

While he largely adhered to Muslim orthodoxy, Shakil Auj, a distinguished scholar of Islamic studies, was criticised by many in Pakistan for some relatively liberal views. He has paid for those views with his life. Auj was on his way to a reception at the Iranian Cultural Centre in Karachi when assassins struck. Two as yet unidentified men pulled up on a motorcycle beside the vehicle that was carrying Auj and his friends. Two bullets struck the professor, killing him instantly, while a third wounded one of his former doctoral students.

A US drone strike killed four suspected militants on Sunday September 28, 2014, in a north-western tribal region in Pakistan along the Afghan border. Those killed included two Arab militants and two of their local allies in a compound in the town of Wana in South Waziristan. Pakistan’s army largely cleared militants from South Waziristan in a 2009 operation, but militants still maintain a presence in its pockets, especially in its rugged terrain and thick forests.

A bomb blast killed eight people Sunday September 28, 2014, in northwestern Pakistan. The bombing struck a refugee camp housing internally displaced people on the outskirts of the city of Hangu. The bomb was rigged to a motorcycle; among the eight people were three children. It wounded 17 people.

Seven people were killed and at least 11 wounded when an explosive device ripped through a passenger bus traveling outside the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday October 2, 2014. In the last 24 hours a bomb disposal squad has detonated six bombs in various localities of Peshawar. The seventh went off and 5kg of explosives were used in the bomb. The driver of the bus, Shams-ur-Rehman who survived the attack, said that an old man was spotted sitting with an old bag on a rear seat and that the device exploded shortly after he got off.

Pakistan's military on Friday 3 October, 2014, killed 15 insurgents and destroyed three terrorist hideouts in air strikes in a tribal district in Khyber near the Afghan border, a region where it has been battling Islamist groups for more than a decade. The Taliban and another banned militant group, Lashkar-e-Islam, had taken refuge there.

A powerful bomb exploded Saturday October 4, 2014, at a bus station in northwest Pakistan, killing five people and wounding three others. The remote-controlled bomb in the northwestern town of Kohat struck a moving bus when hundreds of passengers were gathered at the station to leave for different cities to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Also Saturday, a roadside bomb exploded near a livestock market in the southwestern city of Quetta, wounding five people.

A suicide attacker has blown himself up in a Shiite neighborhood in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 3 people and wounding 17. The bomber struck on Saturday October 4, 2014, in the Hazara Town neighborhood in the city of Quetta. The bomber was approaching the local market when police stopped him at a checkpoint. At that point, he detonated his explosives. A woman was among the three killed, and two women and four children were among the wounded. Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where the al-Qaeda-linked Lashker Jhangvi group operates, along with Baluch separatist and nationalist groups.

An US drone strike killed five militants in Pakistan’s tribal north-west on Sunday October 5, 2014, including a senior ethnic Uzbek commander. The attack took place in the tribal South Waziristan region and was the first US drone strike in Pakistan since late September. The latest strike killed five Uzbeks and wounded at least three people in the Shawal area of South Waziristan. Ethnic Uzbeks and other foreign militants fight alongside the Pakistani Taliban but their exact number in Waziristan is not known.

Indian and Pakistan security forces have traded fire along their troubled frontier, leaving nine civilians dead. Pakistani forces shelled the village of Arnia on Monday October 6, 2014, about 3 kilometres inside India's border, killing five (including two children) and wounding at least 25 civilians. Pakistan's army separately attacked 10 Indian army posts. The Indian army later shot dead three Pakistani-based militants trying to cross into India further along the heavily militarised line of control. The latest round of mortar and gunfire began on Friday when Pakistan's army said it responded to "unprovoked firing" from the Indian side. ---

Two suspected U.S. drone strikes killed at least five militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region where the military has been fighting insurgents since June we were told on Thursday October 9, 2014.

Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel peace prize receives mixed response in Pakistan (October 10, 2014). Muslim teenager’s joint award with Indian Hindu Kailash Satyarthi welcomed by PM but viewed with suspicion by conservatives. The award of the Nobel peace prize to the Pakistani teen activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights advocate, was aimed at supporting their “common struggle for education and against extremism”, the Norwegian prize committee said. The joint award was quickly welcomed by leaders in both countries, but the award to 17-year-old Malala also drew some sceptical responses from Pakistani conservatives suspicious of western motives. Liaqat Baloch, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a rightwing religious-political party, said: “Malala is a Pakistani student and she is getting a lot of support and patronage abroad. On the surface this is not a bad thing and we welcome this, and there is no objection to the award, but the attack on Malala and then her support in the west creates a lot of suspicions.

At least seven people were killed and 43 injured in a stampede after a political rally for an opposition politician, Imran Khan, on Friday evening October 10, 2014 in central Pakistan. The victims were suffocated as people pushed their way out of a gate at Qasim Bagh Stadium, where the rally was held. Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in Multan, the biggest city in the southern part of Punjab Province, to listen to the speech of Mr. Khan, a charismatic former cricket player turned politician, who has been demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

An US drone strike in Afghanistan near its border with Pakistan killed two people we were told on Saturday October 11, 2014, as a Taliban suicide bomber killed a police officer in the country’s south. The drone strike struck near Margha, across the border from Pakistan’s Datta Khel.

A German aid worker who was kidnapped in Pakistan in January 2012 has been freed on Saturday October 11, 2014. He was rescued by a special military unit. A German special military unit called the KSK has rescued a kidnapped aid worker. Bernd M. had been kidnapped in Pakistan by an al Qaeda-affiliated group in Punjab province in January 2012.

Indian firing across a disputed border with Pakistan has killed 12 civilians and injured 52 in Pakistan so far this month, we were told on Sunday October 12, 2014.

A suicide bomber killed seven people in Pakistan on Wednesday October 15, 2014, in an attack on a government-backed militia near the Afghan border. More than a dozen men were wounded in the bombing in the remote Tirah Valley.

As the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan hits 400, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds that fewer than 4% of the people killed have been identified by available records as named members of al Qaeda. This calls in to question US Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim last year that only “confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level” were fired at. The Bureau’s Naming the Dead project has gathered the names and, where possible, the details of people killed by CIA drones in Pakistan since June 2004. On October 11 an attack brought the total number of drone strikes in Pakistan up to 400.

Unknown gunmen have shot eight people dead and injured one in an insurgency-hit part of southwestern Pakistan we were told on Sunday October 19, 2014. The victims were labourers from eastern Punjab province who were abducted and shot while working in Balochistan province's poultry industry. Gunmen stormed a poultry farm in the early hours of Sunday in the town of Hub. They kidnapped 11 labourers and questioned them over their ethnicities. They blindfolded the nine workers belonging to Punjab province and shot them while setting two Baloch workers free. The freed Baloch workers made their way to a local police station to report the crime.

Pakistan Thursday October 23, 2014:

• At least 13 people have been killed and 29 injured in attacks in the Pakistani city of Quetta.
• Eight Shias were killed by gunmen who fired on a bus at a market. A ninth was shot dead in another attack soon after.
• Elsewhere in the city a bomb attack on a security convoy left two people dead.
• Later two more people were killed when a rally by one of Pakistan's biggest religious parties, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F), was bombed. Party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman was unhurt. He said he thought he had been the target.
• The day's first attack took place outside a local vegetable market. Four gunmen had killed six men in a minibus before chasing down another two and shooting them dead.
• The ninth Shia to be killed was shot dead in the Hazara Town area. ---

On Sunday October 26, 2014, we were told that at least 18 militants have been killed in Pakistani army’s airstrikes in a restive tribal district near the border with Afghanistan. The air raids took place on Saturday night in the country’s northwestern Khyber tribal area, where the pro-Taliban and other militants have been holed up. A huge cache of weapons and ammunition was also demolished throughout the army attacks.

Suspected U.S. drone-fired missiles have hit a house in the country's northwest, killing two militants. The missiles in the South Waziristan tribal region hit a house in Azam Warsak village early on Thursday October 30, 2014. The house was occupied by Arab militants affiliated with al-Qaida.

At least 50 people have been killed and more than 70 injured in a suicide bombing close to Pakistan's only border crossing with India. The blast hit near the checkpoint at the Wagah border crossing, near Lahore. A militant group linked to the Pakistani Taliban said it was responsible for the attack. The dead included three members of the border force. At least 15 of those injured were seriously wounded. The blast happened when a suicide attacker approached a restaurant after the day's ceremony.

A Christian couple in Pakistan have been beaten to death ON Monday November 3, 2014, by an angry crowd after being accused of desecrating a Koran. Their bodies were burned at the brick kiln where they worked in the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province. Police identified the victims only as Shama and Shehzad. Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue and critics argue the laws are often misused to settle personal scores and that minorities are unfairly targeted. ---

Soldiers fighting in Pakistan's tribal region who battled militants overnight found 17 bodies Saturday November 8, 2014, dumped in the countryside, identifying them all as insurgents. The fighting took place in Pakistan's Khyber tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Late Friday night, militants attacked security forces in the Spin Qamar region of the tribal area, northwest of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The gun battle raged for several hours and soldiers found the 17 bodies, all identified as militants, early Saturday morning in three different locations. Dozens of militants attacked a security checkpoint there late Friday. The attack was repulsed and terrorists ran away leaving behind 17 bodies of their associates.

On Monday November 10, 2014, at least 56 people including 18 children were killed when a passenger bus collided head-on with a goods truck in southern Pakistan. The accident happened near the city of Khairpur, 300 miles north of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province. The Karachi-bound passenger bus coming from north-western city of Swat went on the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with a goods container, killing 56 people. 18 passengers were injured and those killed in the crash included 17 women and 18 children. The condition of three of the injured was critical.

A U.S. drone strike killed at least four suspected militants in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday November 11, 2014. The strike hit a house and a vehicle in Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border. The truck had foreign fighters in it and that some had jumped out just before the strike.

Air strikes and ground clashes between Pakistani troops and armed groups in the northwest have left three soldiers and 34 fighters dead. The army operation centred on the village of Datta Khel in the North Waziristan tribal district, where the military has been mounting an offensive against armed group strongholds since June. Seven terrorists were killed in Datta Khel. Three soldiers including an officer also embraced martyrdom we were told on Sunday November 16, 2014. Eleven soldiers were wounded in an exchange of fire. Pakistani jets bombed hideouts of armed groups in Datta Khel killing 27 fighters.---

A U.S. drone strike killed six suspected militants and three wounded in northwestern Pakistan we were told on Friday November 21, 2014, as al Qaeda said two members of the group had been killed in a previous strike. Two missiles struck a house in Mada Khel village of the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday night. Local and foreign militants were among the casualties.

At least 20 suspected members of the Haqqani network and fighters loyal to local rebel leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur have been killed in air strikes in Pakistan's North Waziristan. Tuesday November 25, 23014's attack came in the Doga Madakhel area near the Afghan border after some of the bloodiest incidents in neighbouring Afghanistan were linked to the armed group, including a blast that left 57 people dead at a volleyball match at the weekend. The jets targeted hideouts of the Haqqani network and of local rebel leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur. The dead included seven fighters of Haqqanis while the rest belonged to Gul Bahadur. A local Haqqani commander was among the dead, but his identity had not yet been ascertained.

Gunmen have killed three female Pakistani polio workers and their driver. Teams in working in Quetta to immunise children against the disease are often targeted by Taliban militants, who say the campaign is a cover for western spies, or accuse workers of distributing vaccines designed to sterilise children. The women were attacked on their way to meet a police escort on Wednesday November 26, 2014. Two men on a motorcycle intercepted the van and shot the occupants using a handgun. Polio cases this year stand at a 15-year high of 265 in Pakistan. The disease, which can kill or paralyse a child within hours of infection, has been eradicated everywhere else except for Nigeria and Afghanistan.

U.S. drone killed five suspected militants in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday November 26, 2014. The drone strike hit a house in Datta Khel, near the Afghan border, which was used by militants. Those killed were Pakistani fighters. ---

The Pakistan military said Tuesday December 2, 2014, it had killed at least 24 militants in air strikes and ground fighting in northwestern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, as part of ongoing offensives in the region. Air strikes took place in the North Waziristan tribal district, where the army launched a major operation in June targeting Taliban and Haqqani network militants. Ground troops meanwhile traded fire with militants in Khyber agency, where Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam fighters are based. In early morning precise aerial strikes in Miranshah, North Waziristan, 17 terrorists were killed including some foreigners - five Uzbek and two Haqqani network militants.

In Khyber's Tirah valley, a stronghold of Taliban militants, seven militants were killed during a gunfight which erupted after up to 60 militants stormed a security forces check post in Tirah in Khyber Agency. The army says it has killed more than 1,100 militants and lost more than 100 soldiers since the start of the operation. An AFP tally based on regular updates from the military puts the militant death toll at more than 1,500, with 125 soldiers killed.

A senior al-Qaeda militant, accused of planning to bomb trains in New York and London, has been killed in Pakistan. Adnan el Shukrijumah was killed in a raid in north-western Pakistan, near the Afghan border. He was al-Qaeda's global operations chief, a post once held by the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Shukrijumah was born in Saudi Arabia and lived for several years in the US. He was accused to be a conspirator in the case against three men accused of plotting suicide bomb attacks on New York's subway system in 2009. He was also suspected of having played a role in plotting al-Qaeda attacks in Panama, Norway and the UK.

A suspected US drone strike on a Pakistani Taliban compound in North Waziristan tribal region killed at least four alleged militants on Sunday December 7, 2014. Another suspected US drone strike in Afghanistan, meanwhile, killed nine alleged Pakistani Taliban fighters in a rural village near the mountainous border between the two countries. In Pakistan, two missiles fired from a drone hit a compound in the village of Khara Tanga in the Datta Khel area. The strike also wounded two militants. Pakistani Taliban linked to commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur used the compound, but it wasn’t immediately known whether Bahadur was there at the time of the strike.

The United States has handed to Pakistan three prisoners including a senior Taliban militant held in Afghanistan, as Washington rushes to empty its Afghan prison before losing the legal right to detain people there at the end of the year. U.S. forces captured Latif Mehsud, the former number two commander in Pakistan's faction of the Taliban, in October 2013, in an operation that angered then Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Mehsud, a Pakistani, and his two guards were secretly flown to Pakistan. The U.S. military confirmed it transferred three prisoners to Pakistan's custody on Saturday December 6, 2014, but would not reveal their identities.

Gunmen in Pakistan have shot dead a polio vaccination worker in the north-eastern city of Faisalabad. Attackers on a motorcycle fired six shots at the teacher. Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic. Militants say polio teams are spies or that the vaccine causes infertility. More than 60 polio workers or police guarding them have been killed in the country in the last two years. On Monday December 9, 2014, Taliban insurgents said they had killed two policemen assigned to protect a polio immunisation team in the town of Buner near the Swat Valley in the north-west. It was unclear whether the attackers had been motivated by opposition to polio vaccination or by personal hostilities. The victim, named as Muhammad Sarfaraz, had survived two previous attempts on his life.

Demonstrations in one of Pakistan's largest cities turned deadly Monday December 9, 2014, as one person was killed in clashes between protesters and security forces. The death seems certain to further inflame a mounting confrontation between the government and a former cricket star-turned-politician who has questioned the country's election results. ---

Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai has told the BBC ahead of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday December 10, 2014, that she hopes to pursue a career in politics. She said that she may even aspire to be prime minister of Pakistan once she has completed her studies in the UK. Ms Yousafzai has been jointly awarded the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian child rights campaigner. Ms. Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls' education. She is the youngest ever recipient of the prize.

A Pakistani couple and four of their children were axed to death by the wife's long-lost son from a previous marriage in an "honour" killing to exact revenge for her taking a second husband we were told on Wednesday December 10, 2014. The gruesome murders in the central city of Jhang occurred when the woman's son by her first husband, who died more than 30 years ago, came to visit her for the first time in three decades, together with her former brother-in-law. The couple's 13-year-old daughter was critically injured in the attack on Tuesday night and is fighting for her life in hospital, while four other children escaped unharmed.

On Tuesday December 16, 2014, militants from the Pakistani Taliban have attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, killing 141 people, 132 of them children and another nine were staff members. Seven militants -who all wore explosive vests- took part and all were killed before the battle was over. Scores of survivors are being treated in hospitals as frantic parents search for news of their children.

On Thursday December 18, 2014, the wounded children of Peshawar Army Public School paid tributes to the teachers who died saving their lives as Pakistan woke to the Taliban massacre’s full horror. Nine staff members, including the headmistress, were killed in the attack, along with more than 130 pupils. As some survivors died overnight, the overall death toll was raised to 148. The Taliban attackers reserved particularly horrific deaths for the adults, pouring fuel over at least three and setting them alight and killing the head, Tahira Qazi, with a hand grenade. ---

Pakistan has carried out two executions, the first since a death penalty moratorium was lifted after a deadly attack on a Peshawar school. One of those executed was convicted over an attack on Pakistan's Army HQ in 2009, the other over an assassination attempt on ex-leader Pervez Musharraf. The UN had earlier urged Pakistan not to resume its executions. Some 141 people, all but nine of them children, died in the Taliban attack on the Army Public school in Peshawar. Pakistan's military carried out operations against Taliban units in areas near the border with Afghanistan saying it had killed 59 militants. The two executions were carried out in the central city of Faisalabad late on Friday December 19, 2014. Pakistani media named the two executed men as Aqeel, alias Dr Usman, and Arshad Mehmood. Usman was arrested during the raid on the Rawalpindi HQ and sentenced to death in 2011.

On Monday December 22, 2014, we were told that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants after the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases. It comes after Taliban gunmen killed 149 people, including 133 children, in a school massacre in the northwestern city of Peshawar last week. Six militants have already been hanged since Friday amid rising public anger over the slaughter. Around nine gunmen stormed the army-run school on 16 December taking teachers and students hostage and killing them in classrooms. After the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.

Police in Pakistan said on Monday December 22, 2014, that they have arrested several people suspected of involvement in last week's Peshawar school massacre. These men were "facilitators" in the attack, which left 141 people dead, including 132 children. The Taliban said the raid was in revenge for an army offensive in the north-western region near the border with Afghanistan. After the attack, the country lifted a moratorium on its use of the death penalty and has since executed six men.

More than 50 people convicted of terrorist offences in Pakistan are facing imminent execution after President Mamnoon Hussain rejected their mercy petitions. Hundreds more executions could follow in the next few months. Pakistan has the world's largest number of death row inmates, with more than 8,000 people awaiting execution. Many of those on death row are not connected with terrorist groups. ---

On Thursday December 25, 2014, we were told that Pakistan is to establish military courts to hear terrorism-related cases in the wake of a massacre at a school. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the move would help ensure "terrorists pay the price" for their "heinous acts".

Two suspected US drones fired missiles at militant hideouts in northwest Pakistan on Friday December 26, 2014, killing at least seven fighters. The attacks took place in the same area where the Pakistani army has been mounting an air-and-ground operation against Pakistani Taliban insurgents who are fighting against the government in order to set up a sharia state in Pakistan. Both of the latest air strikes took place in Pakistan’s remote North Waziristan region, targeting Uzbek and Punjabi Taliban hideouts.

Pakistan Saturday December 27, 2014:

• At least 55 militants were killed in airstrikes and a gun battle with ground forces in Pakistan's troubled northwest where the military launched a major offensive this year.
• Troops raided a militant hideout late Friday in an area adjoining Orakzai and Khyber tribal districts near the Afghan border where the insurgents had gathered for a meeting. An intense battle took place, in which 16 terrorists were killed and 20 injured; fleeing terrorists left behind nine dead bodies of their accomplices.
• Troops arrested two critically wounded militants while four soldiers were also wounded in the battle.
• Separately, 39 militants, including two rebel commanders, were killed in airstrikes in the northwest late Friday.
• An ammunition depot was also destroyed.
• In another incident, police arrested an important Taliban commander who was wanted for attacks on police and was also involved in the killing a local journalist in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
• The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 1,700 militants so far in its heavy offensive in the tribal zone, with 126 soldiers having lost their lives.

 

Pakistan Saturday December 27, 2014:

• At least 55 militants were killed in airstrikes and a gun battle with ground forces in Pakistan's troubled northwest.
• Troops raided a militant hideout late Friday in an area adjoining Orakzai and Khyber tribal districts where the insurgents had gathered for a meeting. An intense battle took place, in which 16 terrorists were killed and 20 injured. Fleeing terrorists left behind nine dead bodies of their accomplices. Troops arrested two critically wounded militants while four soldiers were also wounded in the battle.
• Separately, 39 militants, including two rebel commanders, were killed in airstrikes in the northwest late Friday. An ammunition depot was also destroyed.
• In another incident, police arrested an important Taliban commander who was wanted for attacks on police and was also involved in the killing a local journalist in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killed at least two Pakistan Rangers in retaliatory gunfire on Wednesday December 31, 2014, after one of its personnel was killed in Pakistani firing in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir. However up to four Pakistan Rangers could had died. ---

Pakistani and Indian border guards traded artillery fire along the disputed border region of Kashmir, killing four people and wounding eight we were told on Saturday January 3, 2015. Both Pakistan and India blamed each other for starting the fire that began Friday night. This latest violence comes after Islamabad blamed Indian forces for killing two of its soldiers Wednesday in a crossfire that also killed an Indian soldier. In a statement Saturday, the Pakistani military said that Indian forces violated the cease-fire agreement between the two countries with an unprovoked barrage of artillery Friday night near the city of Sialkot, killing a 13-year-old girl and wounding another child. It said Pakistani soldiers returned fire.

On Sunday January 4, 2015, an US drone strike in Pakistan has killed at least six militants near the Afghan border. The strike in the tribal region of North Waziristan targeted the compound of a powerful Taliban leader. Pakistan stepped up its own operations against insurgents after Taliban militants killed 132 children at a school in Peshawar last month.

At least five people, including some football players were killed and 11 injured on Monday January 5, 2015, in a bomb attack in Pakistan's north western tribal region during a match. The bomb exploded at a playground in Kadda Bazaar area of Kalya, the main town of Orakzai district. The attack took place when the spectators were watching a volleyball match. ---

A 52-year-old Muslim man arrested for blasphemy was killed by gunmen after being released from jail we were told on Thursday January 8, 2015. The bullet-riddled body of Abid Mahmood was found the day before in Taxila, a town about 40 kilometers  from the capital, Islamabad. Mahmood was arrested in 2011 after claiming to be Islam's prophet, but authorities freed him recently after concluding that he was not mentally stable. Relatives of the man buried him at the courtyard of his home after residents objected to his burial at a local graveyard. Under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, anyone convicted of insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad can be sentenced to death. However, people often take the law into their own hands.

On Saturday January 10, 2015, a suicide bomber has struck a Shia mosque in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi, killing seven people and wounding several others. The attacker blew himself up when he was stopped at the gate of the mosque. The blast occurred as minority Shias gathered in the mosque to distribute alms to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

A passenger bus and an oil tanker have collided in southern Pakistan, with 57 people killed in the fiery crash. Four more people were injured. The hospital will have to do DNA tests to identify the victims as their remains were badly burned. The crash happened when the bus and tanker collided early on Sunday January 11, 2015 about 31 miles outside Karachi.

Pakistani children returned to the school where Taliban gunmen killed 150 of their classmates and teachers on Monday January 12, 2015, their green school blazers, Superman lunchboxes and hands clutched tightly to their parents a symbol of perseverance despite the horrors they had endured.  Pakistan has been reeling from the Dec 16 terrorist attack in Peshawar one of the worst the country has experienced. The violence carried out by seven Taliban militants has put a spotlight on whether the country can end the stubborn insurgency that kills and maims thousands every year.

On Wednesday January 14, 2015, five men have been arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of involvement in last month’s Peshawar massacre, as pupils returned for the first time to the school that was targeted by Taliban gunmen. The incident saw at least 148 children and adults killed at the Army Public School in northern Pakistan.

A U.S. drone strike in northwest Pakistan killed at least five suspected militants on Thursday January 15, 2015. The strike, the second so far this year, targeted a compound of suspected militants in the Tehsil Ladha area of South Waziristan, a remote region bordering Afghanistan.

On Thursday January 15, 2015, the Pakistani authorities have hanged two more convicts, bringing to 18 the number of executions since a moratorium ended after the Peshawar school attack. Both of the men had been convicted of militancy. One was hanged in Karachi jail, the other in prison in Lahore. ---

Afghan security services have arrested five men in connection with the massacre at a Pakistan military school last month that killed 150 people, most of them children we were told on Saturday January 17, 2015. The men, all non-Afghans, helped support the December 16 assault by the Taliban at the Army Public School and College in the city of Peshawar. They said the men were arrested in recent weeks near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.

A suspected U.S. drone strike killed four militants Monday January 19, 2015, near Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan while three security troops and seven militants were killed in a clash in another tribal region near the border. Two missiles fired from the drone targeted a militant hideout in the Shawal area of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region.

A policeman escorting polio vaccinators has been injured after gunmen shot him in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The attack took place in the lawless Orangi area. Vaccination efforts have been suspended in the city. The attackers, who were on a motorcycle, fled when police returned fire. Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic. Militants say polio teams are spies or that the vaccine causes infertility. More than 60 polio workers or police guarding them have been killed in the country in the past two years. Last year, more than 300 polio cases were confirmed in Pakistan, the highest figure in 16 years.

Power has been restored to much of Pakistan after more than 140 million people were plunged into darkness due to an apparent rebel attack on a key power line. Up to 80% of the country's population lost electricity in the early hours of Sunday January 25, 2015, and disruption was reported at Lahore's international airport, but flights were not affected. The power failure, one of the worst Pakistan has experienced, caused electricity to be cut in major cities, including the capital Islamabad. The outage started after midnight when a transmission line connected to the national grid was damaged in an explosion. Authorities blamed the attack on a separatist group in the Baluchistan province in the country's southwest. By mid-morning on Sunday power had been restored to roughly half the country. The fault in the system was caused by a main transmission line being blown up in Baluchistan," water and power minister Abid Sher Ali said. Rebels have attacked the electricity grid in Baluchistan three times in the last two weeks. ---

Islamic State terrorist group has appointed a breakaway Taliban commander as its chief in Khurasan, a historic name used by terrorists for an area covering Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India. Islamic State (IS) commander Abu Muhammad Al-Adni confirmed the name of former Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan spokesperson Hafiz Saeed Khan as the Amir (chief) of the Khurasan, potentially extending the group's influence into South Asia and challenging al-Qaeda leadership. Saeed, 42, appeared in a video ten days ago to announce his defection from Taliban. He belongs to Orakzai Agency and has served as head of the Taliban Orakzai tribal region.

At least 49 people were killed in a powerful explosion at a crowded Shi'ite mosque in Pakistan during Friday prayers. The blast was caused either by a suicide bomber or an explosive device which went off when the mosque was at its fullest on Friday afternoon January 30, 2015, in the centre of Shikarpur, a city in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh. Earlier this month, six people were killed and 17 wounded by a suicide bomber outside a Shi'ite mosque in the city of Rawalpindi, also after Friday prayers. In chaotic scenes that followed the blast, part of the mosque collapsed after the explosion, burying some of the wounded under rubble. Bystanders pulled people from the debris and piled them into cars for the journey to hospital.

Thousands of Shiite Muslims rallied Saturday January 31, 2015, to protest against the killing of 61 people in a suicide bombing at a mosque, as southern Pakistan shut down to mourn the nation's worst sectarian attack in nearly two years. The blast hit the mosque in the Shikarpur district of southern Sindh province, around 470 kilometres north of Pakistan's biggest city Karachi, as hundreds of worshippers attended Friday prayers. Police on Saturday said the devastating explosion was a suicide attack and the bomber detonated the explosives strapped to his body "in the middle of the mosque".

A former Pakistani minister has announced on Wednesday February 4, 2015, a reward for the heirs of the Charlie Hebdo attackers. This has shocked the West but not the Islamic country's activists, who say that most politicians now appease the Islamists.

On Thursday February 5, 2015 a bomb has exploded outside a college in the Pakistan city of Peshawar. The explosion blew a gate off its hinges at the college in the wealthy Hayatabad neighbourhood, but nobody was hurt. Two Pakistani schools have suffered attacks in the past three days. It came a day after a police squad in the north-western city of Bannu defused a bomb outside a government school. And on Tuesday, unidentified men threw explosives near two private schools in Karachi. There were no casualties in any of the incidents, but they have all created widespread alarm.

Five customs officials have been shot dead in Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The deadly shooting occurred in the provincial city of Kohat located some 80 kilometres southwest of the provincial capital, Peshawar we were told on Wednesday February 4, 2015. Three gunmen fired at the customs team indiscriminately. Four officials died on the spot and another succumbed to his injuries in hospital later. ---

The Pakistani Taliban, on Friday February 13, 2015, made an assault by suicide attackers on a packed prayer hall full of Shia worshippers that left 19 dead. A further 40 people were injured when up to five militants stormed the Imamia Masjid Imambargah in central Peshawar, the troubled city in Pakistan’s north-west where more than 130 teenage boys were killed in December’s Army Public School massacre. The attack was launched during Friday prayers, the busiest moment of the week, and executed by young men carrying grenades, assault rifles and suicide bomb vests. The men avoided guards on the main gate of the hall by climbing over a wall from a neighbouring construction site and cutting through barbed wire. Two men died after detonating their bombs and another three were killed by worshippers. People grabbed one of the attackers from his neck, and he couldn’t detonate his explosives, and he was shot and killed. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the country’s largest militant alliance, immediately claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for the execution by the government of a militant known as Dr Usman, a former army medic involved in a 2009 attack on the army’s headquarters.

A Taliban suicide bomber on Tuesday February 17, 2015, killed six people and himself in a brazen attack on police headquarters in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahor, a revenge bid for the recent hangings of colleagues. It was the third in a series of high-profile attacks in the last month triggered by a government decision in December to begin hanging those convicted of terror attacks, reversing an informal six-year moratorium on the death penalty. A policeman and four civilians were among the dead. At least 23 people were injured. The bomber blew up prematurely outside the police offices. In neighbouring Afghanistan, four Taliban suicide attackers stormed a police headquarters in an eastern province, killing 11 policemen.

On Wednesday February 18, 2015, we were told that four members of a polio vaccination team have been found shot dead in south-west Pakistan, four days after being abducted. The bodies of a health worker, his driver and two security guards were found in the region of Balochistan. The team were seized on Friday by Taliban militants. Militants say polio teams are spies or that the vaccine causes infertility.

A bomb blast in a Shi'ite mosque killed two people and injured six in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Wednesday February 18, 2015. The Taliban splinter group Jundullah, claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for an ongoing army operation aimed at driving militants out of their North Waziristan stronghold along the Afghan border. A security guard had prevented a suicide bomber armed with grenades from entering the mosque in Rawalpindi, which lies next to the capital of Islamabad in the northeastern part of the country. Twenty people were killed this month in an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Peshawar, while 60 were killed in a January 30 attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the southern province of Sindh.

At least six people have been killed when Pakistan’s security forces and militants engaged in an exchange of fire in the troubled northwestern tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. The gun battle took place on Friday February 19, 2015, as Pakistani soldiers conducted an operation near the remote town of Datta Khel, North Waziristan. Five militants and a soldier were killed in the process. The development comes days after Pakistani officials said they had killed an al-Qaeda-linked commander responsible for a recent deadly bomb attack at a Shia mosque. ---

The Pakistani military has arrested a man suspected of taking part in December's attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. The army claim that Taj Muhammad was one of the commanders behind the Taliban assault. All of the gunmen who stormed the school are believed to be dead. Taj Muhammed was captured in a camp for internally displaced people in the Pawaka area of Peshawar. Pakistani authorities believe 27 militants were involved in the attack. Nine gunmen were killed during the siege and several others linked to the attack have been captured.

Two militants on trial for killing a group of climbers at a base camp of Pakistan's Nanga Parbat Mountain in 2013 have broken out of prison on Thursday February 26, 2015. Another militant who had fled with them had been killed and a fourth was captured. Taliban militants raided the camp in June 2013, forcing 10 climbers to kneel before shooting them. About 20 people were arrested and face trial for the attack. The assault was the worst attack on foreigners in Pakistan in a decade. At least 15 gunmen dressed in the uniform of local security forces carried out the attack. The foreign victims were identified as American, Chinese, Ukrainian, Slovakian, Lithuanian and Nepali. One Pakistani porter also died and officials believe he may have been targeted because he was a Shia Muslim. Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth highest mountain at 8,126m above sea level, is popular with trekkers and mountaineers, especially during June and July.

Authorities in southwestern Pakistan arrested a leader of a banned Iranian rebel group on Saturday February 28, 2015, as he was traveling on a bus from the lawless border area. It was not clear whether Pakistan would hand over Salam Rigi, a leader of the ethnic Baluch Sunni group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), to Shi'ite-run Iran. Rigi was seized by Pakistani authorities who were tipped off to his movements and intercepted the bus some 50 km from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. Rigi is accused of involvement in suicide bombings in Iran and Pakistan, as well as sending fighters to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. He is the cousin of the movement's late leader Abdolmalek Rigi, who was hanged by Iran in 2010, and had taken over many of his relative's leadership roles. Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni Muslim rebel group, operates in predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, which borders Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities have conducted their first-ever mass arrest of parents for refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio. Authorities in Peshawar, in the north-west of the country, detained 471 people and charged them with "endangering public security". The local government says they will only be freed once they have pledged in writing to vaccinate their children. The Taliban prohibit vaccinations and have attacked health workers. The Pakistani government has declared "war" on the disease. Pakistan accounts for the vast majority of polio cases globally and is one of only three countries where it remains endemic.

A Pakistani fighter jet crashed during a training mission in the country's northwest on Wednesday March 4, 2015,, killing two pilots. The PAF Mirage aircraft, while on a routine operational training mission, crashed south of Dera Ismail Khan. The plane's pilot and co-pilot were "martyred" in the crash and their bodies were handed over to the air force.

On Tuesday March 10, 2015, we were told that Pakistan is to resume executions for all death penalty offences, months after a moratorium was partially lifted to allow executions of terror convicts. All condemned prisoners who have exhausted the appeals process and whose pleas for clemency are rejected now face execution. Executions were suspended for seven years until some resumed after the Peshawar school massacre in December. More than 8,000 people are on death row in Pakistan. About 1,000 have lost their appeals and had clemency petitions rejected. ---

A Pakistani paramilitary force raided the Karachi headquarters of a major political party on Wednesday March 11, 2015, recovering weapons and arresting suspects wanted for several crimes, including the murder of a journalist. The paramilitary Sindh Rangers launched the early morning raid on the headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the violent southern port city of Karachi, home to 18 million people, where the party has long held sway over politics.

After a seven-year moratorium, on Wednesday March 11, 2015, Pakistan reinstated the death penalty for no terrorism cases eligible for capital punishment, and will begin executions in cases where appeals and clemency pleas are no longer an option. Islamabad reintroduced the death penalty on terrorism-related cases last December, following the 2014 Peshawar school attacks that killed over 150 people. Pakistan has executed 24 people since December, already including three whose convictions were unrelated to terrorism.

Fourteen people were killed and 78 injured in bomb attacks carried out on two churches in Lahore as extremists continue to target Christians in the fractured country. Parishioners were celebrating Sunday March 15, 2015, service when the two churches in the Christian neighbourhood of Youhana Abad were attacked in close succession. A Pakistani Taliban splinter group known as Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has already claimed responsibility. One bomber exploded himself near that gate, that created chaos and during the course there was another blast.

Pakistan hanged 12 convicts on Tuesday March 17, 2015. Tuesday's hangings were the largest number of people executed on the same day since an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in December.

A Pakistani lawyer under death threats for defending a doctor who helped CIA agents hunt al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead on Tuesday March 17, 2015. Samiullah Afridi represented Dr Shakil Afridi, who was jailed in 2012 for 33 years for running a fake vaccination campaign believed to have helped the U.S. intelligence agency track down bin Laden. That sentence was overturned in 2013 and the doctor is now in jail awaiting a new trial. Samiullah Afridi was shot dead on Tuesday as he was returning to his home in the northwestern city of Peshawar. He had recently returned there from abroad after leaving Pakistan for his safety. Two Pakistan militant groups claimed responsibility for the lawyer's death. ---

Wednesday March 18, 2015, 34 militants were killed in the country's lawless northwest, near the mountainous border with Afghanistan; residents put the toll at 20. Fighter jets pounded positions in the Tirah Valley in the Khyber region, west of the city of Peshawar. The local population had fled their homes and villages when the operation was launched against the terrorists. Those killed belonged to the outlawed militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and an allied group, Lashkar-e-Islam.

A U.S. drone strike killed a Pakistani Taliban leader and two others on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border we were told on Thursday March 19, 2015. The strike killed Pakistani Taliban commander Khawray Mehsud.

A bomb exploded outside a Bohra mosque after Friday prayers (March 20, 2015) in the Pakistani financial hub of Karachi, wounding at least a dozen people, the latest in a series of attacks on Muslim minorities. The bomb had been planted in a motorcycle and timed to go off as prayers ended. Factions of the Pakistani Taliban, seeking to topple the government and establish strict Islamic rule in the nuclear-armed nation, have claimed attacks on minority Shi'ites in the past few weeks, but attacks on the Bohra community are rare.

Pakistani troops killed 80 militants and approximately 100 injured in heavy clashes in the lawless northwest, near the mountainous border with Afghanistan we were told on Sunday March 22, 2015, while the Pakistani Taliban said at least six solders killed. Fighter jets have pounded positions in the Tirah Valley in the Khyber region, west of the city of Peshawar, over the last few days. Those killed last week belonged to the outlawed militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and an allied group, Lashkar-e-Islam. A mine "targeted" 12 soldiers and six were killed in a separate attack. An army major was also killed and air strikes were also targeting the South Waziristan region, causing dozens to flee.

A U.S. drone strike killed at least nine Pakistani militants in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province early Tuesday March 24, 2015. Tuesday's drone strike was near the site of fierce fighting on the Pakistani side of the border in recent days. Fighter jets have been pounding positions in the Tirah Valley in the Khyber region, and the military says it has killed scores of militants. At least seven soldiers have also been killed. The nine militants belonged to the Pakistani Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam, which announced an alliance with the Taliban earlier this month.

Pakistani jet fighters killed 30 militants allied to the Pakistani Taliban in a missile attack in the mountainous northwestern Khyber region on Wednesday March 25, 2015, including the group's spokesman. The air force has been pounding positions in the Tirah Valley for days and the military says it has killed scores. At least seven soldiers have also been killed. The 30 killed in Wednesday's attack in the Sipah district were from the Lashkar-e-Islam, which announced an alliance with the Taliban earlier this month. The casualties included group spokesman Salahuddin Ayubi.

A U.S. drone strike killed 11 Pakistani Taliban militants in Kunar in northeastern Afghanistan, on Wednesday March 25, 2015, hours after a strike killed at least nine militants in the same area. They said six or seven senior Taliban commanders had been killed, a claim the Taliban denied.

A spokesman for Pakistani militant group called journalists on Thursday March 26, 2015, to assure them he was alive after Pakistani intelligence officials claimed he was among 30 fighters killed in air strikes in the northwestern Khyber region. The intelligence officials said air force jets had targeted militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Islam, which announced an alliance with the Pakistani Taliban earlier this month, and they named the group's spokesman, Salahuddin Ayubi, as one of the fighters killed. "I wanted ‎to talk and prove that by the grace of Allah Almighty I am alive," Ayubi said. The air force has been pounding positions in the Tirah Valley for days and the military says it has killed over 100 militants. At least seven soldiers have also been killed. Ayubi denied more than 100 militants had been killed and said Lashkar-e-Islam was "still in possession" of the valley.

Pakistan Friday March 27, 2015:

• The Pakistani Taliban killed five police officers in a rocket attack in country's southwest. Militants fired a rocket late Thursday at a vehicle carrying five police officers in the Loralai district of southwestern Baluchistan province, killing all of them.
• Another Taliban attack on a police bus in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi left 10 people wounded. A roadside bomb struck the bus carrying police officers in the port city of Karachi, wounding 10 people. The bomb was attached to a motorcycle and detonated remotely.

 

Pakistan security forces said they killed 30 militants in gun battles in the mountainous northwestern Khyber region on Saturday March 28, 2015, but a spokesman for the militants denied suffering any losses. The two sides have been making conflicting claims about their success in clashes in Tirah Valley, near the Afghan border, and there is no way to confirm casualties independently as the area is sealed off to journalists. The government said 32,347 people had been arrested on charges "aimed at ridding the country of terrorism and extremism" since the launch of the National Action Plan in December. The plan was introduced after the December 16, 2014, killing of 132 schoolchildren by suspected Taliban militants in Peshawar.

Two female Czech tourists, Hana Humpalova and Antonie Chrastecka, kidnapped in Pakistan in 2013 have been released and have returned to the Czech Republic we were told on Saturday March 28, 2015.

A plan was devised on Saturday March 28, 2015, for the evacuation of Pakistanis stranded in Yemen. Pakistan International Airlines has arranged two airplanes to do it. According to unofficial estimates, 560 Pakistanis are stranded in the besieged Yemeni capital of Sanaa. Around 2,145 Pakistanis are currently living in Yemen. ---

Pakistan, which has yet to decide whether to offer military support to a Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, is flying jumbo jets to the Middle Eastern country to evacuate hundreds of nationals we were told on Sunday March 29, 2015. Saudi Arabia evacuated dozens of diplomats from Yemen on Saturday and the United Nations pulled out international staff after a third night of Saudi-led air strikes trying to stem advances by Iranian-allied Houthi fighters. In the first step, two jumbo jets will be sent to Yemen on Sunday to bring back the Pakistanis. A convoy of 600 Pakistanis was moving towards the Red Sea port of Hodeida, where arrangements for their brief stay before their return journey to Pakistan have been made.

Pakistan’s defence minister has flown to Riyadh for talks over whether to join the Saudi-led military campaign to oust the Houthi rebels from Yemen. Khawaja Asif was accompanied by other top military and civilian officials for the meetings in the Saudi capital on Tuesday March 31, 2015 that came amid a storm of controversy at home over the prospect of Pakistan becoming involved in the conflict. The prospect that Islamabad could send troops emerged last Thursday when Saudi Arabia announced that it had agreed to join the coalition of Muslim states, which includes Egypt and Kuwait, aiming to stem the advance of the Houthi forces that have seized large swathes of Yemen.

A Pakistan International Airlines plane carrying 502 passengers from strife-torn Yemen arrived in Karachi, ending days of agonising wait for families. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had ordered authorities to evacuate over 3,000 Pakistanis stranded in Yemen after security situation worsened in the Gulf country. The first Boeing 747 jumbo aircraft was dispatched on Sunday March 29, 2015 which landed in Hudaidah city of Yemen, where about 600 Pakistanis were brought through road from capital Sana’a. 502 passengers landed in Karachi. Later around 326 people, who had arrived from Yemen, reached Islamabad in a subsequent flight which landed at the Benazir International Airport early on Monday. Another flight is expected to bring more than 250 stranded persons by Monday night or by Tuesday

Military courts in Pakistan have sentenced six men to death in their first verdicts since being announced after the Peshawar school massacre. The six men to be hanged were hardcore terrorists involved in heinous acts of terror, manslaughter and suicide bombing. A seventh got life in jail. The military was given the power to try terror suspects as part of plans to tackle insurgents after the Peshawar massacre. ---

A powerful roadside bomb explosion has killed at least two bomb disposal technicians in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border. We were told on Saturday April 4, 2015, that the incident took place in the Barwand area of South Waziristan tribal district, which is considered a stronghold of pro-Taliban militants. Two bomb disposal officials were clearing the route for troop movement when an improvised explosive device went off, killing both of them.

In north-western Pakistan, a 25-year-old man, named Ahmad Shah, was suspected of killing his former fiancée and nine of her relatives for refusing to marry him, police said on Sunday April 5, 2015. Before that, he was said to have killed his own family for refusing to accept the bride's family's demand. Shah was on the run after the attack before dawn in the Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. To carry out the attack, he used an AK-47 rifle. He stormed the house and killed all ten family members while they were asleep; two children and four women were among the dead. Shah was a fugitive wanted for the murder of his parents and two elder brothers last year. His family had refused to accept the demand by the father of his ex-fiancée. After murdering members of his own direct family, Shah became enraged at the family of his ex-fiancée for making the demand. Shah was also the second cousin of his former fiancée. Marriages in Pakistan are usually arranged between families. Bride's families often demand a large dowry as a form of insurance in case the marriage ends in divorce.

Saudi Arabia has asked Pakistan for military aircraft, warships and soldiers we were told on Monday April 6, 2-015, at the start of a parliamentary debate on whether Pakistan should get involved in a Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf's main Sunni Muslim power, has asked Sunni-majority Pakistan to join a Saudi-led military coalition that began conducting air strikes last month against largely Shi'ite Houthi forces in Yemen. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has hedged his bets. He has repeatedly said he will defend any threat to Saudi Arabia's "territorial integrity" without defining what threat, or what action.

Gunmen have killed eight Iranian border guards in the country’s south-east, near the border with Pakistan. The attack happened on Monday April 6, 2015, in Sistan-Baluchistan province. Four of the soldiers killed were conscripts. Earlier on Monday, Revolutionary Guard units broke up a militant group linked to a foreign intelligence agency, killed three of its members and detained several others. Guard forces confiscated a large amount of weapons and communication equipment.

A Pakistani man is suspected of killing his fiancé and nine of her relatives after the woman's family appeared reluctant to give her permission to marry we were told on Monday April 6, 2015. The 25-year-old suspect, Gul Ahmad Saeed, had been on the run since murdering his parents, brother and sister-in-law earlier this year when they obstructed the marriage. On Sunday, he returned to his town in northwest Pakistan and, with some accomplices, shot dead his fiancé, her parents and seven of her siblings, after an uncle had raised his opposition to the marriage. The suspects are believed to have fled into the semi-autonomous Pashtun tribal area along the Afghan border where government authorities hold little sway and police are not legally permitted to go. The killings took place in a deeply conservative area where women there are often discouraged from going to school and have little choice when it comes to marriage. ---

One soldier was killed and three others wounded on Wednesday April 8, 2015, during a live-ammunition shooting exercise between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. A non-commissioned officer has died and three other officers have sustained injuries during live-ammunition shooting related to the Saudi-Pakistani al-Samsam 5" exercises in Baha region, southwest Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan’s parliament has dealt a blow to Saudi hopes of defeating Yemen’s Houthi rebels, with MPs voting overwhelmingly for the country to remain out of the conflict. Friday April 10, 2015’s vote, which came as tensions continued to rise between Riyadh and Tehran over the conflict in Yemen, will make it extremely hard for the Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, to offer anything more than symbolic help. Saudi Arabia, a prized ally and generous donor to Pakistan, had called on Islamabad to provide warships, aircraft and even ground troops. Last month Riyadh embarrassed Pakistan’s government by claiming it had already “expressed desire” to participate in the operation. MPs shot the plan down on Friday, however, passing a resolution saying that “Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict”. It followed a week of debate in which politicians from across the spectrum called for the country not to become embroiled in what many regard as an overseas civil war.

At least 20 workers accused of working on an army-backed dam construction site in the south-western Pakistani province of Balochistan have been shot dead by a large group of gunmen. The gunmen overpowered eight security guards, and shot the labourers on Friday night, April 10, 2015.

U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan killed two leaders of al-Qaeda's Indian branch earlier this year we were told on Sunday April 12, 2015, a major blow to the affiliate only months after its creation. The dead are deputy chief Ahmed Farooq and Qari Imran, in charge of the group's Afghan affairs. A January 5 drone strike in North Waziristan killed Imran, while a later drone strike killed Farooq.

A U.S. drone strike killed at least four suspected Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan on Sunday April 12, 2015. The strike in North Waziristan, a mountainous border region, came after the army pushed the Taliban out of the major towns and cities there in an offensive that began last June. On Sunday, two missiles slammed into a house in the steep, heavily forested Shawal valley in North Waziristan. Four Taliban fighters were killed in the strike.

Also on Sunday April 12, 2015, a spokesman for al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent confirmed that two of its leaders had been killed in drone strikes earlier this year. ---

China and Pakistan launched a plan on Monday April 20, 2015, for energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan worth $46 billion, linking their economies and underscoring China's economic ambitions in Asia and beyond. China's President Xi Jinping arrived in Pakistan to oversee the signing of agreements aimed at establishing a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor between Pakistan's southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea and China's western Xinjiang region. The plan, which would eclipse U.S. spending in Pakistan over the last decade or so, is part of China's aim to forge "Silk Road" land and sea ties to markets in the Middle East and Europe. Xi, whose visit to Pakistan winds up on Tuesday, said it cemented an "all-weather strategic cooperative partnership" between the neighbors. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the corridor would transform Pakistan into a regional hub and enable China to create a shorter and cheaper route for trade and investment with south, central and west Asia and the Middle East and Africa.

On Thursday April 23, 2015, the White House admitted two hostages were accidentally killed in a January operation against al Qaeda near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. US President Obama has said he takes full responsibility for what happened. American Warren Weinstein and Italian national Giovanni Lo Porto were killed in a January attack on an al Qaeda compound. Warren and Giovanni were aid workers in Pakistan.

A leading member of Pakistan’s small band of liberal social activists has been gunned down outside the pioneering Karachi arts venue she founded, in an apparent bid to silence discussion about the country’s brutal efforts to smother separatism in the restive province of Balochistan. The murder of Sabeen Mahmud on Friday April 24, 2015, sent shockwaves through Pakistan’s embattled intelligentsia. She was shot several times by unknown gunmen in her car. Her mother was also critically injured in the gunfire and rushed to hospital.

Pakistan will acquire 110 latest JF-17 Thunder fighter jets from China as the two countries forge closer economic and defence cooperation following President Xi Jinping’s visit here earlier this week we were told on Saturday April 25, 2015. China will deliver the first batch of 50 jets over a period of three years. Xi also launched a USD 46 billion economic corridor to link China’s western region to Pakistan’s Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea.

On Sunday April 26, 2017, a small-cyclone has torn through roofs and has brought down trees and power lines in north Pakistan, killing 45 people and injuring more than 200. Army teams were on their way to Peshawar to help with the rescue. The speed in the open was more than 75 mph and that’s what caused destruction on such a large scale. The wind, accompanied by heavy rain and hail late on Sunday, disrupted power supplies and telecommunications services and damaged infrastructure and crops. Those injured overwhelmed Peshawar’s main hospital. Heavy weather on Monday forced the Pakistani military to cancel two flights to Nepal taking supplies to survivors of Saturday’s earthquake.

A moderate earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale jolted various parts of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday April 27, 2015, triggering panic among the people. The epicentre of the quake was in the Hindukush mountain ranges near Tajikistan border at a depth of 144 kilometres. The tremor was felt in Malakand, Swat, Upper and Lower Dir districts of the province. So far no loss to life or property has been reported. ---

Ten men involved in the attempt to kill Malala Yousafzai have been sentenced to life in prison by a Pakistani court. None of the men was in the team who shot the education activist in the head as she sat in a school minivan in 2012, but a security official said they had been part of a wider group of plotters involved in the planning and execution of the attack. The point-blank shooting of the then 15-year-old at the behest of the Pakistani Taliban caused global outrage and Malala later became the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize. She had infuriated the militants both with her advocacy for female education and her fearless public criticism of them.

Airstrikes have killed 44 suspected militants in the tribal region near the Afghan border. On Saturday May 1, 2015 we were told that 28 suspected militants were killed when jets struck hideouts in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber tribal region. Separate strikes in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan killed 16 suspected militants, most of them foreigners.

Eight members of a wedding party died when metal dowry furniture strapped to the bus they were traveling in struck a power line. The bus carrying the wedding party home in the southern Sindh province on Sunday May 3, 3015, caught fire after striking the cable and crashed into a tree. Six women, a man and a child died from electrocution. More than 20 others were treated for burns and minor injuries. Such incidents are not uncommon in Pakistan, where drivers routinely ignore traffic laws.

Pakistan Monday May 4, 2015:

• Pakistani police rescued seven colleagues on Monday who had been kidnapped by gunmen at a checkpoint the previous day. The abductors abandoned the seven in a forest near the Indus River and fled as police scoured the area.
• In a separate incident, a guard at a boy's school accidentally shot himself. Reports of the shooting briefly sparked fears of a repeat of a deadly school attack five months ago that toughened Pakistan's resolve to fight militants. The shooting happened in Sarwar Wali, near the central town of Dera Ghazi Khan, 500 km southwest of Islamabad.

 

A Pakistani judge has stayed the execution of a man who lawyers say was 14 when he was charged with murder, a case that has angered rights groups and prompted mercy appeals from his family. Shafqat Hussain was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday May 6, 2015, but was granted a second reprieve. In March he was dressed in a white uniform ready for hanging and told to write his will, before his execution was postponed while the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) looked into the question of his age. The agency later determined he was not a juvenile at the time of the killing and a new execution date was set. But that was also challenged.

One person has been killed and several others injured in an attack on a school in a tribal area in western Pakistan. Gunmen opened fire during a football match at the Alizai High School. Blasts were also heard. Security officials returned fire, and a gunman was reportedly killed.

An army helicopter has crashed in a mountainous part of northern Pakistan, killing seven people, including the Philippine and Norwegian ambassadors. It crashed Friday May 8, 2015, during an emergency landing in the Gilgit-Baltistan territory. The wives of the Indonesian and Malaysian envoys, two pilots and a crew member also died. They were to attend the opening of a tourism project.

A militant video purports to show Taliban fighters with a surface-to-air missile, claiming they used a similar one to shoot down a Pakistani helicopter carrying diplomats. The video includes a message from the Pakistani Taliban claiming they fired a missile from a distance of 3 kilometers to down the helicopter Friday May 8, 2015. The missile hit the tail rotor.

As many as six people, including a pro-government tribal elder, were killed as a remote-controlled bomb hit a vehicle in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal district on Monday May 11, 2015. The bomb targeted the car of Malak Muhammada Gul as he was traveling with five other people. Last week, a former member of Pakistan's parliament was targeted in the same area but escaped unhurt. Pakistan began an offensive to clear insurgent bases from the North Waziristan tribal district in June after a bloody Taliban attack on Karachi airport. ---

At least 43 people have been killed and many more have been wounded in an attack on a bus in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The bus belonged to the Ismaili Shia Muslim sect and was targeted by attackers at the Safoora Chowk intersection in Karachi's eastern part on Wednesday May 13, 2015. There were six attackers, who approached the bus on three motorcycles. The attackers boarded the bus and shot indiscriminately while inside. Following the attack, the bus was driven to the nearby Memon Medical Institute and Hospital with 62 people still inside -many of whom had already died.

A lone gunman on a motorbike shot dead a senior Pakistani police officer in the southern city Karachi on Friday May 15, 2015, the third in a sudden spate of killings targeting senior officers in the city. Friday's killing of Superintendent Ejaz Haider was claimed by both a Taliban spokesman and a Twitter account purporting to be from a breakaway group of Pakistani militants who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State.

Pakistani paramilitary forces on Saturday May 16, 2015, killed at least four members of a Baluch insurgent group in the port city of Karachi. The incident happened in the impoverished neighbourhood of old Golimar where paramilitary Rangers had launched a targeted operation against the proscribed Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) on an intelligence tip-off.

A U.S. drone strike in northwestern Pakistan's Shawal region killed at least four militants on Saturday May 16, 2015, as Pakistani military forces dug into positions in the area ahead of what officials described as an anti-Taliban offensive. The drone fired two missiles and hit a compound in the Wara Mandi area of the remote and mountainous Shawal Valley. Between four to seven militants were reported killed.

A U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's northwestern Shawal Valley has killed at least five militants we were told on Tuesday May 19, 2015. Monday night's strike in the Zwy-Naray area of North Waziristan, a mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, follows a build up of Pakistani forces in the area and another drone strike on Saturday. ---

Air strikes killed at least 15 suspected militants in Pakistan's northwestern Shawal Valley on Thursday May 21, 2015. A local security commander and two intelligence officials said that 15 or 16 suspected militants were killed in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan.

A powerful roadside bomb blast has struck a convoy of security personnel in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least three soldiers. We were told on Saturday May 23, 2015, that the casualties were caused after an improvised explosive device (IED) targeted a military vehicle in the Datakhel district of North Waziristan tribal region.

Three people were killed and four others injured when Baluch separatists targeted a convoy carrying the Pakistani president's son in the southwestern province of Baluchistan late Sunday night May 24, 2015. An explosive laden motorbike parked at a roadside was blown up with a remote control device when the convoy of President Mamnoon Hussain's son, Salman Mamnoon was passing by in Hub Industrial Zone near the border with Karachi. The president's son was unharmed as his vehicle had already passed the spot where the device exploded hitting a rikshaw and the last vehicle of the convoy. The rikshaw driver, a 12-year-old child in the rikshaw and a passerby died at the spot while four police personnel of the security squad received minor injuries.

Three Baloch insurgents, who hijacked a PIA plane in 1998 and tried to take it to India, were among eight prisoners who were executed Thursday May 28, 2015, in different jails in Pakistan. The convicts, Shahsawar Baloch, Sabir Rind were executed in Hyderabad jail while Shabbir Rind was hanged in Karachi Central Jail. A court in Hyderabad sentenced them to death on August 20, 1998 and their appeals were later turned by the higher courts. The three men were members of the left-wing Baloch Students’ Organisation (BSO) and were demanding more resources, such as gas and electricity, for their region. Pakistan International Airline (PIA) Fokker plane was hijacked by the three men shortly after it took off from Turbat in Balochistan for Karachi. There were 30 passengers on board and the hijackers wanted to take it to India, but pilot Captain Uzair Khan duped them by landing at the Hyderabad airport, as the hijackers were told that they had landed in India. The three men had claimed that they hijacked the plane as they were opposed to any nuclear tests in Baluchistan, following India’s testing of nuclear weapons a few weeks prior to the incident. Later, the security forces stormed the plane and overpowered the hijackers. Meanwhile:

• Another death row prisoner was hanged in Karachi Central Jail. He was guilty of killing a minor boy in 2003.
• A death row convict was hanged in Attock Central Jail. He had killed one person over a business dispute in 1998.
• A death row convict was hanged in Sahiwal Central Jail in double murder case.
• One death row convict was hanged in District Jail Sargodha.
• Another death row prisoner was executed in Haripur Central Jail. He was sentenced to death in 1999.
• So far have hanged at least 130 convicts. There are about 8,000 death row prisoners in Pakistan.

Gunmen killed at least 19 passengers they had forced off buses travelling through Pakistan's Baluchistan region on Friday night May 29, 2015. The assault occurred in the town of Mastung, around 25 miles south of Quetta. The bus was travelling from the western Pakistani city of Quetta to Karachi on the southern coast. The armed men were wearing the uniforms of the security forces. The bodies of 19 passengers had been found so far. Around 25 passengers were taken off two buses, and an operation began to find them. The bodies were discovered in nearby hills.

At least two Pakistani soldiers and five suspected militants have been killed in a clash in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border. The fighting erupted on Friday May 29, 2015, when paramilitary forces from the Frontier Corps (FC) ambushed a group of militants in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA)’s Ghulam Khan area. ---

The Pakistani police and the country's public prosecutor said Friday June 5, 2015, that eight out of 10 militants charged with involvement in the 2012 attack on teenage activist and later Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai were actually acquitted in April, and not sentenced to life in prison as reported at the time. The stunning announcement offered no explanation as to why authorities had remained silent for so many weeks or why they had failed to correct the facts earlier. In April, public prosecutor Sayed Naeem said 10 militants charged over the attack were all convicted by an anti-terrorism court and sentenced to life imprisonment. On Friday, we were told that only two of the militants were imprisoned for life while the others were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

A suspected U.S. drone strike Saturday June 6, 2015, in Pakistan’s once militant-dominated North Waziristan border region killed at least nine suspected militants. An unmanned aircraft fired two missiles on a compound in the remote Shawal Valley and those killed were linked to Afghanistan's neighboring Taliban insurgency.

Eight of the 10 men acquitted by a court over the attempted murder of Pakistani schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai are still being held in custody on other charges, we were told Saturday June 6, 2015.

Gunmen on motorcycles shot dead four policemen Saturday June 6, 2015, in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. The shooting took place in Pashtunabad, a low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province when policemen were patrolling the area.

A fresh US drone attack has claimed the lives of at least nine people in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border. Local Pakistani intelligence officials said the strike was carried out in the remote Shawal Valley of North Waziristan tribal region on Saturday June 6, 2015. The US drone fired at least two missiles and completely destroyed a compound in the militancy-riddled region.

At least 19 Islamist militants and seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in a fierce gun battle early on Monday June 8, 2015, near Dattakhel, a town close to the Afghan border. The seven Pakistani soldiers were killed when one of the insurgents blew himself up as they sought to hunt down militants in North Waziristan.

A Pakistani man at the centre of an international campaign to spare him from the death penalty had his execution postponed for the fourth time on Tuesday June 9, 2015, just hours before he was due to be hanged. Shafqat Hussain has been on death row since 2004 when he was sentenced for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy. But in the early hours of Tuesday morning, he won yet another last-minute stay following a campaign by rights activists who say Hussain was a minor at the time and was beaten by police into making a false confession.

Pakistan has executed a man who was 15 when he was sentenced to death for murder and who rights groups say was tortured into confessing. Aftab Bahadur was hanged in Lahore's jail early on Wednesday morning June 10, 2015. Bahadur, a Christian, had been convicted of a double murder in the city in 1992. Campaigners called his execution "shameful". The death sentence could be passed on 15-year-olds at the time, although the minimum age was raised to 18 in 2000. ---

On Thursday June 11, 2015, an innocent man has been hanged in Pakistan this morning after spending 23 years on death row despite his lawyers battling to introduce new evidence which could have saved him. Aftab Bahadur Masih, 38, was just 15-years-old when he was forced into confessing to a murder he did not commit more than two decades ago. Since December of last year, Pakistan has executed over 150 people after lifting a six-year ban on the death penalty.

Pakistan Thursday June 11, 2015:

• Six police have been killed in two separate attacks in Pakistan, including a suicide bombing that wounded a senior commander.
• The suicide bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near a vehicle in the north-western city of Peshawar. Two policemen were killed, and deputy commander Malik Tariq, who was riding in the vehicle, was wounded along with two of his guards.
• Hours later, gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing four officers.

 

On Friday June 12, 2015, Pakistan ordered the charity Save the Children to leave the country after accusing the NGO of "anti-Pakistan" activities. Police have sealed off their offices in Islamabad and foreign staff given 15 days to leave the country. Pakistan has previously linked the charity to the fake vaccination programme used by the CIA to track down Osama Bin Laden. The charity has always denied being involved with the CIA or Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who carried out the programme. The charity has had no foreign staff in the country for the past 18 months in response to the accusations. It now has 1,200 Pakistani staff working on projects in health, education and food. Speaking after the charity was shut, Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan said that NGO's were operating beyond their remit with backing from US, Israel and India.

On Saturday June 13, 2015, Pakistan has imposed a one-month moratorium on executions during Ramadan providing temporary reprieve for a death row prisoner whose lawyers claim he was a juvenile at the time of his crime.

On Saturday June 13, 2015, Pakistan has suspended moves to close the national branch of the charity Save the Children. The move by the interior ministry comes days after the charity's main office in the capital Islamabad was shut down by police. No formal reason was given for the action and there has been no official comment on the reversal. Officials have previously accused the charity of involvement in "anti-state activities". Pakistan had linked the charity to a fake vaccination programme used by the CIA to track down Osama Bin Laden. Save the Children has always denied being involved with the CIA or Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who carried out the programme.

At least 20 militants were killed Friday June 19, 2015, in airstrikes against suspected insurgent hideouts in a northwestern border region. Fighter plans targeted remote areas in the Khyber tribal agency near the Afghan border. 18 terrorists" were also wounded. ---

Around 140 people died in a sudden heat wave over the weekend Karachi and surrounding Sindh province. While most of the victims were men above 50, the heat wave also killed six women and five children. Around 130 of the fatalities were recorded since Saturday June 20, 2015, in Karachi, which has experienced temperatures of 45°C, the hottest this year. More lives were lost in the rest of Sindh province, where temperatures hit 48°C.

The death toll in the country’s southern Sindh province, which has been struck by a heatwave, has reached 622. We were told on Tuesday June 23, 2015, that the number of fatalities will climb further. Most of the deaths were reported in the province’s largest city, Karachi. Temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius struck Karachi over the weekend. Hours-long power outages also hit the city, leaving fans and air conditioners inoperable. The deaths came as the country observes the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, during which eating and drinking are forbidden between sunrise and sunset.

The death toll from Pakistan’s killer heatwave rose past 1,000 on Thursday June25, 2015, with more fatalities expected, as cloud cover and lower temperatures brought some relief to the worst-hit city Karachi. Morgues and gravediggers in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and economic hub, have struggled to keep up with the flow of bodies since the scorching temperatures began last weekend. Hospitals have been on a crisis footing and dedicated heatstroke treatment centres have been set up around the city to treat the tens of thousands affected by heatstroke and dehydration.

Air strikes killed at least 20 suspected militants in Pakistan's northwestern Shawal Valley on Sunday June 28, 2015. The latest air strikes occurred in the Zoinari area of North Waziristan. Three hideouts were completely destroyed."

A devastating week-long heat wave in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi killed 1,233 people we were told on Sunday June 28, 2015. About 65,000 heatstroke patients were treated by doctors at all of Karachi’s hospitals since June 20 when the heat wave struck Sindh province, where Karachi is the provincial capital. 1,923 patients with heat-related ailments were still being treated.

Pakistani police and intelligence officials shot and killed three suspected Islamist militants in a raid on their hideout in eastern Pakistan early on Monday June 29, 2015, and a fourth blew himself up. The terrorists were planning attacks on the offices of security forces and important political figures. A fourth person, an al Qaeda operative by the name of Muhammad Ameer Abdullah, blew himself up after setting off his explosive-filled jacket.

A border clash between Pakistan and Afghanistan overnight has left one Afghan security personnel dead and two Pakistani soldiers wounded we were told Wednesday July 1, 2015. Pakistany soldiers were engaged in a construction activity at the Angoor Adda border area when they came under attack from the Afghan side. They responded to the rocket and small arms firing by the Afghan security forces.

The brutal heat wave that hit the port city of Karachi and the country's southern province of Sind in June killed 1,250 people before subsiding. 65,000 heatstroke patients were treated at the city's hospitals over the past two weeks. ---

A train carrying hundreds of Pakistan military personnel and their families plunged into a canal on Thursday July 2, 2015, killing 12 soldiers, when a bridge collapsed in what the army suspects was sabotage. Four carriages fell into the canal. The commander of one unit was among the casualties. The crash in Pakistan's Gujranwala district, in the northeast, happened as an army unit was being transported from southern Sindh province to northern Pakistan. There were around 300 passengers on board. More than 50 people were rescued.

Border clashes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces broke out on Wednesday morning July 1, 2015. One Afghan border policeman was killed in the fighting near the border town of Angoor Adda. Pakistan's military said two troops were injured and none were killed.

Pakistan's military said Friday July 3, 2015, that the death toll from an accident to a special train that plunged into a canal because of a bridge collapse has risen to seventeen. The train derailed Thursday while crossing the Chanawan canal near the industrial city of Gujranwala in eastern Punjab province. Civil authorities and commandos and divers from the army retrieved 80 passengers, five of whom had been injured. So far 17 bodies had been recovered and the rescue work was still in progress. The dead soldiers included the unit's commander, his wife and a daughter. Another passenger train carrying hundreds of people had passed over the same bridge about 90 minutes before the train carrying soldiers fell into the canal.

Three ISIS fanatics have been arrested in Pakistan over fears they were planning a terror attack no British soil on the 10th anniversary of the July 7 bombings. Maps of London and ISIS propaganda were found on their computers during a police raid on a shop in Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Documents threatening Pakistan's army were also seized but no weapons were discovered.

A major power failure plunged large parts of southern Pakistan into darkness on Tuesday night July 7, 2015. Worst affected was the port city of Karachi, a city of 20 million, where many people spent a sleepless night because of warm and humid weather. The disruption had been caused by a fault in the distribution system. K-Electric said one of its main transmission lines had tripped leading to breakdowns at three different power plants. Power cuts are common in Pakistan because of chronic electricity shortages. ---

India and Pakistan have traded blame for a series of firefights and shelling over the past two days along their border in the disputed Kashmir region that killed five civilians and wounded nine people. On Thursday July 16, 2015, four people were killed and five wounded in artillery fire that struck Pakistani villages near the eastern city of Sialkot. Islamabad said India was responsible for the casualties. India’s paramilitary Border Security Force, meanwhile, blamed Pakistan for shooting at an Indian border post and for firing mortar shells that landed in a border village on Wednesday, killing one woman and wounding four people, including a soldier at a border post. Pakistan also claimed that an Indian spy drone had violated its airspace on Wednesday and that the Pakistani military shot it down. India’s army rejected that allegation, saying none of its drones crossed into the Pakistani side.

Gunmen have killed a local employee of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, though a motive for the attack is still unclear. The dead employee was Iqbal Baig; he worked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Baig was killed early Sunday morning July 26, 2015, at his home. U.S. Embassy security officials have visited the crime scene. Baig belonged to a minority Muslim Shiite sect known as the Ismaili. Ismailis largely live in peace in Sunni-dominated Pakistan, though Islamic extremists in the country view Shiites as heretics. Gunmen in May shot and killed 50 Ismailis in the southern port city of Karachi.

Leaders of Pakistan’s most infamous sectarian terrorist group, including its founder Malik Ishaq, were killed in a gun battle with police on Wednesday July 29, 2015. Ishaq and 13 other militants from the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) –including two of his sons and a top official– died after gunmen attempted to free them from custody in a pre-dawn operation. The al-Qaida-linked group, which Ishaq co-founded in 1996, is notorious for its attacks against Shias, as well other minority groups including Christians and Ahmedis. Ishaq had offered to take police to an arms dump after he was arrested on Saturday.

Pakistani security forces have killed a senior Al-Qaeda commander and detained his wife in an overnight raid on his hideout in the southwestern province of Baluchistan we were told Sunday August 2, 2015. The security forces also took the couple's two young daughters into custody during the raid in the Chaghi district. Al-Qaeda commander -Umar Lateef, a Pakistani national- was killed in an encounter with local security agencies. Umar Lateef, his wife Tayyaba alias Fareeha Baji, one brother and two daughters both aged under five had lived in Chaghi for the last 8-10 months after moving from the Afghan border province of Nimruz. Lateef was a senior commander of Al-Qaeda for Pakistan's Baluchistan and south Punjab regions. His brother Bilal succeeded in escaping during the raid, probably to neighbouring Afghanistan.

Month-long flooding in Pakistan has so far killed 169 people we were told Thursday August 6, 2015, as rescuers continued to use helicopters and boats to transfer stranded residents to higher ground. The majority of flood-related deaths (79) were reported in the country’s northwest. An additional 48 victims were killed in the eastern Punjab province. This week floodwaters submerged hundreds of villages and rescuers have evacuated nearly 800,000 people. The floods, which began in early July, have affected more than 1 million people.

At least 12 people aboard a Pakistani Army helicopter were killed Thursday August 6, 2015, in northwestern Pakistan. They included a team of army doctors, paramedics, two pilots and crew. The helicopter, carrying medical supplies, took off from Rawalpindi and was headed toward Gilgit, which has been affected recently by floods.

On Friday August 7, 2015, Citizens in Pakistan are clamouring for justice after a sex abuse scandal involving hundreds of children shocked the nation. Pornographic films allegedly show victims being forced to have sex and abusing each other. Pakistan is reeling from the aftermath of a huge child pornography scandal, which came to light a few days ago when protesters clashed with police in Kasur, a town close to the country's eastern city of Lahore. The demonstrators were protesting against the police for allegedly failing to arrest members of a gang suspected of raping hundreds of children, filming them and blackmailing their parents. According to local media, most of the 280 children were below 14 years of age and were residents of Husain Khanwala village, near Kasur. A local gang began filming sexual exploits with the children in 2006, which allegedly continued until last year. The victims were forced to have sex, and the videos were then circulated for 50 Rupees (40 US cents, 36 euro cents).

On Saturday August 8, 2015 police in eastern Pakistan arrested seven men accused of sexually abusing children and distributing videos of the abuse. More arrests were expected. Investigators were sifting through evidence, including 18 or 19 videos seized so far.

Gunmen killed four policemen Wednesday August 12, 2015, in southern Pakistan. The police were attacked as they ate at a roadside restaurant in the port city of Karachi.

Pakistani military courts have sentenced seven militants to death over a series of attacks, including the assault on an army-run school that killed more than 140 people in December 2014, while another has been sentenced to life in prison. On Thursday August 13, 2015, we were told that six of the men were members of the militant group Tawhid wal-Jihad and the other two were from the Pakistani Taliban and Jaish-e-Mohammad. ---

On Saturday August 15, 2015, an apparent suicide attack killed one of Pakistan’s provincial ministers and at least eight other people when it destroyed the minister’s home in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s political heartland. The attack in Attock caused the roof to cave in while Shuja Khanzada, the home minister of Punjab province, was holding meetings with about 20 people. Nine bodies had been recovered.

Pakistani air strikes killed at least 24 suspected militants in their northwestern strongholds on Monday August 17, 2015 a day after a bomb killed a provincial minister in the prime minister's political heartland. Monday's air strikes took place in the Zoi Nari, Lataka, Mizer Madakhel and Shawal areas of North Waziristan. Jet air shelling destroyed six militant hideouts and killed 24 militants hiding in this area; the dead included some foreigners.

Four motorcycle assassins have shot and seriously injured a Pakistani opposition lawmaker and killed the driver of his car in a savage gun attack on Tuesday August 18, 2015. Four men on two motorcycles fired on Abdul Rashid Godil as they sped past his Toyota Corolla car in the southern port city of Karachi. The lawmaker sustained serious bullet wounds to his neck and jaw; his driver was also shot and has since died as a result of his injuries.

Pakistan said militants firing from Afghan territory killed four of its soldiers along the border on Sunday August 23, 2015. Islamabad's Foreign Ministry summoned the Afghan ambassador later on Sunday to protest and demand an investigation.

At least five soldiers and six Taliban militants have been killed after raids on Pakistan army checkpoints in the tribal area of Waziristan. Early on Tuesday morning August 25, 2015, a group of militants attacked a checkpoint in the Pir Ghar area, adjacent to Shawal, killing at least three security personnel. Militants attacked with heavy weapons, including Rocket Propelled Grenades and machine guns. Before, two security forces personnel, including a lieutenant colonel, were killed in an exchange of fire with militants in the Shawal valley. At least six militants were also killed in that exchange. Both attacks were claimed by a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, who the army has been battling in North Waziristan since it launched a full-scale military operation in the area in June last year.

A suspected Taliban militant blew himself up during a police raid in central Pakistan on Thursday August 27, 2015, killing his own wife and two children. The counterterrorism raid on the house in the town of Pir Mahal triggered a shootout after someone inside began lobbing hand grenades. The raid was part of the investigation into the assassination of Punjab provincial home minister Shuja Khanzada, who was killed along with 17 others in an attack by two suicide bombers in his northwestern hometown earlier this month. Habibur Rehman, the militant who died Thursday, was a Pakistani Taliban member. The militant initially used his wife as a human shield, but then set off the explosives when he was surrounded. Police seized four suicide vests, assault rifles, hand grenades and a large quantity of explosives at the house. --

Indian and Pakistani border guards traded gunfire in the divided region of Kashmir, leaving nine civilians dead and another 62 wounded we were told Friday August 28, 2015. Both sides blamed each other for “unprovoked firing and shelling” of homes after midnight near a disputed border in the Kashmir region. The Pakistani army said six civilians were killed and 46 others, including 22 women, wounded after Indian attacks near the city of Sialkot. The villages of Kanganpur and Bajra Gari were the worst hit by the shelling overnight.

Gunmen attacked a small airport in southwestern Pakistan on Sunday August 30, 2015, killing two officials. The attackers stormed Baluchistan province's Jewni airport and destroyed navigational equipment there after killing an official on duty and wounding his supervisor. The 10 to 12 assailants abducted a third engineer, whose body was later found nearby.

The latest airstrikes in a troubled tribal region near Afghanistan have killed 14 suspected militants. The incident happened in Saturday August 29, 2015's airstrike in Shawal, a town in North Waziristan. The Pakistani army said its forces have cleared more than 90 percent of the region and killed more than 3,000 militants. The army has lost nearly 300 soldiers in the region in the past year. ---

Gunmen stormed a remote airport in southwestern Pakistan before dawn on Sunday August 30, 2015, killing two engineers and destroying the facility's radar system.

The Pakistani military says its latest airstrikes have killed 14 suspected militants. The terrorists were killed in Monday August 31, 2015 airstrike in Shawal, a town in North Waziristan.

A suicide bomber killed at least four people and wounded dozens on Tuesday September 1, 2015, in northwest Pakistan. Two allied militant groups, the Pakistani Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam, claimed responsibility for the attack in the Khyber region near the Afghan border. The attack targeted a paramilitary vehicle outside a government compound in the Jamrud area of the region. At least 42 wounded people were taken to hospital in Peshawar.

A suspected U.S. drone strike on a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan killed six men we were told Wednesday September 2, 2015. In a separate incident, gunmen ambushed a police patrol in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing three police officers and wounding six. The compound hit late Tuesday in the Shawal area of North Waziristan belonged to Islamic militants loyal to an Afghan warlord and was also frequented by Uzbek fighters.

Pakistan Wednesday September 2, 2015:

• Air strikes carried out by Pakistani forces have killed at least 31 people in the country's northwest.
• Warplanes bombarded the Shawal Valley killing at least 17 suspected militants. Four militant hideouts were destroyed.
• More air strikes in the Khyber tribal area killed at least 14 militants and wounded six more.

 

Pakistan has used one of its unmanned aircraft to kill militants in its tribal areas for the first time. After years of protesting against US drone strikes on Pakistan’s territory, we were told on Monday September 7, 2015, that an aircraft known as the Burraq had bombed a “terrorist compound” in Shawal, killing three high-profile terrorists.

Gunmen in Pakistan have shot dead a former journalist near his home in Karachi, the third such attack on media personnel in less than 24 hours. Aftab Alam had worked with the country's largest private broadcaster Geo News. On Tuesday night September 7, 2015, gunmen shot at Geo TV's news van in Karachi, killing a technician and injuring the driver. A journalist with national broadcaster PTV was also seriously injured when he was shot in an attack in Peshawar. Aftab Alam was on his way to pick up his children from school when he came under attack from gunmen on a motorcycle.

Gunmen have shot dead two journalists in separate attacks in Karachi in the last 24 hours. The first attack Tuesday September 8, 2015, saw gunmen open fire on a van of the private satellite news channel Geo TV, killing a technician and wounding the driver. The second attack happened Wednesday morning. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed journalist Aftab Alam as he stood outside his home. ---

Fifteen Islamist militants have been killed and seven of their hideouts destroyed in fresh air attacks in Pakistan's lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The air strikes were carried out Sunday September 13, 2015, in the Shawal district of North Waziristan tribal district, where the army began a major offensive in June last year against Taliban and Al-Qaeda bases.

On Monday September 14, 2015, at least 10 people have been killed and more than 40 injured in an explosion at a bus terminal in the Pakistani city of Multan. The explosion happened when a motorcycle hit a motorised rickshaw at the busy bus stop, causing a large fire. One of the vehicles was carrying explosives but forensic teams are still investigating. Ball bearings were recovered from the site of the explosion. A bomb was fitted to the motorcycle, but was remotely detonated.

Taliban militants have killed at least 29 people in an attack on an air force base in the northern city of Peshawar. The gunmen, dressed in police uniforms, stormed the Badaber air base on Friday morning September 18, 2015. At least 16 of the victims were killed during morning prayers at a mosque inside the compound. A rapid response force was dispatched to the scene and contained the attackers around a guard room. Thirteen militants were said to have been killed by security forces. The exchange of fire also left 29 people injured.

Pakistani jets killed 16 suspected militants in bombing raids in the Tirah Valley, which straddles the Afghan border on Saturday September 19, 2015, and police arrested dozens of people the day after Taliban militants killed 29 people in an attack on an air base. The attack on the base on Friday was the deadliest ever militant attack on a Pakistani military installation and is likely to undermine already rocky ties with Afghanistan. Communications intercepts showed the Pakistani Taliban gunmen were being directed by handlers in Afghanistan. All those killed in the bombing were Pakistani militants.

Gunmen on a motorcycle have killed the deputy chief of a jail and his brother as they received guests for the Eid al-Adha holiday in northwest Pakistan. Thursday September 24, 2015's attack took place in Charsadda, about 50 kilometres northeast of Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A Pakistani man has been executed for murder after nearly 20 years on death row, despite claims he was just 15 year old at the time of the killing. Ansar Iqbal -who always insisted he did not commit the crime- was hanged at a prison in Sargodha in the eastern Punjab province at dawn on Tuesday September 29, 2015. Pakistani law does not allow the execution of someone who is underage at the time of their arrest.

Pakistan's air force has carried out "precise" airstrikes targeting the Taliban in a tribal area near the Afghan border, killing 25 militants. The strikes took place on Thursday October 1, 2015, near the Datta Khel village in North Waziristan. The military says it has cleared 90 percent of the region since launching the operation and killed over 3,000 militants there. ---

A rare rockslide in Pakistan's city of Karachi has hit several makeshift homes, killing 13 people including seven children. The landslide struck early on Tuesday October 13, 2015, burying homes in Gulistan Johar district under a mass of rock and mud. Police and officials are investigating the cause of the landslip, including the possibility of sabotage by land grabbers.

Seven people have been killed and 10 others wounded in a suspected suicide bomb attack on the constituency office of a Pakistani MP in apparent retaliation against the country’s ongoing crackdown on Islamist militancy. The blast on Wednesday October 14, 2015, ripped through a building opposite the home of Sardar Amjad Farooq Khosa in Dera Ghazi Khan, where the MP’s supporters and workers were waiting. It came at the start of the holy month of Muharram, a period in the Islamic calendar that has often been marred by terrorist attacks in the past. The MP was in Islamabad at the time of the bombing.

A bomb killed at least 11 people on Monday October 19, 2015, on a crowded bus in Pakistan's western city of Quetta. The bomb exploded as the bus was bound for the city suburbs, carrying dozens of passengers home from work. The bomb was probably planted on the roof of the vehicle and set off through a timed detonator.

A suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in the southwestern province of Balochistan on Thursday October 22, 2015 killed at least 10 people. An armed group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened more violence against Shia.

At least 22 people have been killed during a procession to mark a Shia religious holiday in the Pakistani province of Sindh. The blast on Friday October 23, 2015, which struck worshippers marking Ashoura in the city of Jacobabad, also left 30 people wounded. The procession was targeted by a suicide bomber.

Islamist militants firing from Afghanistan into Pakistan killed seven Pakistani paramilitary soldiers on Tuesday October 27, 2015, near a border town in the mountainous South Waziristan region.

Some Afghans and Pakistanis made homeless by Monday October 26, 2015's earthquake could die from exposure. There is an urgent need for tents and blankets for those forced to spend a second night outdoors. Children are especially at risk of succumbing to the extreme cold. Thousands spent Tuesday night in near-freezing temperatures, reluctant to go back inside for fear of aftershocks. At least 360 people are known to have died in both countries, but the number will rise, particularly in Afghanistan.

The Pakistan government has said it will offer relief and compensation to survivors of Monday's powerful earthquake. At least 10,000 homes were destroyed by the earthquake, which struck Pakistan and northern Afghanistan. One of Pakistan's worst hit regions was Shangla District, where fifty people died. ---

Eleven people were killed in Pakistan when rival political parties shot at each other on Saturday October 31, 2015 during local elections in two of the country’s four provinces. The violence erupted in Khairpur district, northwest of the port city of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province. The two groups belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party, which rules Sindh province, and the Pakistan Muslim League, headed by a famous spiritual leader, Pir Sahab Pagara, clashed with each other just an hour before the end of polling time.

A plane has veered off the runway after landing in the Pakistani city of Lahore, injuring at least 10 people. The Shaheen Air flight made an emergency landing in Allama Iqbal International Airport on Tuesday November 3, 2015, with over 100 people on board. One of the plane's tyres had burst. Other reports said the plane suffered an undercarriage malfunction. All passengers on the Karachi-Lahore flight have been moved to safety.

A Pakistani woman has died after a rejected suitor set her on fire for refusing his marriage proposal. Sonia Bibi, 20, was admitted to hospital last month, where she told police that her former lover Latif Ahmed had doused her with petrol and set her alight after she rejected him. Medical staff initially said she would recover, but a doctor in Multan’s Nishtar hospital said infection set in and she died on Tuesday morning November 3, 2015. Forty-five to 50% of her body had been burned in the attack. The incident took place in a remote village of Multan district in central Punjab province. Police have arrested the 24-year-old suspect. Bibi had told police that she had fallen out of love with Ahmed, and preliminary investigations suggested he had set her on fire after she refused to marry him.

At least 16 people have been killed in the Pakistani city of Lahore after a factory under construction collapsed on Wednesday November 4, 2015. As many as 150 workers could be trapped under the rubble. A major rescue operation is now under way. Two floors of the factory, in the Sundar Industrial Estate on the outskirts of the city, were operational, while a third was being built.

A plane has veered off the runway after landing in the Pakistani city of Lahore, injuring at least 10 people. The Shaheen Air flight made an emergency landing in Allama Iqbal International Airport on Tuesday November 3, 2015, with over 100 people on board. Initial reports said one of the plane's tyres had burst. Other reports said the plane suffered an undercarriage malfunction. ---

The death toll from the collapse of a Pakistani factory has reached 44 we were told on Sunday November 8, 2015. More than 100 injured survivors were pulled from the rubble after the factory collapsed on Wednesday night, but no one had been recovered alive since Friday night.

At least 22 militants were killed Saturday November 14, 2015, when Pakistani fighter jets bombarded six insurgent hideouts on the country's northwest frontier bordering Afghanistan. The attacks primarily targeted Taliban positions in North Waziristan's Shawal area, where the military has been mounting an offensive against militant strongholds for more than a year. Fighter jets precisely hit the Taliban's hideouts at separate locations in Shawal. Six of their hideouts and an unknown number of vehicles were also destroyed in the air strikes.

On Tuesday November 17, 2015, a train carrying 280 passengers has derailed in a remote area of south-western Pakistan, killing the train driver and 11 passengers and injuring at least 57 people. The accident took place near the village of Abe Ghum as the train was en route to the garrison city of Rawalpindi from Quetta, the capital of impoverished Baluchistan province. A railway official said a technical fault in the engine caused the accident.

Angry protesters attacked and occupied a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect in northeastern Pakistan on Saturday November 20, 2015, a day after they torched a factory in response to rumours an Ahmadi employee had committed blasphemy. The police and army have been deployed to the Jehlum district; there were no casualties. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim but face fierce opposition from among Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority. They are victims of violence and discrimination, and frequently face blasphemy charges, a crime punishable by death in Pakistan.

Unidentified gunmen on Sunday November 21, 2015, killed a Pakistani TV journalist, the second such murder this month in the insurgency-hit northwest. The attackers riding a motorcycle fired on 42-year-old Hafeez Ur Rehman near his home on the outskirts of Kohat, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He was hit by three bullets and died on the spot. The killing came weeks after a similar attack, later reportedly claimed by Taliban militants, on Zaman Mehsud, a newspaper journalist in the nearby town of Tank.

A founder of a Pakistani terror group has been shot dead in the middle of Lahore, in an incident that senior police sources privately admitted was a killing staged by the authorities. Haroon Bhatti, who was extradited from Dubai in September, was killed while in police custody, along with three other members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The men were “hard-core terrorists” involved in dozens of sectarian killings as well as the kidnapping in 2011 of Warren Weinstein, a US aid worker who was accidentally killed in a US drone strike this year.

A founder of one of Pakistan's most feared and ruthless terrorist groups was killed late Wednesday November 25, 2015, the second time in four months that a leader of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. The Sunni extremist group that has been linked to scores of bombings and assassinations, often aimed at Pakistan's Shiite minority. ---

A senior Pakistani health official has been killed when armed assailants opened fire on his vehicle in the country’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa near the border with Afghanistan. Doctor Yaqub Khan, head of the Expanded Program of Immunization in Swabi district of the troubled province, came under attack on Monday November 30, 2015, when he was driving. He was killed on the spot while the driver suffered injuries in the deadly assault. Two women in the back seat escaped unharmed from the attack. 

Four militants involved in the massacre of 134 schoolchildren in Pakistan last year have been executed, weeks before the anniversary of one of country’s worst ever terrorist attacks. The men were hanged in a prison in the city of Kohat early on Wednesday December 2, 2015 for their involvement in the attack on the Army Public school in Peshawar, in which a team of nine suicide fighters used assault weapons and suicide bombs to kill 151 pupils and staff. One of those killed was Maulvi Abdus Salam, whose house the gunmen stayed in before the attack was launched. The other three –Hazrat Ali, Mujeeb ur Rehman and Sabeel, also known as “Yahya”– were said to have facilitated the attack. After a trial held behind closed doors in August, the army announced the men were members of the Toheedwal Jihad Group, a little-known faction of the Pakistani Taliban. All four admitted their involvement in the school attack and other plots, including attacks on Peshawar’s airbase, terrorism fundraising and killing soldiers. Two other men were also sentenced to death while a seventh man was given a life sentence.

Sectarian jihadist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility Sunday December 13, 20`15, for a bomb blast that killed 23 people -70 were wounded- at a crowded bazaar in a predominantly Shiite area of Pakistan's northwestern tribal region. The terrorists implanted an IED (improvised electronic device) at the Eidgah used-clothes market in Parachinar city in retaliation for Shiite support of Iran and Bashar al-Assad.

Pakistan has confirmed on Thursday December 17, 2015, it's part of a Saudi-led "Islamic military alliance" against terrorism in the Muslim world but remained vague about when exactly it joined the new alliance. Pakistan denied media reports from Wednesday that claimed it was "surprised" when its membership in the 34-member group was announced on Tuesday. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been exchanging ideas on how to deal with terrorism.

Pakistan's army has killed 23 suspected militants in northwestern tribal regions near the Afghan border. On Friday, the military said its warplanes had carried out early morning strikes in Shawal valley in North Waziristan and in the Khyber tribal region. Six "terrorists' hideouts" were destroyed and 10 militants were wounded.

Pakistan Wednesday December 23, 2015:

• A fierce gun battle killed at least eight separatists and two paramilitary soldiers during an ongoing anti-terrorist operation in southwest Pakistan. The battle occurred in southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.
• Moreover a roadside bomb attack in a northwestern Pakistani region near the Afghan border claimed three lives, including those of two children.
• Three militants were killed in a similar raid on Tuesday. A paramilitary lieutenant colonel and a solider were also injured.

A strong earthquake shook parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, rattling buildings and forcing sleeping residents out of their homes. More than 30 people were injured as houses or walls collapsed in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar. The magnitude-6.9 quake was centred in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, beginning after midnight Saturday December 26, 2015, and lasting for 59 seconds. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the quake measured at magnitude 6.2 and was centred in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. The quake was also felt in the Kashmir region. In Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, some residents remained outside their homes despite the chilly winter weather, fearful of aftershocks. ---

A suspected suicide attack at a government office in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 26 people. The bomb went off outside the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) office in the town of Mardan on Tuesday December 29, 2015. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban said it carried out the attack, which left more than 45 others wounded. The bomber in Mardan reportedly arrived on a motorbike and blew himself up when stopped by a security guard outside the Nadra building. The office is usually crowded with people queuing up to get ID cards.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have established a hotline between their respective military commanders to reduce frequent cross-border tensions. The line has just been used for the first time as the two countries work to improve co-ordination along the border. The move was agreed when Pakistani army Chief Raheel Sharif visited Kabul. Security co-operation between the two countries is seen as crucial in countering the growing Taliban threat.

Militants launched a deadly attack on an Indian Air Force base near the Pakistan border on Saturday January 2, 2016, exchanging fire with Indian forces who, backed by tanks and helicopters, battled for more than 15 hours before wresting back control of the compound. The assault by gunmen disguised as soldiers, in which all five attackers and at least two guards were killed, came a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an unscheduled visit to Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in an effort to revive bilateral talks.

Military courts in Pakistan have sentenced at least nine people to death for their involvement in terror-related crimes. On Friday January 1, 2016, the country’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif, confirmed the death sentences given by military courts over a series of terror attacks that killed dozens of Shia Muslims and security officials in recent years. The Pakistani army has described the nine convicts as “hard-core terrorists.”

At least 15 people have been killed on Tuesday January 12, 2016, in a suspected suicide bombing outside a polio vaccination centre in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta. Many of the casualties are thought to have been police guarding the clinic. Militants oppose polio vaccination, saying it is a Western conspiracy to sterilise Pakistani children. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where the disease is still endemic.

On Friday January 15, 2016, Pakistan has shut down several religious schools run by the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group. Fourteen people were arrested in a police raid on a mosque and seminary near the city of Daska. The closures follow arrests this week of several members of the group, which India says was behind the recent assault on the Pathankot air base. Jaish-e-Mohammad leader Maulana Masood Azhar is among those being held. Seven Indian soldiers and six militants were killed in the gun battle at Pathankot, which lasted four days when heavily-armed gunmen entered the base dressed in Indian army uniforms. The attack came days after the Indian and Pakistani leaders, Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif, met in Lahore to launch a surprise peace initiative. Pakistan in the aftermath of the attack said that it would take action against Mr Azhar's group whose headquarters are in Punjab province. India has repeatedly accused the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of providing militants with a sanctuary.

Asserting that no talks should take place between India and Pakistan, activists of a right-wing group on Thursday January 14, 2016, vandalised the regional office of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) at Barakhamba Road here. Of the four Hindu Sena men who barged into the PIA office and damaged furniture and gadgets one has been arrested while three others fled before the police arrived. ---

Nearly 80 militants from Pakistan's North Waziristan region surrendered to government forces on Friday January 15, 2016, in a rare move that follows a dip in Taliban violence in Pakistan. Tribal leaders, who asked not to be quoted by name to avoid reprisals, expressed cautious hope that other, more senior leaders from the heavily factionalized insurgency might follow the men.

Five Pakistani soldiers were killed on Monday January 18, 2016, when a bomb exploded next to their vehicle in Baluchistan province. The bomb, planted in a coal-mining district 50 km east of the provincial capital, Quetta, was detonated remotely as members of the Frontier Corps patrolled the area. At least two members of the Frontier Corps, the main state security force in restive Baluchistan, were wounded in the attack.

At least 10 people have been killed by a suicide bomber riding a motorbike close to a police checkpoint in north-western Pakistan. About 20 people were also wounded in the blast, which took place in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) on the outskirts of Peshawar on Monday January 18, 2016.

On Wednesday, a team of four gunmen launched an attack on the Bacha Khan University in the northwestern town of Chasadda, killing at least 19 people and injuring dozens of others. The death toll could rise as high as 40. The assault was in revenge for the Pakistani military’s operations against militants in recent months.

The military have arrested five suspects on charges of facilitating a deadly militant attack on a university that killed 21, mostly students, in the country’s northwest. Islamic militants stormed Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on January 20, killing students and teachers, and triggering a gun battle that lasted for hours.  We were told Saturday January 23, 2016, that the suspects provided the attackers with shelter, transport and weapons. Another three suspects, including two women, are still at large. A splinter faction of the Taliban claimed responsibility and has threatened similar attacks. However the main Taliban organization denied any involvement.

At least four people, including a child, have been injured in a roadside bomb explosion in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar. The blast happened on Sunday morning January 24, 2016, when an improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated, hitting a vehicle in the Phandu Road area of the city. Qari Salahuddin, an Afghan national who taught at a local seminary, his driver, a passenger and a passer-by child were wounded in the incident.

Two alleged assassins of a Pakistani politician knifed to death on a London street have testified that they travelled from Pakistan to commit the killing on the orders of rival British-based leaders of his party. The confessions are the latest twist in the grisly killing of Imran Farooq, an exiled leader of a controversial Pakistan political party who was stabbed outside his north London home in 2010. Unbeknown to his neighbours, Mr Farooq was a leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a party with a long association with violence in his homeland. He was granted asylum in Britain and later gained British citizenship, but he was believed to be planning to form a breakaway faction when he was murdered.

On Tuesday January 16, 2016, Pakistan closed all the schools in the country's largest province, Punjab, following an alert over possible militant attacks. The warning comes a week after a breakaway Taliban faction attacked a northwestern university and killed 21 people, mostly students. That school -the Bacha Khan University in the northwestern town of Charsadda- reopened briefly on Monday but then closed indefinitely to give students more time to recover from the incident. There is intelligence that 13 Taliban fighters recently entered the country from neighbouring Afghanistan and were planning suicide attacks on schools across Pakistan. The schools in Punjab would remain closed till the end of the month. The closures were also due to harsh winter weather and heavy fog. Schools were also closed in southwestern Baluchistan province for the usual winter break there. In the northwest and the south, schools remained open and it was not immediately clear if there where additional concerns that prompted the closures in Punjab

A suicide car bomber has blown himself up outside the gate of an army facility in southwest Pakistan, wounding at least five people. The attacker detonated the car bomb Friday January 29, 2016, after being asked to halt in the district of Zob in Baluchistan province. A child, a civilian and three security force members were wounded in the attack. The attacker failed to enter the army's facility which houses offices and residential buildings for officers.

At least nine people were killed and 35 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a military convoy in Pakistan's western city of Quetta on Saturday February 6, 2016. The group, also known as the TTP, was responsible for the attack in the capital of the province of Baluchistan. The suicide bomber was riding a bicycle close to a Frontier Corps vehicle. At least three Frontier Corps personnel were killed and 15 were injured in the attack that occurred in the city centre. A 12-year-old girl was also among the dead.

Gunmen shot and wounded a Pakistani polio worker in the eastern city of Lahore on Wednesday February 17, 2016. Pakistan accounts for more than 70 percent of the world's cases of the virus. More than 100,000 health workers fanned out across Pakistan this week, stepping up a drive to eliminate the polio virus this year from one of its last bastions, despite threats from militants against the vaccination teams. Two men on a motorcycle opened fire on the vaccinators and ran away. On Wednesday afternoon, he said. A health worker was hit by the bullet in his leg and was rushed to hospital.

A disabled Christian man and his wife sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy have claimed they were tortured into confessing. Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, from Gojra, East Pakistan, were found guilty of sending a text message which 'blasphemed' against the Prophet Mohammed to their local imam in 2013. Mr Emmanuel, who is paralysed from the waist down, claims the only reason he confessed to the crime was because he could not stand watching his wife be tortured by police.

Pakistan hanged 324 people last year to rank third worldwide in terms of executions, but the vast majority of those put to death had no links to militant groups or attacks. Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in late 2014 as a measure to deter militancy, after a Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 students and 19 adults. Of the 351 executions that followed, only 39, or about 1 in 10, involved people linked to a known militant group or guilty of crimes linked to militancy. Pakistan now ranks after China and Iran, carrying out 324 hangings in 2015 alone. Juveniles, mentally ill prisoners, and prisoners who had been tortured or had not received fair trials were among those executed.---

Pakistan Friday February 19, 2016:

• Three police officers were killed by unknown assailants in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad in an incident that is being investigated as a possible attack by Islamic State.
• The three attackers, who escaped the scene, dropped copies of a pamphlet addressed to security officials which said a regional chapter of the Middle East-based militant group claimed responsibility for recent attacks on security forces. It warned police against "protecting the un-Islamic system" of democracy and urged them to quit their jobs or face violent consequences.
• Militants blew up part of a newly constructed government school in Pakistan's South Waziristan region late Friday night.
• No one was hurt in the blast in Pakistan's tribal belt, but 18 labourers working on the site were abducted. The workers were released a short time later.
• The girls' wing of the school in the Tehsil Tiarza area was damaged in Friday's blast, as well as some heavy machinery being used for ongoing construction at the site.
• In a separate incident in Mohmand tribal area to the north, Pakistani security officials killed five militants during a clash near Mohmand Agency's administrative headquarters on Saturday.

The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) has apprehended another 48 Indian fishermen and seized their nine boats from Arabian Sea off Jakhau port of Gujarat, hours after it held 40 fishermen from India from the same spot we were told on Saturday February 20, 2016.

Three police officers were killed by unknown assailants in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad on Friday February 19, 2016. The three attackers, who escaped the scene, dropped copies of a pamphlet addressed to security officials which said a regional chapter of the Middle East-based militant group claimed responsibility for "recent attacks on security forces.

Four missiles fired by a U.S. drone hit mud homes in Pakistan's troubled Kurram tribal region Monday February 22, 2016. The strike hit three homes, killing four suspected militants and injuring three others.

Pakistani police raided two militant hideouts on the outskirts of the port city of Karachi, sparking shootouts in which 12 militants were killed we were told Wednesday February 24, 2016.Seven of the slain men belonged to Pakistan's anti-Shiite Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group while five were from al-Qaida's branch in the Indian subcontinent. The slain suspects were involved in killings of civilians and attacks on security forces. Two policemen were also wounded in the shootouts. Bomb-making material, guns and assault rifles from the militants' hideouts were retrieved.

Security forces have killed 19 "terrorists" during a ground operation in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border. Four troops were killed in Saturday February 27, 2016's fighting in the Shawal area of North Waziristan. Several militants were also wounded during the final phase of the operation, which was launched earlier this week. ---

The Pakistani military's latest ground and aerial onslaught in the troubled northwest killed at least 34 Islamist militants Saturday February 27, 2016, while five of its troops also died during clashes, security officials said. Pakistani air force jets pounded militants' hideouts in the northwestern tribal belt, killing at least 15 Taliban insurgents including six Uzbeks. The strikes were carried out in the Maizer area of the Datta Khail region in North Waziristan, a stronghold for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants. As many as four hideouts were destroyed in the strikes this morning.

Two Pakistanis working on a US government counter-narcotics programme in the border region near Afghanistan have been killed by roadside bomb we were told Tuesday March 1, 2016. A few of the Pakistani soldiers accompanying the men on an effort to eradicate poppy fields were also killed. The unidentified men were local employees at the US consulate in the western city of Peshawar and were working on a programme that attempts to persuade opium farmers to grow alternative crops. One of the men killed was an inspector working on the project and the other was employed as a driver. Pakistan’s opium production is dwarfed by neighbouring Afghanistan, which cultivated 183,000 hectares in 2015.

The Taliban will not be attending what it calls "futile" peace talks in Pakistan. The militant group said it will not be attending meetings of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), and does not plan to show up. Representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States make up the QCG, which has been trying to broker discussions between the Western-backed Afghan government and the Taliban. The talks aim to end the "senseless violence" and restore peace and security in the region. The QCG are due to meet in Islamabad next week. The Taliban once again reiterates that unless the occupation of Afghanistan is ended, black lists eliminated and innocent prisoners freed, such futile misleading negotiations will not bear any results. The group also said that it was “contradictory” that the peace talks were occurring as the US deployed “fresh troops” to Afghanistan.

At least 14 people have been killed in a Pakistan bombing which militants say was in revenge for the hanging of a policeman turned assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, who was seen by many as a religious hero. The suicide attack, at the entrance to a court in the north-western town of Shabqadar, wounded nearly 30 others. Qadri killed the governor of Punjab in 2011 for opposing blasphemy laws. One of Pakistan’s most high-profile kidnap victims, the son of the assassinated businessman and politician Salmaan Taseer, has been rescued after nearly five years in captivity. Shahbaz Taseer, the 33-year-old son of the former governor of Punjab, was picked up by security forces on Tuesday March 8, 2016, from a restaurant in Kuchlak a town in the province of Balochistan.

They were sisters and they died together, shot dead a few days ago in another of Pakistan's relentless cycle of honour killings. The man accused of taking their young lives was their brother. Fauzia, 23, and Surayya, 21, were shot in their beds. The accused killer, Mohammad Asif, said that he "doubted their characters and was against their lifestyle". He fled the small farming village of Noor Shah, in the district of Sahiwal in Punjab province. The girls' distraught father, 56-year-old Muhammad Ashraf, flew home, paralysed by grief and shock. He has lived in the United Arab Emirates for decades, where he drives a taxi. ---

Pakistani authorities on Friday March 11, 2016, arrested 22 tribesmen in the troubled northwestern South Waziristan region in a "collective responsibility" punishment a day after eight government officials were kidnapped. Pakistan's tribal areas, which include South Waziristan, are governed by colonial-era legislation under which relatives, tribesmen and neighbours of suspects can be arrested and detained for years without trial for a crime committed by another. Eight officials of the Fata Development Authority (FDA), the government organisation for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, were kidnapped in South Waziristan on Thursday.

Gunmen riding on a motorcycle have shot and killed an army officer in the northwestern city of Peshawar. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack. Yhe assailants gunned down Lt. Col. Tariq Ghafoor near a mosque in an upscale neighborhood of the city on Friday March 11, 2016. Ghafoor was getting out of his car to go to prayers when the drive-by shooting took place. The gunmen fled the scene.

At least seven miners were killed when a coal mine collapsed in northwest Pakistan. Two more miners were still missing after heavy rain caused the collapse of a coal mine on Saturday March 12, 2016, in the Orakzai tribal district, a largely lawless tribal area along the Afghan border. 26 miners were rescued, but the rescue effort was being hampered by heavy rain. More than 100 troops from the army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps were helping operate heavy machinery at the site and providing medical support.

On Monday March 14, 2016, we were told that at least 42 people have been killed due to torrential rain across Pakistan for the past five days. 70 injuries were also reported and 75 houses damaged. The southwestern province of Balochistan and northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been worst hit. The majority of deaths and injuries were caused by collapsing houses. On March 13, at least eight miners were killed when a coal mine collapsed due to heavy rain in northwestern Pakistan.

At least 17 people were killed and dozens wounded on Wednesday March 16, 2016, when a bomb exploded inside a bus in Peshawar. The explosion happened as the bus carrying mainly government employees was passing through the city's crowded shopping district of Saddar.  A total of 47 wounded were brought to hospital and many have been discharged after first aid. Five people among the 19 injured admitted are still critical. A four-kilogram improvised explosive device had been planted near the bus's gas cylinder and appeared to have been detonated remotely. The IED was fitted with ball bearings and was planted beneath the sixth row of seats from the back. The bus was carrying government employees from the northwestern town of Mardan to Peshawar. The vehicle appeared to leap in the air after the explosion.

A senior Islamic State (IS) militant commander was killed by security forces in Pakistan we were told Thursday March 17, 2016. Kamran Aslam, also known as Kamran Gujjar, was killed in a police raid in Karachi’s Ettihad Town neighborhood. Police also seized an automatic rifle, three grenades and explosives materials. A 2.5 million Pakistani rupees (around $24,000) reward was being offered for his capture. Aslam was an IS-trained militant, and he was formerly associated with al-Qaida’s sub-continent branch.

A mudslide on a hilly track buried eight teenage students returning home after exams in northern Pakistan after several days of heavy rain we were told Sunday March 20, 2016. The incident occurred Saturday in the village of Susam, near the Afghan border. More than a week of rains across northern Pakistan and other parts of the country has caused 79 deaths and at least 100 injuries in mudslides and house collapses.

A security guard in the Pakistani city of Karachi has shot dead an 11-year-old boy wearing a monster mask. The boy had sneaked up on the guard in an attempt to scare him, and the guard responded by opening fire. The boy was taken to hospital, but died of his injuries. The guard has been arrested.

At least 24 people in southern Pakistan have died from poisoning after drinking illegally-made alcohol. A number of others are in hospital after Monday March 21, 2016's incident in Sindh province. At least two of those who died were women. Most of the victims were from the country's Hindu minority, although some were Muslims. Muslims are forbidden from buying or drinking alcohol in Pakistan and minorities need a permit to buy liquor. However, many people illegally brew alcohol at home, and there have been several cases of mass poisonings in the past; in 2014 some 40 people died within a few days as a result of drinking tainted alcohol in Sindh.

At least 65 people have been killed and more than 280 injured, most of them women and children, in an apparent suicide bombing directed at local Christians at a park in Lahore. The explosion took place in the parking area of Gulshan-e-Iqbal park in the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, a few metres away from children’s swings. The area was crowded because Christians were celebrating the Easter holiday and many families were leaving the park when the blast occurred. The explosion appeared to have been a suicide bombing but investigations were continuing. ---

The colossal leak, dubbed Panama Papers, which revealed the financial operations carried out by the world's rich and famous through shell companies, has shed light on the monetary dealings of Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children as well. According to the records of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca Sharif's children owned London real estate through a labyrinth of businesses. Sharif is among the high-profile politicians, besides Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who have figured in the massive leak of secret documents. While figuring in the disclosures does not necessarily imply wrongdoing, it could open a can of worms pertaining to potential tax-avoidance techniques adopted by the world's elite. Three of Sharif's four children —Maryam Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz— are involved in numerous businesses having properties abroad. The Sharifs, one of Pakistan's richest families, are already conspicuous by the political clout they wield in the country. There are more than 200 Pakistanis identified in the leak and they include lawyers, lawmakers and some people from the judiciary.

A powerful earthquake –magnitude 6.5- rattled Pakistan's capital and other cities on Sunday April 10, 2016, killing one person in the northwest and wounding 30 others. The magnitude-7.1 quake was centered near neighboring Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan. Residents fled their homes and offices in the capital, Islamabad, as buildings swayed. Television footage showed people praying in public. Tremors were felt as far away as the Indian capital, New Delhi.

In an unusual incident, a hand grenade submitted as proof in a Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Monday April 11, 2016, accidentally went off in Karachi, injuring three persons. The explosion took place in the court where the judge was presiding over a high-profile terror case. The grenade was among weapons and explosives recovered from a suspect against which a case had been filed in the ATC for illegal possession of explosives.

At least 19 people have been killed in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province on Tuesday April 12, 2016. Women and children were among the fatalities, and several other people were injured in the crash near the city of Faisalabad. The bus appeared to have been speeding at the time of the accident.

On Tuesday April 19, 2016, seven Pakistani policemen, three of whom were guarding polio workers, have been killed in Karachi. Eight gunmen on motorcycles fired at a group of three police guards and later at a van containing four officers. Islamist militants oppose vaccination, saying it is a Western conspiracy to sterilise Pakistani children. In January, 15 people were killed in a bomb attack on a vaccination centre in the south-western city of Quetta. 

A notorious Pakistani bandit and 13 members of his gang have surrendered to troops after a military operation in Punjab province on Tuesday April 19, 2016. It said 24 policemen taken hostage a week ago had also been rescued. Ghulam Rasool, known as Chhotu, had been taken for questioning and "combing operations" were continuing in the area. The bandits have been blamed for hundreds of kidnappings, gun-smuggling and other crimes in recent years. They operate in a remote region of southern Punjab and have been battling troops for several weeks.

Pakistani Taliban gunmen shot dead a prominent Sikh figure and opposition party worker on Friday April 22, 2016, in the latest attack on a religious minority in the majority-Muslim nation. Soran Singh was a leading figure in Pakistan's tiny Sikh community and an adviser to a provincial chief minister, representing cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party. Singh was attacked by gunmen in his native village in the Buner valley in northwest Pakistan.

Pakistan has sacked six high-ranking army officers, including two generals, who were convicted of being involved in corruption. A lieutenant-general, a major-general, three brigadiers and a colonel were dismissed on Thursday April 21, 2016, after a court found them guilty of corruption. The officers were only stripped off some military benefits, except for pension and medical ones. The move came two days after Pakistan’s army chief General Raheel Sharif said corruption had to be uprooted amid the fight against terrorism. ---

Sunday April 24, 2016, we were told that at least 23 people have died from eating contaminated sweets in central Pakistan. The deaths began last week after a man in Punjab province bought the treats to celebrate the birth of his son. He and 11 other relatives are among the dead -in all 77 people were affected. Five remain in a serious condition. Police have arrested two owners of a local sweetshop and one of their employees while the source of the contamination is investigated. Pesticide from a store next to the shop may accidentally have found its way into the laddoos -ball-shaped sweets popular at special occasions.

Pakistan Wednesday April 25, 2016:

• Pakistani authorities have arrested an al-Qaida financier who has been on a U.N. sanctions list since 2012.
• Abdur Rehman Sindhi was detained during a raid by intelligence agencies in Karachi last week. A joint team of police and intelligence agents was questioning the suspect on what role he might have played in militant attacks in Pakistan in recent years.
• A Sikh lawmaker gunned down last week was killed by a political rival, Baldev Kumar, from the minority community. The suspect was arrested along with five other suspects.

 

On Wednesday April 27, 2016, the US has returned an ancient Buddhist stone sculpture to Pakistan, from where it was stolen in the 1980s. The 2nd Century piece, depicting Buddha's footprints alongside religious symbols, was taken from the Swat Valley and eventually smuggled into the US. A Japanese antiques dealer who brought it to the US from Tokyo pleaded guilty to possessing stolen property in April 2016.

Pakistani authorities are looking for a group of suicide bombers who allegedly entered from Afghanistan to target different locations we were told Thursday April 28, 2016. The tip-off came after the deadly bombing in Kabul last week which killed 64 people and for which Afghanistan blamed the Pakistan-based Haqqani network. As many as 11 suicide bombers entered from Afghanistan some 22 days ago, and two of them blew themselves up in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recently. The bombers were affiliated with Sajna Group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

On Thursday May 5, 2016, we were told that village elders ordered the murder of a teenage girl because she had helped a school friend to elope. The 16-year-old was kidnapped from her home near Abbottabad, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and put inside a vehicle that was set alight. The victim's mother and the leader of the local council, or jirga, are among several people arrested. The killing has been linked to orders given last week by the jirga, a traditional assembly of elders, in Makol village. The 15-member jirga had ordered the girl, named as Amber, to be killed and set alight as punishment for helping her friend to marry of her own free will. The girl was kidnapped, drugged and killed and then placed in the back seat of a parked van that was doused with petrol and set on fire. Other media reports said the victim was still alive when the van was set alight.

Prominent activist and crusader against sectarian violence, Khurram Zaki, has been killed by unidentified gunmen in Karachi. Four attackers opened fire on Zaki while he was in a restaurant, killing him as well as wounding a friend and bystander. The fatal attack happened around midnight on Saturday May 7, 2016, in the northern area of Karachi. The activist was a human rights campaigner and also the website editor of the Let Us Build Pakistan (LUBP) Facebook page, whose manifesto was to "spread liberal religious views and condemn extremism in all forms".

13 members of a local tribal council who allegedly strangled a local girl and set her body on fire as punishment for helping one of her friends elope will face trial under anti-terrorism laws. The body of 17-year-old Ambreen Riasat was found in a torched van near a tourist resort in northwestern Pakistan on April 29, 2016. The tribal council ordered the killing. Nearly 1,000 women are killed every year in Pakistan in so-called honor killings in response to alleged romantic liaisons outside the bounds of arranged marriage. The killings are often carried out by close male relatives.

On Monday May 9, 2016, we were told that the son of a former Pakistani prime minister who was kidnapped by militants during an election rally in 2013 has been rescued in Afghanistan. Ali Haider Gilani was freed after three years in captivity in a joint operation by Afghan and US forces. Gilani was recovered in Paktika, a province that borders Pakistan. ---

Pakistan Tuesday May 17, 2016:

• Two blasts targeting a police convoy have killed at least one policeman and wounded dozens more in the northwest of Pakistan.
• The first improvised explosive device (IED) planted on a roadside exploded as a police patrol passed in Mathra, a neighbourhood on the southern outskirts of Peshawar.
• The second blast came 20 minutes later as police and rescuers were trying to help casualties.
• No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
• The Pakistan Taliban regularly target military and civilian installations as part of a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

 

A man charged with a double murder from 2011 is the first person to be extradited to the UK from Pakistan in more than 10 years. West Yorkshire Police said Mohammed Zubair has been charged with murdering labourer Imran Khan, 27, and electrician Ahmedin Sayed Khyel, 35, who were found dead in Bradford in May 2011.The two Afghan friends were battered to death in the city and their bodies were left in New Lane, near the village of Tong. Zubair was charged on his return from Pakistan after a two-and-a-half-year extradition process.

At least 13 people were killed and about a dozen others injured on Saturday May 21, 2016, when a passenger bus collided with a truck in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The bus collided with the truck on Khushab road in Jhang district.

Pakistan has denounced a drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour on Saturday May 21, 2016, as a "violation" of its airspace. One of the victims of the attack was a driver named Muhammad Azam, while the identity of the second "is being verified". However, a senior commander from the militant group has confirmed Mansour was killed in the strike.

On Monday May 23, 2016, Pakistan's interior minister says he cannot confirm the death of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour by a US drone strike, saying the recovered body was charred beyond recognition. DNA tests will reveal the identity of the man killed in the drone strike.

Five Pakistan navy officers linked to the Islamic State have been sentenced to death in a secret military trial for allegedly planning to hijack a Pakistani warship to attack one of the US navy’s refuel ships we were told Tuesday May 24, 2016. Sub-Lieutenant Hammad Ahmed and four other naval officers have been sentenced after being convicted by a Navy tribunal for their involvement in the September 6, 2014 attack on Karachi Naval Dockyard. The five were charged with having links with the militant Islamic State group, mutiny, hatching a conspiracy and carrying weapons in the dockyard.

When a 23-year-old transgender activist was shot six times by a gang on Sunday night May 22, 2016, in northern Pakistan, other members of her community rushed her to a hospital. Violent attacks on transgender people aren't rare in Pakistan, or across South Asia and beyond for that matter, and the group young Alesha coordinated for, Trans Action, had long campaigned for greater protection. In Facebook posts, Trans Action said the gang that shot Alesha specifically targets members of the transgender community, and sometimes sexually assaults them while recording the crime. In retrospect, that Alesha faced the same neglect and discrimination at the hospital, and ultimately died from it, seems a sad foregone conclusion. Distraught colleagues of hers documented their attempts to get her treated on social media. ---

A draft proposal by Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology has recommended that husbands should be able to beat their wives, as long as they do it “lightly”.

A Chinese engineer was among the three people injured on Monday May 30, 2016, when suspected militants triggered a remote-controlled explosion. Pamphlets recovered from the site denounce “foreign control” over Sindh’s natural resources. The bomb was planted on the green belt in Gulshan-i-Hadeed area of Karachi and exploded as the vehicle of the Chinese engineer was just passing by it. Finche, a Chinese national and his driver Tariq Aziz, 25, were among those injured. The identity of the third victim was not known.

A Pakistani woman who was set on fire for refusing a marriage proposal has died of her injuries. Maria Sadaqat, a young schoolteacher, was attacked in her home by a group of men on Sunday May 29, 2016, and died in hospital in Islamabad on Wednesday. Her family say she had turned down a marriage proposal from the son of the owner of a school she had taught at. Attacks on women who refuse marriage proposals are common in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, where alcohol consumption is banned for Muslims, the government issues licenses for wine shops run by its excise department where only non-Muslims and foreigners can purchase liquor. Two Hindus were among three persons shot dead when unidentified motorcycle-borne assailants opened fire at a licensed liquor shop in this Pakistani port city. Three men, including the two Hindus, were at the ‘Super Wine shop’ in Gulshan-e-Iqbal area in Karachi on Sunday June 5, 2016, when the gunmen opened fire, killing them on the spot. The owner of the shop, Taru Mal, escaped unhurt.

A Pakistani couple have been murdered in Lahore for marrying without their family’s consent, the second so-called “honour” killing in the south Asia nation this week. Muhammad Ashraf, 56, killed his daughter Saba and her husband Karamat Ali a day after the couple returned to Lahore’s Kahna area to smooth over rocky relations with the family, who disapproved of the marriage. Eighteen-year-old Saba had married Karamat Ali, who is 35, around a year and a half ago against the will of her family and returned to her home on Thursday night June 9, 2016, to settle matters with father and other family members. Ashraf, a security guard by profession, opened fire on his daughter and son-in-law after becoming infuriated during a heated conversation. He also killed his neighbour Muhammad Akram for supporting his daughter’s marriage. Ashraf and his son Safdar later surrendered to police and confessed to the murders. The incident comes just days after another woman in Lahore, Zeenat Bibi, was burned alive by her mother for marrying a man of her own choice. Bibi’s mother later confessed to the crime. On Friday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered a comprehensive investigation into Bibi’s killing, calling the crime “un-Islamic”.

Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged heavy gunfire on Sunday and Monday in an unusually serious escalation of tensions at the border, leaving at least 13 people wounded on the Pakistani side and killing at least one Afghan police officer. The fighting, which began on Sunday night and resumed Monday June 13, 2016, forced the closing of the Torkham border crossing, the busiest between the two countries. The escalation followed the closing of the Torkham crossing last month after Afghan border security guards objected to the construction of a gate on the Pakistani side. That objection also apparently contributed to the conflict on Sunday. The border remained closed for five days last month but was reopened after a meeting between the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, and Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif. An official statement by the Pakistan Army late on Sunday accused the Afghan border guards of resorting to an unprovoked attack when work began on the installation of a gate on the Pakistani side.

Pakistani troops fired heavy artillery at Afghan forces at their main Khyber Pass border crossing on Wednesday June 15, 2016, after days of clashes that have killed four people and stranded thousands on both sides. Relations between the U.S. allies have never been close but have been strained over the past 15 years by Afghan accusations that Pakistan supports the Taliban who are fighting to unseat the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Pakistan denies that. The countries have blamed each other for the fighting that broke out on Sunday at the main crossing point between them over the construction of a new border post on the Pakistani side. ---

Pakistan reopened a main border crossing with Afghanistan that was closed earlier this week following clashes between the two sides over Pakistan's construction of a gate to curb illegal cross-border movement we were told Saturday June 18, 2016. All those carrying valid travel documents were now being allowed to cross Torkham border. Thousands of people have been stranded on both sides due to the border closure last Sunday, when Pakistan and Afghanistan began trading fire and two Afghan border guards and one Pakistani army officer were killed.

Pakistani authorities on Monday June 20, 2016, interrogated six Pakistani militant commanders, including the uncle and brother of former Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, after they surrendered to the military over the weekend. The surrender of Hakimullah’s family may weaken the Pakistani Taliban’s insurgency which has raged since 2007. The main force of the Pakistani Taliban has been led by Mullah Fazlullah since 2013, when Hakimullah was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Hakimullah’s brother Ijaz and uncle Khair Mohammad had pledged allegiance to a splinter faction led by Khan Said, who was also reportedly killed by a drone attack in November.

Masked men kidnapped the son of a senior Pakistani judge in the southern port city of Karachi suspecting the victim could be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations to free imprisoned fighters from banned groups. Awais Ali Shah, the son of Sindh High Court Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, was abducted outside a supermarket in the city on Monday June 20, 2016. Witnesses told officers that Shah, a lawyer, had put up a fight before being quickly overpowered and thrown into a white getaway car. Security officials believe the kidnappers would offer to free Shah in return for the release of captured fighter.

One of Pakistan’s most famous and respected musicians, celebrated for devotional songs from a centuries-old mystic tradition, has been shot dead by Taliban gunmen in Karachi. Amjad Sabri, 45, was shot by two men on a motorbike as he drove through a congested area of the port city on Wednesday June 22, 2016. A relative travelling with the musician was injured but survived. Sabri was targeted because the Taliban considered his music blasphemous. The attack happened a day after a homeopathic doctor from the Ahmadi minority was killed in the same city, and two days after masked men seized the son of a top provincial judge, fuelling concerns about violence and extremism in Pakistan’s economic capital.

A bomb rigged to a bicycle has exploded outside a market in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least three people and wounding 32 others Friday June 24, 2016. Several shops were also damaged in today's bombing in Alam Road in Quetta, the capital of impoverished Baluchistan province. The latest attack came two days after gunmen shot and killed a well-known Sufi Amjad Sabri in the port city of Karachi. The murder was later claimed by ISIS terrorists.

Counter-terrorist police raided a building in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday June 26, 2016, and arrested three men affiliated with Islamic State who were planning to attack government buildings. Lahore's counter terrorism seized 1.5 kg of explosives and detonators apart from arresting the three men. Islamic State and LeJ leader Ishaq have been in contact since 2014 and were seeking to establish a foothold for Islamic State operations in Pakistan.

Gunmen have ambushed army and police patrols in two separate attacks across southwestern Pakistan, killing at least eight soldiers. Two gunmen on a motorcycle attacked Wednesday June 29, 2016, an army vehicle in a market in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, killing four soldiers and wounding a civilian. Separately four police were also shot dead by militants late Tuesday in Quetta. ---

Gunmen shot dead four paramilitary officials in Pakistan's western city of Quetta a day after four policemen were killed in a region that is to host a $US46 billion China-Pakistan economic corridor. The officials of the paramilitary Frontier Corps were patrolling in their official vehicle when they were attacked on Wednesday June 29, 2016. Two officers died instantly, while another two succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

At least 31 people have been killed and several others remain missing after heavy rain and flash floods hit northern Pakistan close to the Afghan border. Mosques, several houses and an army post in Ursoon village in the southwest of Chitral district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province faced extensive damage after incessant rain caused flash floods early on Sunday July 2, 2016. At least 11 people were still missing.

A Pakistani Taliban leader accused of orchestrating a 2014 school massacre has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan. Umar Narai, also known as Umar Khalifa and Khalid Khurasani, died in Nangarhar province over the weekend we were told on Wednesday July 13, 2016. He was wanted for his role in a Taliban attack at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Narai "was killed along with four other enemy combatants in a US Forces-Afghanistan air strike targeting Islamic State-Khorasan Province members. The US designated the "Khorasan Province" - an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group based in Afghanistan and Pakistan - a "terrorist" organisation in 2015.

The brother of Pakistani social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch has been arrested for her murder. The brother, Waseem, 25, was arrested in Dera Ghazi Khan in central Pakistan on Saturday night July 16, 2016. He had confessed to the murder, saying he drugged and strangled her "for dishonouring the Baloch name". Qandeel Baloch, 26, became a household name for posting sometimes raunchy photographs, comments and videos. She recently caused controversy by posting pictures of herself alongside a Muslim cleric.

Security forces in Pakistan have rescued the son of a senior judge who was abducted in the city of Karachi last month. Awais Ali Shah, a lawyer, was rescued early on Tuesday July 18, 2016, near Tank, a town close to Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. He was found in a car with his legs and hands bound and wearing a burqa. Three militants were said to be killed in a shootout before he was rescued. A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the kidnapping.

Police are investigating the death of a British woman in Pakistan after her husband claimed she was the victim of an “honour” killing for marrying a man from outside the family allegedly against her parents’ wishes. Samia Shahid, a beauty therapist from Bradford, died on Wednesday July 20, 2016, while visiting relatives in Pandori village near Mangla Dam in northern Punjab. Shahid’s local MP, Naz Shah, has demanded that authorities in Pakistan exhume her body and commission an independent autopsy. Samples from the body were sent to the country’s top forensics lab in Lahore on Tuesday July 26. A postmortem was carried out immediately after Shahid died and she was then buried in her village graveyard. There were no visible injuries or signs of violence on her body the local police said. ---

On Friday July 29, 2016, we were told that the British woman found dead in Pakistan last week in an alleged “honour killing” had a bruise on her neck which doctors say suggest she was throttled to death, a post-mortem report has revealed. The report found that “there is a horizontal mark on right hand side of the neck of reddish discolouration”. Photographs included as part of the report show a long bruise around the neck a few millimetres in width. A senior doctor at the government-run Jhelum hospital said that “cause of death looks like strangulation of the neck with a narrow rope-like object.” A hospital source confirmed that the doctor's signatures on the post-mortem documents match those of the doctor who conducted the study. Ms Shahid, 28, a beauty therapist from Bradford, was reported dead last week in Pandori village in northern Punjab, her family's ancestral home. Ms Shahid’s father says she died of natural causes. Syed Mukhtair, her second husband, alleges that the family was unhappy with his wife’s divorce and remarriage to him, and had tricked her into returning to Pakistan by falsely claiming that her father was unwell, in order to kill her.

Pakistan Friday July 29, 2016:

• British beautician WAS murdered in 'honour killing' in Pakistan: Grieving husband releases shock photo of wife's body with red marks on her neck as police reveal she was suffocated.
• Samia Shahid, 28, from Bradford, died visiting relatives in northern Punjab.
• Husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, said she was murdered in 'honour killing'.
• Police initially decided she had no suspicious injuries so allowed her family to bury her in Pandori, northern Punjab.
• But they have now launched a murder inquiry and are investigating claims the family bribed officials to cover-up the post-mortem.
• Her ex-husband and father have both been arrested on suspicion of murder.
• A cousin, Mobeen Mohammed, has also been arrested in Pakistan.

 

A Pakistani man shot dead his own sisters the day before their weddings because they chose their own husbands. Nazir Hussaid, 35, from the central Punjab province, shot Kosar and Gulzar Bibi, 22 and 28, in the horrific double honour killing, and is now on the run. The two women were preparing to marry men they had chosen themselves we were told Saturday July 30, 2016. Hussaid objected to the love matches and had wanted the women to marry someone within the extended family.

A major terror attack in Pakistan was foiled on Sunday July 31, 2016, with security forces killing seven militants who were plotting to target key government installations in Punjab province. The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police had received information that around 10 to 12 militants were planning to attack sensitive installations and buildings of law enforcement agencies here. A CTD team along with police commandos raided a house in Chak Char Rasala Sheikhupura district some 50 km from Lahore in early hours today. The team asked them to surrender. But instead they opened fire on the raiding team which returned the fire, killing seven militants on the spot. The remaining three managed to flee. Explosives, hand grenades, kalashnikovs a large quantity of bullets, three motorcycles and maps of sensitive buildings have been recovered from their hideout.

A roadside bomb has exploded near a vehicle carrying paramilitary rangers in southern Pakistan, killing a security official and wounding three officers and five civilians. We were told Saturday July 30, 2016, that a search operation has been launched in the city of Larkana where the attack took place. Larkana is a main city in Sindh province where Pakistani militants often target police and paramilitary rangers. ---

At least seven militants have been killed during a shootout with Pakistani police in the province of Punjab. The militants were killed when counter-terrorism forces raided their hideout about 56 kilometers west of Lahore, the capital of Punjab Sunday July 31, 2016. When the firing stopped, seven terrorists were found dead by the firing of their own accomplices and the remaining escaped in the darkness of the night. The militants were affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and a notorious anti-Shia terrorist group known as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). Some of the militants had been involved in subversive activities, including multiple attacks on Pakistani security forces, according to the police statement. The LeJ terrorist group, which has been involved in several attacks on Shia Muslims in recent years, is largely funded by Saudi Arabia. It has claimed responsibility for some of the most brazen attacks on the Shia community in Pakistan's recent history, including a January 2013 bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta, where over 100 members of the Hazara community were killed. The group has also been involved in an attack on the Iranian Cultural Center in Multan, the assassination of Iranian diplomat Sadeq Ganji in the city of Lahore, and the killing of Iranian Air Force cadets visiting Pakistan in the 1990s.

Pakistan has arrested at least 12 staff of its national carrier following the discovery of 6 kg of heroin in the toilet of an aircraft bound for Dubai we were told Monday August 1, 2016. The military-run Anti-Narcotics Force raided a flight from Lahore to Dubai flight on Saturday, Danyal Gilani said.

A British beauty therapist allegedly murdered in an 'honour killing' in Pakistan was definitely strangled we were told Tuesday August 2, 2016. Samia Shahid, 28, suffered a 7.5ins gash to her neck in her ancestral Punjab village, which experts believe could have been inflicted by a rope. She died suddenly when she went to see her sick father a fortnight ago. Her family said she died of a heart attack or a severe asthma attack and had her buried. But her husband Syed Mukhtar Kazam insists she was murdered by her family because they disapproved of their marriage.

Taliban fighters are believed to have captured all passengers and crew of a Pakistani government helicopter that crash-landed in eastern Afghanistan. The helicopter went down late on Thursday August 4, 2016, in Logar province, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, an increasingly lawless area since a two-year Pakistani military operation pushed many Taliban and allied fighters further into Afghanistan. The chopper was not shot but made the landing because of technical failure. The Pakistani foreign office, confirmed that a helicopter belonging to the Punjab provincial government had gone down in Logar, but the fate of those on board was not yet clear. Seven passengers were on board, six of them Pakistanis and one a Russian technician. The pilot was Pakistani. The Russian-made MI-17 transport helicopter had permission to fly over Afghan airspace on its way to Uzbekistan further north. The helicopter was en route from Peshawar in northwest Pakistan to Uzbekistan for maintenance when it experienced technical failure and made an emergency landing.

Pakistani police have declared the death last month of a U.K. woman of Pakistani origin to be murder we were told Thursday August 4, 2016, in what appears to be the latest in so-called "honor killings" of women in Pakistan. The social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch was strangled by her brother for posting photographs of herself on line that were deemed shameful in conservative Pakistan. Nearly 1,000 women are killed every year in Pakistan by family members in so-called "honor killings." A forensic examination concluded that Shahid, of Bradford, U.K., was killed by asphyxiation.

The crew of a Pakistani helicopter that crashed in a lawless region of Afghanistan is being held by insurgents we were told Friday August 5, 2016. The crash took place late on Thursday night coming down in territory controlled by insurgents. All seven people aboard the MI-17 chopper had been detained by the Taliban. The airmen had been taken to a "safe location" by the TTP to avoid any attacks by Afghan forces or the Afghan Taliban faction. One of the pilots was critically injured in the crash adding that the crew also includes men from Pakistan's secret service. While the Taliban were taking the crew captive, their positions were shelled by aircraft, which killed one and wounded two of their fighters. There were only six crew members on board after one backed out of the flight at the last minute. The Russian-made chopper was being flown to Russia via Uzbekistan for maintenance. ---

A suicide bomb attack has killed at least 70 people at a hospital in Quetta in south-west Pakistan. About 120 others were injured in the blast, which happened at the entrance to the emergency department where the body of a prominent lawyer shot dead earlier on Monday August 8, 2016, was being brought. The casualties included lawyers and journalists accompanying the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban has said it was behind the bombing. Mr. Kasi was president of the Balochistan Bar Association and had been shot while on his way from his home to the main court complex in Quetta.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban has said it carried out a suicide bombing that killed at least 70 people at a hospital in the city of Quetta. The attacker targeted a crowd that had gathered as the body of a prominent lawyer murdered earlier on Monday August 8, 2016, Bilal Kasi, was being brought in. Lawyers and journalists were among the dead. About 120 people were injured. The Taliban faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, said it was behind both the hospital attack and the killing of Mr. Kasi. He was head of the Balochistan province bar association. He was shot while on his way to the court complex in Quetta. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar [The Party of Freedom Fighters] split from the Pakistani Taliban two years ago. It has claimed a number of major attacks, including a suicide bombing that killed more than 70 people -including many children- at a park during Easter celebrations this year.

Pakistani mourners flocked to funerals on Tuesday August 9, 2016, for 74 victims, most of them lawyers, of the bombing of a hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta, and legal organisations staged a nationwide strike in protest. Monday's suicide bombing, which struck grief-stricken colleagues crowding around the body of the slain head of the provincial bar association, was the deadliest jihadist attack in Pakistan this year. Up to 60 of those killed were lawyers who had gathered to mourn the assassination earlier that day of the president of the Baluchistan Bar Association, Bilal Anwar Kasi.

A roadside bomb apparently targeting a judge injured at least 13 people in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta on Thursday August 11, 2016, days after a major attack killed most of the city's senior lawyers. The bomb was planted on a bridge in the city, which went off immediately after the vehicle of an Islamic court judge passed by it. The judge, Zahoor Shehwani, survived, but the blast hit his security escort vehicle, injuring four police personnel and nine passers-by.

Six crew members of a Pakistani government helicopter which crash-landed in Afghanistan's east have been released, we were told Saturday August 13, 2016, after they were taken hostage by the Afghan Taliban. The crew was released in an inter-tribe exchange on the Pakistan-Afghan border and arrived in Islamabad.

A British teenager has told of how she was forced at gunpoint in Pakistan to marry her cousin before being raped everyday for three years. Her cousin was six year older; he held her captive for three years. MS Khan later discovered that the marriage had been arranged so her cousin could claim a visa to come to Britain. She then fought though the Pakistani court to be granted a divorce and in 2008 returned to the UK.

The former husband of a woman murdered in Pakistan has confessed to killing her. Samia Shahid, 28, a beautician from Bradford, died last month in northern Punjab in what is believed to have been a so-called honour killing. Ex-husband Chaudhry Muhammad Shakeel was arrested on suspicion of murder. He has now said he strangled MS Shahid with a scarf. The beautician's father Chaudhry Mohammad Shahid has been held as an accessory to murder. ---

Airstrikes near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border have killed at least 14 militants and wounded 11 others we were told Tuesday August 16, 2016. The air and ground operation targeted a remote valley in the Khyber tribal district and destroyed nine hideouts.

Pakistan has closed one of its main border point with Afghanistan after a group of Afghans staged a protest and tried to attack the crossing in the Balochistan province. A large number of people had gathered near Friendship Gate at Chaman in Balochistan to celebrate Afghanistan’s national day Friday August 19, 2016. During the event, some Afghans attacked the gate and burnt a Pakistani flag prompting authorities to deploy additional security troops and shut down the gate for indefinite period.

Pakistan Monday August 22, 2016:

• At least 40 militants have been killed in a week-long search operation launched by security forces in Pakistan’s tribal region near the Afghan border. The operation code-named Khyber 3 was unleashed last week to clear Rajgal area of Khyber district.
• Security forces have occupied passes and are now consolidating their positions up in high mountains in Rajgal. At least 43 terrorists’ hideouts were destroyed and huge cache of arms were recovered during the operation. The operation was launched to dismantle the communication network of the militants in the areas which was used to secretly enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.
• Separately, during an Intelligence Based Operation in Jaglot area of Gilgit Baltistan, the security forces apprehended two terrorists who were trying to transport weapons, ammunition and explosives in a car.
• Also, in another combing operation in Thall, 10 terrorists were apprehended and huge cache of arms and ammunition has also been recovered.

Friday August 26, 2016:

• Gunmen in Pakistan killed six soldiers and a provincial government official in an ambush on their convoy in the southwest province of Baluchistan. The attack took place about 80 kilometres from Gwadar. The convoy had been returning from dealing with a land dispute late on Thursday when gunmen fired rockets and hurled grenades at the group.

Two bombs killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens outside a court complex in northwest Pakistan on Friday September 2, 2016, hours after militants killed two people in a Christian neighbourhood in the same region. Both attacks were claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a breakaway Pakistani Taliban faction believed to be behind some of the past year's deadliest attacks, including last month's bombing of lawyers in the city of Quetta that killed 74 people. The bodies of policemen, lawyers and other civilians were recovered in the city of Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

On Friday September 2, 2016, we were told that a British victim of a so-called honour killing in Pakistan was raped before her murder. Samia Shahid, a 28-year-old woman from Bradford was killed in July in Jhelum district in northern Punjab province. The three member investigation team selected by Shabhbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab, has also concluded that Ms Shahid’s former husband and father were responsible for her killing. Abubakar Buksh, who heads up the team, also told the BBC that they are trying to secure the return of her sister and mother to Pakistan for questioning about any​ ​ possible involvement in the murder.

The father, ex-husband and uncle of a British woman raped and murdered in an alleged “honour” killing have all been arrested. Samia Shahid, 28, from Bradford, was visiting family in July when she was found dead, initially assumed to be of natural causes, and buried in a local cemetery in the village of Pandori in the country’s eastern Punjab province. A fresh inquiry was ordered after her husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, publicly accused her family of killing her because they opposed Shahid’s decision to divorce her first husband in 2014 and marry him. The police inquiry concluded that Shahid had been strangled and her first husband, Choudhry Shakeel, has been detained as the prime suspect. Her father has also been detained by police, after his daughter was allegedly lured to Pakistan on the pretext he was seriously ill. Her uncle, named as Haq Nawaz, is understood to have been held by police on suspicion of falsifying medical files. On Saturday September 3, 2016, Pakistani police said a forensic examination confirmed the victim was raped before her death. A local police chief has been suspended for mishandling the case, and allowing Shahid’s mother and sister to flee the country. Investigators are seeking their return for questioning. Shahid married her second husband in Leeds in September 2014 after she left her first husband, who was a cousin from Pakistan. Kazam said his wife moved to live with him in Dubai last year but had made trips to the UK to talk to her parents about the relationship, and went to Pakistan on 14 July after being told her father was ill. Kazam said his wife had been healthy and he did not believe her family’s initial claims that she died naturally. An estimated 1,000 women are killed every year by family members in so-called “honour” killings in Pakistan. ---

A roadside bomb has struck a vehicle carrying police commandos in northwestern Pakistan, wounding eight officers. Thursday September 2016's attack took place on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Two of the wounded officers were reported to be in critical condition.

Gunmen have killed a doctor who was a senior member of Pakistan’s polio eradication campaign. Zakaullah Khan was shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike near his house late on Saturday September 10, 2016. He was a member of Peshawar's polio vaccination campaign near Pakistan's tribal belt. Militants say the polio vaccination campaign is a cover for Western spies or a conspiracy to sterilize Pakistani children.

On Saturday September 10, 2016, Iran Revolutionary Guard has killed four Sunni militants along the eastern border with Pakistan. The Guard clashed with a nine-member cell of the Jaish al-Adl militant group last week, killing four of them, including their leader. Last week, Guard forces wounded two militants in clashes near the border and confiscated weapons and ammunition.

Pakistan Tuesday September 13, 2016:

• A roadside bomb killed two police officers in the Pakistani city of Quetta and another three were wounded as they foiled a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque elsewhere in the country.
• The bomb struck a police patrol as it was dropping off officers for an evening shift. The blast wounded another five police officers as well as three civilians.
• Earlier police prevented two suicide bombers from striking a Shiite mosque in the southern city of Shikarpur.
• The first bomber set off his explosives when guards stopped him for a search, wounding three police and leaving one of them in critical condition. A second attacker was shot and wounded before he could detonate his suicide belt, and later arrested.
• The attacker who was arrested said the two came from Baluchistan, the western Pakistani province of which Quetta is the capital. Ethnic Baluch separatist groups have claimed attacks on security forces in past, and the region has also seen attacks carried out by Islamic extremists.
• A suicide bomber injured four policemen, one critically, outside a Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban as the country marked the beginning of the religious festival Eid al-Adha.
• The incident occurred in Shikarpur in Sindh province. Two suicide bombers tried to enter the Khanpur Imambargah but were intercepted by police. Doctors were also trying to save the life of the other suspected bomber, who was injured when the first one blew himself up but failed to detonate himself.
• The attackers came as the worshippers were gathering to offer Eid prayers. Police were able to stop one at the gate outside the mosque. Worshippers overpowered the second would-be suicide bomber. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to media.

 

Pakistan Thursday September 15, 2016:

• An express train crashed into a freight train killing at least four people and injuring 93. The Awam Express bound for the southern city of Karachi hit the freight train about 25 km from the city of Multan, in Punjab province, trapping some passengers in overturned carriages. ---

At least four people were killed and more than 100 injured when two trains collided in central Pakistan early Thursday September 15, 2016. The accident occurred when the Karachi-bound "Awam Express" passenger train rammed into a goods train that had stopped after running over a man near the city of Multan. Rescue workers used metal-cutting equipment to try to reach injured passengers still trapped in the mangled wreckage.

At least 23 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a mosque in north-western Pakistan. The attack targeted worshippers during Friday prayers (September 16, 2016) in a remote village in the Mohmand Agency, north of Peshawar. More than 40 people were wounded, many of them children. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, carried out the attack which apparently targeted elders from a government-sponsored anti-Taliban militia. About 200 people had congregated for Friday prayers in the village mosque in Ambar region when the explosion occurred. The Friday prayer was in progress at the mosque when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the main room.

Pakistani authorities on Friday September 16, 2016, arrested four Islamic State militants plotting attacks in the city of Lahore. The four were plotting attacks on government targets when they were seized in a raid along with 1.6 kg of explosives as well as fuses and detonators.

A deadly blast ripped through a mosque in Pakistan's northwest region on Friday (16 September, 2016, killing at least 25 people. A suicide bomber is said to have blown himself up in a crowded Sunni mosque in the area reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar". Worshipers had gathered to offer their Friday prayers at the mosque and the bomb explosion left as many as 30 injured. Pakistani Taliban's splinter group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ur-Ahrar (TTP-JA) claimed responsibility for the terror attack. The group said it was a revenge attack targeted against members of a pro-government tribal militia group, who were among the worshipers in the mosque. The explosion took place in Payee Khan, a village in Mohmand Agency, one of the seven semi-autonomous districts in Pakistan along the Afghanistan border.

Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in an ambush in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday September 18, 2016, in an attack for which both Islamic State and a Pakistani Taliban faction claimed responsibility. Militants said they ambushed an unmarked vehicle ferrying soldiers near the congested Daudzai area of Peshawar. Military sources confirmed the attack but said the killed men were army employees and not soldiers. They were traveling in a civil van when unknown armed men opened fire at them. Three of them died on the spot.

On Sunday September 18, 2016, Pakistani officials have updated the death toll from an attack by the Taliban militants on a mosque in the northwest of the country in an area bordering Afghanistan. 36 people and 27 others were injured. At least, eight children below the age of 10 years are among the dead. They were hit in the blast because they were praying in the last rows in the mosque where the attack took place. A faction of Taliban, called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), said it carried out the attack to target the local vigilante forces. It said those forces had killed 13 of JuA members and arrested several others in 2009. ---

On Tuesday September 20, 2016, two US lawmakers have moved a bill in Congress to label Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. It has come days after India blamed Pakistan for the latest attack on its military base in Kashmir that killed 18 soldiers. The move is reported to be a humiliating setback for Islamabad as it has come at the time when its rival neighbours on either side, India and Afghanistan, have been accusing the country of waging war in South Asia. Afghanistan even called on India and other states to boycott the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit to be held in Islamabad in November.

At least 23 people were killed and 3 wounded when a minibus plunged from a mountain road into a river in a remote area of Pakistan-administered Kashmir late on Friday September 23, 2016. The accident took place at Nausehri, 45km north of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, when the minibus driver lost control. The vehicle veered off a road, falling 100 metres into the river.

Police in Pakistan may be illegally executing hundreds of people each year in fake “encounter killings” (extra-judicial killings), human rights investigators have warned. Police often say that criminal or terrorist suspects were shot after they resisted arrest or tried to ambush officers. In reality many are killed in police custody, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday September 26, 2016. The group said that many, “if not most”, of the 2,108 people reported by the media to have been killed in encounters in 2015 died in circumstances that were “faked and did not occur in situations in which lives were at risk”. Senior officers admitted the practice to researchers from HRW, who also found that Pakistan’s ill-equipped and poorly trained police regularly resort to torture to extract confessions. Such practices have helped make the police “one of the most widely feared, complained against, and least trusted government institutions in Pakistan.

On Thursday October 6, 2016, we were told that Pakistan's government has closed a loophole allowing those behind so-called honour killings to go free. New legislation means killers will get a mandatory life sentence. Previously, killers could be pardoned by a victim's family to avoid a jail term. Now forgiveness will only spare them the death penalty. It is being seen as a step in the right direction in a country where attacks on women who go against conservative rules on love and marriage are common. Nearly 1,100 women were killed by relatives in Pakistan last year in such killings, while many more cases go unreported.

At least six people have been killed and 19 wounded after two explosions targeted a passenger train in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province on Friday October 7, 2016. The blasts hit the Rawalpindi-bound Jaffar Express as it passed near the village of Mach, about 65km southeast of the provincial capital of Quetta. The explosions damaged two passenger carriages. The attack was claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA. The bombing targeted military personnel who travel to Rawalpindi. ---

The Pakistan Army on Friday October 14, 2016, confirmed that sepoy Chandu Babulal Chavan, who went missing near the Line of Control (LoC) on September 29, is in its custody. Though India said the sepoy “inadvertently” crossed the LoC, Pakistan had so far refused to acknowledge his presence. The 22-year-old sepoy crossed the LoC by accident after the surgical strikes by the Indian Army. He was posted in Mendhar district of Jammu and Kashmir near the LoC and had strayed across the border at Jhandroot, west of Mankote village in Poonch district, and was captured by the Pakistan Army.

Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and one injured in cross border firing near the Afghan border in the restive northwest we were told Sunday October 16, 2016. The incident took place in the Barmal area of South Waziristan, which shares its borders with Afghanistan’s Paktika province.

At least 30 people were killed in Pakistan when two buses collided in southern Punjab province on Monday October 17, 2016. The buses collided near Rahim Yar Khan, a Punjab city about 600km south of provincial capital Lahore. More than 30 people were injured in the crash.

Indian troops have opened fire from across the Line of Control in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir Wednesday October 19, 2016, wounding two Pakistani children and two women. Pakistan returned fire and that the exchange is continuing. India claimed it was carrying out "surgical strikes" against militants in that area. Pakistan alleged India engaged in cease-fire violations that killed two Pakistani soldiers.

Seven Pakistani Rangers were killed and three others injured on Friday October 21, 2016, as BSF retaliated to mortar shelling and small arms fire from across the International Border at various places in Kathua, Samba and Jammu districts. An Indian constable, Gurnam Singh of Bhaleshar of Magowali village in R S Pura tehsil, got seriously injured when Pakistan targeted a  BSF post at Bobiya in Hiranagar sector.

Pakistan on Friday October 21, 2016, signed an agreement for the sale of 10 Super Mushshak aircraft to the Nigerian Air Force (NAF. The contract includes operational training and technical support and assistance to the NAF. The aircraft is already in service with Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran and South Africa.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead an intelligence officer in northwest Pakistan on Monday October 24, 2016 in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Akbar Ali, an intelligence sub-inspector, was on his way to work and waiting at a bus stop near his home in Charsadda district when the gunmen opened fire. "Akbar Ali was hit by four bullets from the front and was killed on the spot.

Two Pakistan Coast Guard officers were gunned down near the Iranian border in the southwestern province of Balochistan on Sunday October 23, 2016. Two people on a motorcycle targeted Pakistan Coast Gard personnel when they were patrolling in the bazaar of the coastal town. Two civilians were wounded and hospitalized. The two men were working the intelligence unit of the coast guard in Jiwani, about 80 km west of the Gwadar deepwater port. ---

On Tuesday October 25, 2016, Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in which at least 61 people were killed at a police academy. Gunmen stormed the training college near Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, opening fire and detonating explosives. More than 100 others have been injured, some of them critically. Between four and six gunmen raided the training centre, attacking a dormitory where up to 250 police trainees were resting.

Pakistani police Sunday October 30, 2016, arrested more than 100 supporters of opposition politician Imran Khan who entered Islamabad days before a planned protest shutdown of the capital. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is under growing pressure from opposition parties, mainly Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), over his children's offshore bank accounts which were revealed in the Panama Papers leak. Khan, a former cricketing hero, has threatened to "lock down" Islamabad on Wednesday to force Sharif to accept an inquiry into the affair.

Pakistani police launched a nation-wide crackdown overnight, arresting at least 1,500 supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ahead of an opposition rally planned later this week in Islamabad we were told Monday October 31, 2016. The arrests followed intermittent clashes over the weekend between Khan's supporters and riot police in the capital that saw police using tear gas and batons to fight stone-throwing protesters. The violence erupted when police fired tear gas at nearly 3,000 supporters on a main highway some 80 kilometres northwest of Islamabad. Khan's party rules in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and its chief minister, Pervez Khattak, and some cabinet ministers led the protesters. The protesters pelted police with stones and bricks, burned several vehicles and chanted slogans against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

At least 11 people were killed and 59 wounded Tuesday November 1, 2016, when a gas cylinder exploded and started a fire inside an oil tanker being broken up for scrap in southern Pakistan. The accident happened at the Gadani shipbreaking yard in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan backed down from a threat to paralyse the capital on Wednesday November 2, 2016, a move likely to ease tension that has spilled over into violence in the run-up to the planned protests. Khan's vow to "shut down" Islamabad to press a demand for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign or face a corruption inquiry had sparked a citywide ban on gatherings and the arrests of hundreds of opposition activists accused of defying the ban.

Two children and three women are among 19 people killed after two trains collided at a platform Karachi. 50 people were also injured in the crash in the early hours of Thursday morning November 4, 2016. The crash happened when a train parked along the rail lines at a small stopover platform on the city's outskirts was hit by another one. The driver of the second train likely ignored the rail traffic signal and rammed into the first. ---

On Thursday November 3, 2016, Pakistan accused eight Indian embassy employees of involvement in spying and "terrorism" but stopped short of expelling them, in the latest apparent tit-for-tat move as relations between the two countries deteriorate. This came days after a similar move by New Delhi, which accused six Pakistani diplomats of being part of a spy network, forcing Islamabad to withdraw them from their posts.

On Saturday November 12, 2016, at least 52 people died and more than 100 others were injured in a bomb blast at a remote Sufi shrine. The blast hit worshippers participating in a ceremony at the shrine of the Sufi saint Shah Noorani, some 750 kilometres south of Quetta, and the provincial capital of southern Balochistan province. Worshippers were taking part in a devotional dance session, which is held daily before dusk, when the blast occurred. The shrine is revered and visited both by minority Shiites and Sunni Muslims, but militant groups like the Taliban and Islamic State (IS) consider the practice against Islam.

Pakistan Saturday November 19, 2016:

• We were told that Pakistan is quietly expanding its nuclear arsenal and has developed an estimated stockpile of 130 to 140 battle-ready warheads. The country’s air force may also be secretly converting some of its fighter jets – including F-16s– to deliver the nukes.
• Three paramilitary soldiers and a policeman were killed when gunmen opened fire in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta; a passer-by has been injured in an attack.

Pakistan Tuesday November 22, 2016:

• A bombing targeted Pakistan's paramilitary force in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed three officers and wounded eight.
• The bomb, which was apparently detonated by remote control, went off as a patrol of paramilitary police was passing by. The eight wounded also included civilians. A Pakistani splinter Taliban group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it deliberately struck the security forces.
• A bomb which targeted a paramilitary truck on a crowded city street killed three security personnel in Pakistan’s troubled northwest. Another five paramilitaries were wounded in the attack, which happened when a Frontier Corps truck was travelling through a congested neighbourhood in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial capital of Peshawar. The IED (improvised explosive device) was planted along the roadside and exploded as the FC truck passed by.

The Pakistan Army on Saturday December 3, 2016, claimed to have shot down an Indian drone which it alleged had "intruded" into Pakistani territory across the heavily-guarded LoC. ---

A huge fire swept through a four-star hotel in the southern port city of Karachi on Monday December 5, 2016, killing at least 11 people. More than 50 people suffered injuries which started in the hotel kitchen. The exact cause of the fire was not yet known. Four of the people who died were women. Some foreigners were among those being treated for burns. Suffocation caused more deaths.

A Pakistani plane with 48 people on board has crashed on Wednesday December 7, 2016. The Pakistan International Airlines ATR-42 aircraft vanished after taking off from the Northern Chitral region. Pakistani pop star, actor and TV presenter Junaid Jamshed was among those who perished when the plane crashed. Two children were among the casualties. All 48 on board have died.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for killing a counterterrorism police officer and wounding his young son in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Riazul Islam was returning home with his son Saturday evening December 10, 2016, after prayers in a suburban mosque when gunmen fired several shots and escaped on a motorcycle. Islam had survived two bomb attacks in the past three years, one of which severely wounded him.

A senior commander of the Afghan Border Police forces was killed in an explosion in eastern Kunar province. The commander of the 3rd brigade of border police forces was killed late on Monday night December 12, 2016, in Dangam district. A magnetic bomb planted in the vehicle of General Wali Jan was detonated by the militants. No group including the Taliban insurgents has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.

Pakistan army on Wednesday December 14, 2016, successfully test-fired an enhanced version of an indigenously-designed cruise missile that can hit targets at 700km with all kinds of warheads, bringing many Indian cities within its range. It incorporates advanced aerodynamics and avionics that can strike targets both at land and sea with high accuracy. It is a low flying, terrain hugging missile, which carries certain stealth features and is capable of carrying various types of warheads. The missile is equipped with state-of-the-art navigational technologies of Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and all time Digital Scene Matching & Area Co-relation (DSMAC), which enables it to engage various type of targets with pinpoint accuracy even in the absence of GPS navigation.

It was just a few seconds, a video clip of several young women laughing and clapping to music, dressed for a party or a wedding in orange headscarves and robes with floral patterns. Then a few more seconds of a young man dancing alone, apparently in the same room. The cell phone video was made six years ago, in a village deep in Kohistan, a rugged area of northwest Pakistan. It was the last time the young women, known only as Bazeegha, Sareen Jan, Begum Jan, Amina and Shaheen, have ever been definitively seen alive. What happened to them remains a mystery. Their fates have been shrouded by cultural taboos, official inertia, implacable resistance from elders and religious leaders suspected of ordering their deaths, and elaborate subterfuges by the families who reportedly carried out those orders. ---

Pakistan Thursday December 22, 2016:

• Pakistan foreign secretary will travel to Russia to participate in a trilateral meeting with Russia and China next week which will discuss key regional issues including peace process in Afghanistan.
• The trilateral meeting will be held on December 27 and peace in Afghanistan will be on the top of the agenda due to increasing threat of ISIS to Central Asia, which is considered as Russian backyard.
• There are also reports of contacts between Taliban and Russian officials as the latter recognise the importance of Taliban in checking the threat of ISIS. Peace and stability in Afghanistan was in the interest of Pakistan and the entire region.

On Monday December 26, 2016, we were told that at least 32 people have died and dozens have been left seriously ill after drinking toxic alcohol over Christmas in Punjab. The dead, mostly minority Christians, consumed the homemade liquor in the city of Toba Tek Singh. Muslims are forbidden from buying or drinking alcohol in Pakistan and minorities need a permit to buy liquor. With alcohol sales tightly regulated, cheap homebrewed spirits often contain poisonous methanol. 25 people were still being treated in hospitals in Toba Tek Singh and Faisalabad to have their stomachs pumped.

On Tuesday December 27, 2016, we were told that at least 23 people were killed by drinking a toxic homemade liquor in Pakistan’s Christian minority community of Toba Tek Singh, Punjab province. More than 45 people were treated for poisoning in hospitals after drinking the moonshine.

Pakistan Wednesday December 28, 2016:

• Nearly 1,000 dead bodies of political activists and suspected armed separatists have been found in the Balochistan province over the past six years.
• Activists say the figures, obtained from the human rights ministry by BBC Urdu, point to large-scale extrajudicial killings. Relatives say most victims had been picked up by security agencies. The government blames the dumped bodies on infighting among insurgent groups. Thousands of people have disappeared without trace in Balochistan since a separatist insurgency gained momentum in 2007.
• A military-led operation was launched in early 2005 aimed at wiping out the uprising by ethnic Baloch groups, who are fighting for a greater share of the province's resources. At least 936 dead bodies have been found in Balochistan since 2011. Most of them were dumped in the regions of Quetta, Qalat, Khuzdar and Makran, areas where the separatist insurgency has its roots. ---

Pakistan Friday January 6, 2017:

• At least six children have died after a train crushed two motorised rickshaws at an unattended railway crossing.  One of the rickshaw drivers also died in the accident, which happened near the town of Lodhran in eastern Punjab province.
• The children, all aged between six and 10, were on their way to school when the train ploughed into them. Another five children, aged between five and eight, were critically injured. The railway crossing was ungated and the worker responsible for manning it was missing from his post.

Pakistan Monday 9, 2017:

• Pakistan has successfully tested its first submarine-launched cruise missile. The Babur-3 missile, which has a range of 450km, could carry a nuclear warhead. The development could further heighten tensions with neighbouring India.

Masked gunmen have shot and killed a journalist in southwestern Baluchistan province On Thursday January 12, 2017. 37-year-old Muhammad Jan was returning home when targeted in Kalat, some 160 kilometers south of the provincial capital Quetta. Jan was working for Urdu language daily Qudrat, and also teaching at a school. The culprits who escaped on a motorcycle.

Two teenage sisters were seriously injured in Pakistan when a rejected suitor threw a hand grenade at the pair. The attacker, identified as Sajid, hurled the grenade at Samreen, 19, and Sanam, 17, while the siblings were asleep on the roof of their small house in Koohi Goth on Tuesday January 10, 2017.

An assortment of protesters flocked outside the Pakistan embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday January 13, 2017 to demonstrate against Pakistan’s alleged support for insurgents. The demonstrators also raised slogans against Pakistan Army’s intelligence arm, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). We were told that the demonstration had support from former NDS president Amrullah Saleh. The mob was dispersed by the security guards.

Pakistani villagers brandishing guns and knives attacked the convoy of a Qatar royal family member on an expedition to hunt the houbara bustard, a rare bird whose meat is prized by Arab sheikhs we were told Monday January 16, 2017. The hunting party was unhurt, but three security guards were wounded during the attack in Musakhel, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan. A case has been registered against 25 people.

Pakistan Monday January 16, 2017:

• A woman has been handed the death sentence after she burned her daughter alive in what has been termed an "honour killing" incident. Perveen Rafique told a court in Lahore that she killed her daughter for "bringing shame to her family. Her son Ahmer Rafique was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the crime.
• Zeenat Rafique, 18, was strangled and set alight by her mother and brother in June 2016 after she eloped without their consent. Rafique had been living with her new husband for a month before she went back home in the hope of a reconciliation with her family. When she arrived, her mother and brother tied her to a bed, poured gasoline over her and set her on fire.
• Perveen turned herself in to the authorities but did not say she regretted or was sorry for her actions. ---

Pakistan Saturday January 21, 2017:

• At least 18 people have been killed and 51 wounded after a bomb exploded in a busy market town close to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. 11 critically wounded people who were brought in from blast site died while being treated. Several of the wounded were in serious condition.
• The explosion took place when the market was crowded with retailers buying fruits and vegetables from a wholesale shop.

Pakistan Monday January 30, 2017:

• A Pakistan Army soldier who was critically injured from firing in Khyber Agency succumbed to his wounds.#
• Sepoy Waqas was performing his duties at the border post when terrorists opened fire. The soldier succumbed to his injuries at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Peshawar. Terrorists are resorting to fire from across the border taking advantage of weak border control on the Afghanistan side”

Pakistan Saturday February 4, 2017:

• At least 13 people have been killed in an avalanche that buried five homes following heavy snowfall in the country's north.
• The avalanche struck the town of Chitral. Rescuers have retrieved 13 bodies and efforts are underway to reach any survivors. Several people are still missing and most of the areas in Chitral are covered in snow.

Pakistan Tuesday February 7, 2017:

• Police have foiled a Taliban suicide car bombing in the northwestern city of Bannu. Guards at a police station opened fire at a speeding car packed with explosives before it could ram into the station's main gate.
• The driver, in his late 20s, died in the explosion. Two policemen were wounded in the blast. A Pakistani Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Wednesday February 8, 2017:

• A massive earthquake striking 6.3 on the Richter scale has struck an ISIS-linked province on the coast of Pakistan. The epicentre of the tremendous tremor shook the city of Turban, within Balochistan.
• Around 79,000 people are said to inhabit the southern city, within a close proximity to the sea, sparking fears of a tsunami. ---

Pakistan Sunday February 12, 2017:

• A TV crew was shot dead after gunmen on motorcycle indiscriminately fired upon a DSNG van of a news channel in Pakistan’s biggest port-city here.
• The van was attacked near KDA roundabout and assistant cameraman, Taimur, received a bullet shot to the head. He was brought to the hospital with a single shot to the head and he expired after a while.

Pakistan Monday February 13, 2017:

• A suspected suicide bomber has targeted a protest rally in Lahore, killing at least 11 people. The blast occurred when owners of medical shops were demonstrating against amendments to a law governing drug sales in Punjab province. Among those killed were senior police officers. Dozens of people were hurt.
• Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in “unprovoked” firing by Indian troops along the Line of Control (LoC. The incident occurred when India troops resorted to “unprovoked firing on LoC in Thoob sector near Bhimber.
• Taimur Abbas, a cameraman for the private TV channel Samaa TV was fatally shot while covering the aftermath of an attack on a police vehicle. Abbas and colleagues were arriving to cover the aftermath of a grenade attack on a police vehicle in the North Nazimabad district of Karachi that hurt no one when gunmen on a motorcycle began shooting at their van.
• Abbas was shot in his head and chest and died while being treated in a nearby hospital. The group Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack both on the police vehicle and on the Samaa TV van.

Pakistan Wednesday February 15, 2017:

• Four suicide bombers struck killing six people and unnerving citizens whose growing sense of security has been shaken by multiple Taliban blasts this week.
• The latest assault happened in the northwestern city of Peshawar; a bomber rode a motorcycle into a van carrying several judges that was travelling through an upmarket neighbourhood. The van driver was killed in the attack, which was claimed by the group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistani Taliban).
• Five people -including at least four judges, three of them female- were injured.
• Earlier in the day two suicide bombers launched an assault on a government compound in the Mohmand tribal region in the northwest, killing five people and wounding seven.
• One was shot dead before he could detonate the bomb while the other blew himself up at the gate of the compound.
• Later another suicide bomber blew himself up when security forces surrounded him during a search operation in the area.
• These attacks came two days after a powerful suicide bombing rocked the Punjab provincial capital Lahore, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens more.
• Also on Monday two members of a bomb disposal unit were killed in Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan province, when a device they were defusing went off. It was unclear if the Quetta bomb was related to the other attacks.

Pakistan Thursday February 16, 2017:

• Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast that killed at least 70 people and injured about 150 at a crowded shrine in southern Pakistan. A suicide bomber detonated the bomb among crowds gathered for the busiest day of the week at the shrine to Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, a town in Sindh province.
• It was also the latest such attack on devotees of Sufism, a mystical and generally moderate form of Islam despised by radical fundamentalists. The explosion took place when a large number of people were inside the shrine boundary.
• A huge number of people come to the shrine every Thursday to take part in ritual dances and prayers. It is not possible to ensure the security of every person coming and going.
• Pakistani counter-terrorism police raided a militant hideout and killed six suspected members of a Taliban faction that has launched a new campaign of violence against the government.
• Since Monday, several bomb attacks across the country have shattered a period of improving security, underscoring how militant groups still pose a threat in the nuclear-armed country of 180 million people.
• The Counter Terrorism police surrounded a hideout of the Pakistani Taliban's Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction in the city of Multan and ordered the suspects inside to surrender. But the terrorists started firing at the raiding party and threw explosives.

Pakistan Friday February 17, 2017:

• Pakistan has killed more than 100 militants in a security crackdown following Thursday's attack on a shrine that left at least 80 people dead.
• A suicide bomber blew himself up among devotees at the Sufi shrine in the town of Sehwan. Pakistan has reacted with raids across the country and by lashing out at Afghanistan which it accuses of tolerating militant sanctuaries.
• Some 18 militants were killed in southern Sindh province, where the Sufi shrine is located, and another 13 in the north-west. It is unclear where the other alleged terrorists were killed. ---

Pakistan Sunday February 19, 2017:

• An avalanche killed at least seven labourers in northern Pakistan with up to four more trapped beneath the snow. The accident, which also injured seven, happened near the Lowari Tunnel which connects the districts of Dir and Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Efforts are being made to pull the remaining workers out alive.

Pakistan Monday February 20, 2017:

• Pakistani airstrikes killed "dozens" of militants in a tribal region along the Afghan border.
• Pakistan had vowed to fight back after a series of suicide bombings last week killed more than 100 people, including 88 worshippers gathered at a famed Sufi shrine. The attacks were claimed by various Islamic militant groups, which have long operated in the porous border region.
• The warplanes targeted militant hideouts in the Wucha Bibi area of North Waziristan.
• Pakistan carried out a blistering artillery assault on suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan on Friday and Saturday after giving the Afghan government a list of 76 alleged Pakistani terrorists it said where sheltering there. The artillery assault displaced nearly 200 families.
• The Afghan ambassador to Pakistan handed Islamabad a list of 85 suspected terrorist leaders that Kabul says have found refuge in Pakistan as well as the locations of 32 insurgent centers it wants Pakistan to destroy.

Pakistan Tuesday February 21, 2017:

• At least six people –including a child- have been killed after suicide bombers from the Pakistani Taliban group Jamaat-ur-Ahrar tried to storm a courthouse in north-west Pakistan. The three bombers were also killed and more than 15 people wounded during the attack in Tangi, Charsadda district.

Pakistan Thursday February 23, 2017:

• At least eight people were killed and 28 injured after a bomb ripped through Lahore; this was the tenth attack in just under a fortnight pointing to a resurgence in Islamist violence.
• The blast, the second to hit the provincial capital this month, crumpled cars and sent panic rippling through the city. The building where the bomb went off was under construction in a market crowded with people, including children.
• In a shocking and sad incident, a 52-year-old Pakistani woman was shot dead by Indian forces after she had inadvertently crossed the working boundary near Sialkot.

Pakistan Friday February 24, 2017:

• An explosion that killed seven people and caused panic in the Pakistani city of Lahore was caused by a gas leak and not a bomb as police had earlier stated. The blast on Thursday wounded dozens in the provincial capital, already on edge after a suicide attack just ten days earlier killed 14 people. ---

Pakistan Thursday March 2, 2017:

• A US drone killed two men riding a motorbike in Pakistan's northwest tribal region.
• The attack occurred in the Sara Khwa area of Kurram, one of seven so-called tribal districts that lie along the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more than a decade and a half.

Pakistan Saturday March 4, 2017:

• Approximately 1,300 suspected militants were arrested in a sweep of hideouts in Pakistan's largest province of Punjab. The two-week operation comes against the backdrop of provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah's opposition to these groups being designated by Pakistan as terrorist organisations.
• Rana Sanaullah also embraced some sectarian leaders whose groups have been accused of fomenting violence against minority Islamic sects, once again raising questions concerning his commitment to ridding Punjab of militants.
• Two police officials said another 36 militants died in shootouts with police and in paramilitary operations since the sweep began last month.
• Pakistani police say they unidentified gunmen who killed a prominent attorney in a targeted shooting in a northwestern town near a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
• Two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fired on Mohammed Jan Gigyani when he was driving his car. Gigyani was critically wounded and died en route to a hospital. Gigyani was a prominent lawyer affiliated with the secular Qaumi Watan political party.
• Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the killing. Shabqadar is near Mohmand tribal region and located in Charsadda district where suicide bombers killed eight people near a court complex last week.

Pakistan Sunday March 5, 2017:

• Islamic State has taken credit for executing a kidnapped officer of Pakistan’s prime intelligence agency a day after police found his body in the central city of Multan.
• The slain man was Umar Mubin Jilani; witnesses said militants dropped his body on a busy road early Saturday morning before driving away. The body was dressed in an orange uniform like detainees at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
• Jilani, 33, was kidnapped in June, 2014, by a group of gunmen while he was on his way to work in Multan where he was serving in a counterterrorism unit of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the country's main spy agency.

Pakistan Monday March 6, 2017:

• At least 15 people (10 fighters and five soldiers) have been killed in clashes on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border after Pakistani Taliban fighters attacked three border posts in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal area.

Pakistan Wednesday March 8, 2017:

• Five "hardcore terrorists" have been hanged after they were found guilty of carrying out attacks in the country. The convicts belonged to the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
• At least 15 militants and two soldiers have been killed in two separate gun battles in a relatively peaceful district of Pakistan just northwest of the capital Islamabad.
• The two raids took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province's Swabi district, which is just 100 kilometres northwest of Islamabad.
• Soldiers on Tuesday conducted a raid on a village in the district, triggering a gunfight. During exchange of fire Capt Junaid and Sepoy Amjad were killed. Five terrorists were also killed during the operation.
• Security forces stormed a second compound in a nearby village on Wednesday, killing 10 militants. ---

Pakistan Tuesday March 14, 2017:

• A truck loaded with sand toppled over, collapsing a mud shack and killing seven members of an Afghan refugee family living there. The incident happened in the southwestern city of Quetta. The truck was about to unload its cargo of sand when the accident took place.
• The shack belonged to an Afghan refugee, Sher Mohammad. He was not killed but his four children were, along with two women and a man. Quetta has several illegal Afghan refugee settlements built on its outskirts, mainly made up of makeshift mud houses.
• Pakistan has for years been home to 1.5 million registered and almost 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees, who fled to safety from their war-torn homeland.

Pakistan Friday March 17, 2017:

• Eight people, including two soldiers, have been killed in a raid on a Pakistani military border post in the Khyber tribal area. The raid was launched from Afghan territory and resulted in the killing of six attackers and two Pakistani soldiers.
• The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction claimed responsibility for the attack; it said it had attacked three border posts, capturing one before being set on fire.
• Two suicide bombers have attacked a training facility belonging to the Frontier Constabulary force in the northwest, triggering a shootout that left an officer and the attackers dead.
• The attackers sneaked into the training facility to try to "cause maximum casualties." The guards quickly responded and killed one of the attackers. Another attacker was killed when his jacket exploded when it has hit by gunfire. Two officers were wounded in the shootout, but are in stable condition at a hospital.

Pakistan Monday March 20, 2017:

• Pakistan ordered the border with Afghanistan to be reopened "immediately", a month after it was closed amid soaring tensions as Islamabad and Kabul accused one another of providing safe haven for militants.
• Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the two main crossings on the long, porous border be reopened as a gesture of "goodwill. The crossings -Torkham at the famed Khyber Pass, and Chaman in Balochistan province- were closed last month after a wave of militant violence killed 130 people across Pakistan.
• The attacks, most of which were claimed by the Islamic State group or the Pakistani Taliban, dented optimism after the country appeared to be making strong gains in its decade-and-a-half long war on militancy. Pakistan's powerful military as well as the civilian government swiftly pointed fingers at Afghanistan, blaming Kabul for harbouring those behind the attacks. ---

Pakistan Monday March 27, 2017:

• A passenger train collided with an oil tanker truck in killing two and injuring 10 others. The crash took place near the eastern city of Shaikhupura, engulfing several of the train’s carriages in fire.

Pakistan Thursday March 30, 2017:

• Unknown gunmen in central Pakistan have killed a prominent local leader of the minority Ahmadi community, a day after a new report spoke of increasing violence against what is referred to as the country’s most persecuted religious sect.
• Malik Saleem Latif, a lawyer by profession, was on his way to a court with his son on their motorbike in the town of Nankana Sahib when attackers ambushed them and fired at them from behind.
• The slain lawyer was the area head of the Ahmadi community and a relative of Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate, Professor Abdus Salam, who fled the country in 1974 and lived in Britain to protest enactment of a new constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

Pakistan Friday March 31, 2017:

• At least 22 people were killed and 57 wounded when a car bomb tore through a market in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan's tribal belt in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
• Survivors described hiding inside shops after hearing a "huge bang" -then stumbling through dust-choked air filled with the sound of screams, tripping over bodies as they searched for the wounded in the busy market in Parachinar, capital of Kurram tribal district.

Pakistan Sunday April 2, 2017:

• Four missiles fired from Afghanistan’s Paktia province landed in northwest Pakistan’s restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
• One of the missiles hit a shop and other landed near a mosque in Shungak area in the remote Parachinar in Kurram Agency. Two other missiles hit a graveyard in Kachkina area.
• The residents were panicked after the shop was destroyed in Shingak area. No incidents of loss of life were reported.
• Twenty people were hacked and clubbed to death after being tortured in a Pakistani shrine. The custodian of a Pakistani religious shrine and two accomplices have been arrested for torturing and murdering 20 worshippers with knives and clubs.
• The custodian gave the worshippers intoxicants before killing them with knives and batons, with some of the victims found naked. The worshippers, followers of a local Sufi leader who died two years ago, were accustomed to seeking spiritual cleansing by removing their clothes.
• The attack took place at the Sufi shrine to Mohammad Ali Gujjar in Punjab province. The motive for the attack was unclear.

Pakistan Monday April 3, 2017:

• The custodian of a local shrine and his accomplices murdered 20 devotees after intoxicating them in what officials are calling a cult ritual.
• The shrine custodian in a village near the city of Sargodha, eastern Punjab province, was arrested on Sunday morning along with four others for killing worshippers with batons and knives. Another four people remain critically injured in hospital.
• The victims were murdered nude and the bodies bore multiple stab wounds and blunt weapons marks. Waheed is a retired government employee and seemed “mentally unstable”. ---

Pakistan Wednesday April 5, 2017:

• Six people were killed -two data collectors and four soldiers who were escorting them- and up to 19 wounded in a Taliban suicide blast that targeted a census team in the eastern city of Lahore. The attack was a suicide blast and was quickly claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan Friday April 7, 2017:

• At least 10 suspected Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militants were killed during an encounter with Punjab police’s counter-terrorism department (CTD) in Manawan area.
• The militants killed were involved in the February 13 Lahore suicide blast at a protest by chemists and pharmacists at the city’s Mall Road, which had killed 15 people, including several police officials. The blast had also left at least 87 people injured. The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar —a faction of the banned terror group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan— had claimed responsibility for that attack.
• The police later apprehended alleged facilitator, Anwarul Haq; on Haq’s information, the police arrested other accomplices.
• A team from Lahore was taking five arrested suspects, including Haq, to Manawan when they were attacked near Ring Road by nine terrorists. In the retaliatory fire, 10 terrorists were killed, including facilitators of the Lahore attack.

Pakistan Tuesday April 11, 2017:

• Pakistan executed two militants convicted of terrorism-related offenses by military courts. The deaths by hanging at the “high security prison” in the central city of Sahiwal.
• The men were active members of the anti-state Pakistani Taliban and were found guilty of staging deadly attacks on security forces, aid workers and polio vaccination teams.

Pakistan Wednesday April 12, 2017:

• Security forces have captured a group of five senior militants working for al-Qaida and Islamic State terrorist networks out of Karachi.
• The detainees included bomb-making experts, trained suicide bombers and an “al-Qaida recruiter" for Pakistan.
• Security forces have also seized suicide vests, weapons and ammunition from their possession. The militants have been plotting attacks on religious minorities, Rangers and police personnel in Karachi.

Pakistan Thursday April 13, 2017:

• One university student has been killed and two others wounded during a violent mob attack after being accused of committing blasphemy in the northern Pakistani city of Mardan.
• The three men were attacked by fellow students while conversing in the cafeteria of the Abdul Wali Khan University on Thursday. Other students who overheard the victims talking first surrounded them and then started attacking them. More than 100 people suspected of being part of the mob have been arrested so far.

Pakistan Friday April 14, 2017:

• At least nine suspected Pakistan Taliban fighters and three soldiers have been killed in an attack following a joint military and police raid. Two soldiers were also wounded in the clash, which targeted a suspected Taliban hideout in the Basti Dadwani area of Dera Ghazi Khan, about 490km south of the capital Islamabad.
• Pakistan Ranger units -a paramilitary force- were carrying out a search operation in the area to arrest other suspects.

Pakistan Sunday April 16, 2017:

• A Lahore man blinded a 15-year-old boy by pricking his eyes and then chopped off his penis in the name of 'honour', after he discovered his daughter was the boy's girlfriend.
• The boy was kidnapped by the girl's father and his accomplices, then taken to a deserted area and maimed. The boy, who is a ninth-grader, was lucky to survive because he was left for dead. A passer-by spotted him took him to hospital where doctors managed to save his life. The five accused have been arrested.

Pakistan Monday April 17, 2017:

• Pakistan police has arrested 22 people after the lynching of a university student accused of blasphemy, but there is little hope authorities would secure convictions.
• A large mob attacked journalism student Mashal Khan last Thursday, stripping, beating and shooting him before throwing from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan University in the conservative northwestern town of Mardan.
• Police had so far found no evidence to support the blasphemy allegations against Khan.
• Many members of the police, prosecution service and judiciary sympathised with the attackers and he did not expect any guilty verdicts. ---

Pakistan Wednesday April 19, 2017

• A university professor from the Ahmadi sect was found stabbed to death in what may be the latest in Islamic militant attack on members of the minority group. The 61-year-old microbiology professor Tahira Malik was found slain in the eastern city of Lahore, with several stab wounds.
• Ahmadis make a tiny minority of the 180 million Muslim-majority Pakistan. The Ahmadi faith was established in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who followers believe was a prophet. The Pakistani Taliban and other Sunni militants consider Ahmadis heretics and have often attacked them in the past.

Pakistan Sunday April 23, 2017:

• A roadside bomb has killed four soldiers in a southwestern town near the Iranian border. Another three troops were wounded in the explosion.
• The bomb exploded as a patrol passed through the town of Turbat in the Baluchistan province that borders both Afghanistan and Iran. The incident happened close to Iran's border.

Pakistan Tuesday April 25, 2017:

• A roadside bombing targeted a minivan in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region killed nine people. A woman and two children were among the nine killed while 13 people were wounded in the explosion. The attack was claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction.
• The blast ripped through the van travelling through a minority Shiite region of the Kurram tribal area, which borders Afghanistan.
• Pakistan hanged four militants involved in attacks on civilians, police and troops after they were convicted by the country's controversial military courts.
• The four, who were hanged at a prison in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, all belonged to the umbrella militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
• Pakistan's powerful army chief last week confirmed death sentences passed by military courts on 30 militants, some of whom were involved in the country's worst-ever extremist attack.
• A roadside bomb targeting a minivan in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region on Tuesday killed 14 people; this raises an earlier reported death toll of nine killed.
• Five women and four children were among the 14 killed, while 10 people were wounded in the explosion. Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction was behind the attack on the Shiites.

Pakistan Saturday April 29, 2017:

• Islamic State killed a senior Afghan Taliban official in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. Maulvi Daud was killed on the outskirts of Peshawar with two other men on Thursday. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed Daud's death. The Islamic State on Friday claimed responsibility for "assassination of a Taliban leader".
• At least 14 people were killed and several others injured when their vehicle skidded off the road and fell in a deep ravine near Lawari Top in upper Dir district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in northwest Pakistan.
• The driver lost control while negotiating a sharp turn in the mountainous terrain near Lawari top connecting Dir district with Chitral district. ---

Pakistan Sunday April 30, 2017:

• A minibus has plunged into a ravine in the mountainous northwest, killing 11 people. Another nine people were injured in the road accident in Upper Dir district, on the way to Chitral Valley.

Pakistan Thursday May 4, 2017:

• A 10-year-old boy has been killed and five other people wounded after a mob attacked a police station in an attempt to lynch a Hindu man charged with blasphemy. It was the third major vigilante attack linked to accusations of insulting Islam in less than a month.
• The incident occurred in Hub in the province of Balochistan following the arrest of Prakash Kumar, a 34-year-old member of the country’s Hindu religious minority. Kumar, a crockery shop owner, was detained on Tuesday for allegedly posting an incendiary image on social media.
• A crowd of some 500 people, including traders, clerics and politicians, surrounded the town’s police station to demand he be handed over.
• When police refused, the mob turned on them, beating up officers and local government officials before firing guns. The 10-year-old boy died and five others were wounded.

Pakistan Friday May 5, 2017:

• At least nine people have been killed and 33 others wounded, including paramilitary personnel, after coming under fire from Afghan forces while conducting a population census near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
• The attack happened near the Chaman crossing point in Pakistan's Balochistan province. Chaman, one of the two main border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan, was closed in the wake of the incident, with firing ongoing.

Pakistan Sunday May 7, 2017:

• Pakistan's military said it had killed more than 50 Afghan soldiers in a clash on a major border crossing two days earlier, a claim quickly rejected by Kabul.
• The skirmish took place Friday at the Chaman border that divides Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province and Afghanistan's southern Kandahar, as Pakistani officials were carrying out a census count.
• At least eight civilians were killed, seven on the Pakistani side, and one on the Afghan side. Afghanistan had blamed Pakistani census enumerators accompanied by soldiers for straying across the border, a charge denied by Islamabad.

Pakistan Thursday May 11, 2017:

• At least two civilians have been killed on either side of the disputed border between India and Pakistan in  Kashmir as the South Asian neighbours traded artillery and small arms fire.
• A man called Muhammad Rizwan was killed by Indian shelling on in the village of Subzkot, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. At least two other people were also wounded in the exchange of fire.
• A 35-year-old woman was also killed in the Nowshera area, in Indian-administered Kashmir.
• Pakistani soldiers attacked Indian military posts with automatic weapons and mortars along the highly militarised Line of Control (LoC) that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed countries. The woman's husband was wounded in the shelling.

Pakistan Friday May 12, 2017:

• A bomb exploded next to the convoy of the deputy chairman of the Pakistan Senate in the violence-plagued province of Baluchistan, killing at least 25 people.
• At least 35 people were wounded in the blast near the town of Mastung, 50 km from the provincial capital of Quetta.
• Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, the deputy chairman of the upper house of parliament, said minutes after the explosion he believed he was the target and he had sustained minor injuries.
• Haideri is a member of Jamiat e Ulema Islam, a right-wing Sunni Islamist political party that is part of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's coalition government. ---

Pakistan Friday May 12, 2017:

• A UN committee has condemned the “widespread practice of torture” in Pakistan by police, the military and intelligence agencies and called on Islamabad to implement urgent reforms to the law.
• The UN highlighted that the Torture, Custodial Death and Custodial Rape Bill, presented several years ago, has yet to be put to a vote. Pakistan ratified the Convention against Torture in 2010, presented its first report on the situation in the country this year –four years late.
• A suicide bomber has struck the convoy of an Islamic party in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 40 others. Most of the victims were activists with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), a religious-based political party.
• The attack occurred in Mastung, about 50 kilometers from the provincial capital, Quetta. The blast apparently was targeted at Abdul Ghaforr Haideri, the deputy chairman of the Pakistani Senate, the upper house of parliament. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing.

Pakistan Saturday May 13, 2017:

• Ten labourers were gunned down in southwestern Pakistan while working on link roads to connect outlying towns to the country's $57-billion Chinese "Belt and Road" initiative.
• The attack on the Pakistani labourers took place some 20 kilometres from the emerging port city of Gwadar in Baluchistan province that forms the southern hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
• All the labourers were shot at close range; the shooters were travelling on a motorcycle.

Pakistan Monday May 15, 2017:

• Pakistani police killed four Islamic militants in a shootout in a central district. The militants were killed when the police returned fire in a raid in the Khanewal district. The militants were from Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban.
• Hand grenades, assault rifles and a cache of explosives were seized in the raid; three other suspects managed to escape from the scene.
• Earlier in the day, a roadside bombing wounded four Pakistani paramilitary troops in the southwestern district of Mastung. The roadside bomb struck the troops' vehicle.

Pakistan Friday May 19, 2017:

• Suspected militants gunned down three Pakistani workers building a Chinese-funded "Silk Road" highway in the country's southwest.
• The victims were part of a team working on a major highway linking the port-city of Gwadar to the provincial capital of Quetta. One labourer died on the spot and two others succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
• They were making a trip to a marketplace in the small town of Hoshab to buy daily supplies.

Pakistan Saturday May 20, 2017:

• Assailants in a series of attacks have thrown grenades at a school and four homes in a northwestern town, wounding 15 people before fleeing. The attacks took place in the town of Shabqadar, which is located near Mohmand tribal agency.

Pakistan Sunday May 21, 2017:

• Two attacks by gunmen killed six Pakistani police officers.
• Gunmen shot and killed four policemen returning to their station from a patrol about 90 kilometers south of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The victims included the area police chief, his second-in-command and two constables. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
• Elsewhere, a pair of gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a stationary police van in an upscale neighborhood in the southern port city of Karachi, killing two policemen and wounding two others. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, another extremist group considered close to the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for that attack.
• Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities detained nearly 20 people over accusations that they posted "anti-state" content on social media. The men are facing questioning for posting criticisms of state policies and the Pakistani military. ---

Pakistan Sunday May 21, 2017:

• A pair of separate attacks by gunmen killed six Pakistani police officers.
• Gunmen shot and killed four policemen returning to their station from a patrol about 90 kilometres south of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The victims included the area police chief, his second-in-command and two constables. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
• Elsewhere, a pair of gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a stationary police van in an upscale neighbourhood in the southern port city of Karachi —killing two policemen and wounding two others. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, another extremist group considered close to the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for that attack.

Pakistan Wednesday May 24, 2017:

• Two Chinese nationals working in Pakistan were kidnapped in Jinnah in Quetta, an attack which could raise safety concerns for Beijing's multi-billion dollar investment in the country. The couple were running a Chinese language centre.
• When they left the language centre for lunch, they were dragged into a vehicle without number plates by three unknown men. The men then began firing weapons in the air to scare off onlookers. One Chinese woman managed to escape and ran back to the centre, while a passer-by received a gunshot wound.
• Prison authorities have executed two members of the Pakistani Taliban over their involvement in a 2014 school attack that killed 150 people, mostly school children.
• The executions were carried out after a military court had sentenced the two convicts, identified as Atta Ullah and Taj Mohammad, to death for their role in the attack on the school in the city of Peshawar.
• Pakistan has executed nearly 450 people, mostly convicted criminals, since it lifted a moratorium on the death penalty following the school attack.

Pakistan Thursday June 1, 2017:

• Pakistan said two of its civilians were killed and seven injured in Indian cross-border shelling in the disputed Kashmir region. The incident occurred in the Poonch sector along the Line of Control (LoC), the de-facto border that divides the Himalayan territory.
• These civilians were sleeping in their houses. One of the dead was a 65-year old and four women were among those injured. Several houses were also damaged due to the mortar fire.

Pakistan Saturday June 3, 2017:

• The Pakistani military said its troops had killed five Indian soldiers in retaliation to Indian firing along the Line of Control in disputed Kashmir. Pakistan on Friday accused Indian troops of shooting without provocation in Nezapir sector, wounding two civilians. The Pakistani army spokesman said that its troops had retaliated, killing five soldiers, wounding many, and destroying bunkers.
• India denied that any of its soldiers had been killed or wounded in any cross-border attack.
• A woman was injured as Pakistani troops violated ceasefire twice in two sectors of Poonch district by firing mortar shells on forward posts and civilian areas along the Line of Control, army to retaliate.  Pakistani troops fired indiscriminately with small arms and mortars along the Line of Control in Krishana Ghati sector, the spokesman said.
• Tension over the Himalayan region has run high between the two nuclear-armed neighbours since a Pakistani military court sentenced an Indian accused of espionage to death. Kulbushan Sudhir Jadhav was arrested on March 3, 2016, in Baluchistan province, which has seen a long-running conflict between Pakistani security forces and a militant separatist movement. ---

Pakistan Saturday June 3, 2017:

• The Pakistani military said its troops had killed five Indian soldiers in retaliation to Indian firing along the Line of Control in disputed Kashmir. Pakistan on Friday accused Indian troops of shooting without provocation in Nezapir sector, wounding two civilians. India denied that any of its soldiers had been killed or wounded in any cross-border attack.
• A woman was injured as Pakistani troops violated ceasefire twice in two sectors of Poonch district by firing mortar shells on forward posts and civilian areas along the Line of Control. Pakistani troops fired indiscriminately with small arms and mortars along the Line of Control in Krishana Ghati sector.

Pakistan Sunday June 4, 2017:

• Pakistan says a two-day military operation has killed 12 militants in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Pakistan Thursday June 8, 2017:

• Islamic State has killed two Chinese teachers it kidnapped in southwestern Baluchistan province last month.
• Armed men pretending to be policemen kidnapped the two language teachers in the provincial capital, Quetta, on May 24. The kidnapping was a rare security incident involving Chinese nationals in Pakistan, where Beijing has pledged $57 billion for its "Belt and Road" plan.

Pakistan Sunday June 11, 2017:

• Gunmen shot and killed three officers and wounded another person in a hit-and-run attack on a police post in southwestern Pakistan.
• Two attackers on a motorcycle opened fire on a police post in the city of Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, killing one officer on the spot and wounding two others before fleeing. One of the wounded officers died on the way to hospital while the other later died during treatment. A bystander was also wounded.

Pakistan Monday June 12, 2017:

• Indian troops targeted civilians in the Jandrot and Hot Spring sectors along the military control line, killing two people and wounding three; Pakistani troops returned fire.
• An Indian army spokesman, said Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian positions in two sectors with no report of casualties.
• India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, which both claim in its entirety, since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
• An anti-terrorism court has sentenced a man to death for allegedly insulting the prophet Muhammed during an argument on Facebook. Taimoor Raza, 30, was found guilty of blasphemy after he insulted the prophet and "disseminated offensive pictures. He was also convicted of "making comments against Sunni Muslim religious leaders" and insulting the prophet's wife.
• The case marks the latest example of a sweeping crackdown on social media where unfounded allegations of blasphemy have led to vigilante justice. ---

Pakistan Friday June 23, 2017:

• At least 37 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in two separate attacks. First a suicide car bomber killed 12 people in Quetta. The explosion in Quetta targeted the office of the inspector general of police. Four officers were among those killed in the blast, which occurred after a car carrying explosives was pulled over at a checkpoint.
• After twin blasts hit a market in Parachinar, the largest city in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, killing at least 25 and injuring more than 100. The twin attacks in Parachinar appeared to target civilians and took place in a busy market in an area populated mostly by Shia Muslims.
• After the first explosion, which struck as shoppers were preparing for Eid, people gathered around the victims. Three minutes later, another explosion ripped through the crowd.
• The authorities did little to help ferry victims from the attack site. All those who died are Shia Muslims, and aren’t even considered Muslims in this country. No one has come for help.

Pakistan Sunday June 25, 2017:

• An overturned oil tanker exploded in a huge fireball in the city of Ahmad Pur Sharqia, Punjab province, killing more than 150 people, including many women and children, who had rushed to the site to collect fuel spilling from the crashed vehicle.
• Survivors described an explosion, like a bomb going off, in the blaze, which could have been sparked by a dropped cigarette, as villagers went running with jerry cans and buckets to collect the spilt fuel, after the tanker toppled off the main road near Bahawalpur. The tanker, which was going from Karachi to Lahore and carrying 25,000 litres of fuel, might have had a tyre blow out while rounding a steep bend.
• The death toll in Friday’s blasts targeting civilians and security personnel in Quetta and Parachinar areas has risen to 85, with nine people injured in the twin Parachinar blasts succumbing to their injuries overnight. More than 200 injured people are being treated in hospitals.
• A bomb resembling a toy killed at least six children aged between six to 12 years, all boys, and two others wounded critically in the northwestern tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
• The bomb exploded while the children were playing with it in Speenmark village in the South Waziristan tribal district.

Pakistan Monday June 26, 2017:

• Pakistan's prime minister cut short a trip abroad to rush to the side of victims of a massive fuel tanker fire; authorities raised the death toll to 157.
• The truck, carrying some 25,000 liters of gasoline, was traveling from the southern port city of Karachi to Lahore when the driver lost control and crashed on a highway outside the town of Bahawalpur early on Sunday.
• Scores of villagers rushed to the scene to collect the spilled fuel. When the fire broke out, the villagers were engulfed in flames, many burned beyond recognition.

Pakistan Tuesday June 27, 2017:

• One Spanish man and an Argentinian have gone missing on a notoriously treacherous peak in northern Pakistan known among mountaineers as "Killer Mountain".
• Alberto Zerain Berasategi from Spain and Mariano Galvan from Argentina were last heard from on Saturday when their party was climbing Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth highest mountain. They went to the high camp and nobody have not been able to contact them since.
• Pakistan rivals Nepal for the number of peaks over 7,000 meters and is home to the world's second-highest mountain, K2, as well as three others which are among the world's 14 summits higher than 8,000 meters.
• Nanga Parbat, 8,126 meters high, was the scene of an attack in 2013, when gunmen dressed as police officers shot 10 foreign mountaineers and a local guide at the 4,200-metre base camp. The killings were claimed by both the Pakistani Taliban and a smaller group of Islamist militants.
• Since that attack, the number of expeditions has dwindled, wrecking communities dependent on climbing tourism for income and depriving Pakistan's economy of much-needed dollars.

Pakistan Friday June 30, 2017:

• The death toll from an oil tanker explosion in central Pakistan has risen to 190 as 16 more people succumbed to their injuries. The tanker overturned early Sunday on a main highway from Karachi to Lahore while carrying some 40,000 litres of fuel.
• It exploded minutes later as crowds from a nearby village gathered to scavenge for fuel, despite warnings by the driver as well as motorway police to stay away.

Pakistan Sunday July 2, 2017:

• At least 11 people were killed, three missing and scores more people were injured in flash floods triggered by heavy rains in the southwestern province of Balochistan. Heavy rainfall on Friday triggered flash floods which swept away mud houses Lasbela district of Balochistan causing damage to life and property. Twenty house had been damaged by the flash floods.

Paklistan Monday July 3, 2017:

• The death toll from a lorry fire in Pakistan last week has risen sharply, with more than 200 people killed.

Pakistan Tuesday July 4, 2017:

• At least 43 people were killed and 61 injured as heavy monsoon rains triggered flash floods damaging several houses. Out of the total deaths, 11 people were killed in Punjab, 15 in Balochistan, six in Sindh and two in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said in a report.
• Heavy rains started over the weekend and are still lashing some areas. Over 60 houses were destroyed and roads were also damaged due to the rains and floods.
• The NDMA has also recorded the deaths of four children in Waziristan over the last 24 hours due to rain and flooding. There was no flood in the major rivers which registered normal flow. ---

Pakistan Monday July 10, 2017:

• A bomb killed a police chief Sajid Khan Mohmand and his guard, and wounded 11 others in a southwestern Pakistani town bordering Afghanistan. The bombing took place in Chaman, a tense border town in southwestern Balochistan province, which has seen many bombings and extremist attacks in the past. The bomb was planted on a roadside in a motorcycle, which exploded when Mohmand's vehicle passed by.

Pakistan Thursday July 13, 2017:

• Gunmen have ambushed a vehicle carrying a senior police officer in southwest Pakistan, killing the officer and three other policemen. The attack took place in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
• The attack came days after gunmen shot and killed a district police chief in the town of Chaman, bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan Friday July 14, 2017:

• Two suicide bombers have attacked a military camp in northwest Pakistan, triggering a shootout in which the attackers were killed and two soldiers wounded. One of the attackers detonated his suicide vest and the other was killed by snipers deployed at the camp in the Khyber tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan Monday July 17, 2017:

• A suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) in the upscale Hayatabad area of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two and wounding six others; the attack was claimed by the Taliban.
• An Indian soldier and a young girl were killed during a skirmish at the de facto border in Kashmir just a day after four Pakistani soldiers were killed in a similar exchange.
• The soldier died when a mortar fired from Pakistan-controlled territory landed on a bunker, sparking fierce retaliatory fire. The eight-year-old girl was also killed in an exchange of fire across the Line of Control, and her mother was seriously injured.

Pakistan Tuesday July 18, 2017:

• A dilapidated, three-story building in a poorer neighbourhood of Karachi collapsed, killing at least five people and injuring 14.
• Several hours later rescuers were still working and pulling more bodies from under the rubble. Rescuers are using heavy machinery with utmost care as one can still hear voices of people trapped in the rubble.

Pakistan Wednesday July 19, 2017:

• Gunmen shot dead four members of the Shi'ite Muslim minority in Baluchistan province; it was a sectarian attack. The Shi'ites were targeted because of their faith.
• Three men and a woman from the Hazara community were travelling to the southern port city of Karachi when armed men on two motorcycles attacked their car on a highway close to Quetta, the provincial capital.
• Indian troops fired across the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region, killing a soldier and two civilians; another seven people, including two soldiers, were wounded, and that Pakistani forces returned fire.

Pakistan Thursday July 20, 2017:

• Pakistani troops have raided several militant hideouts in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, triggering firefights that killed one soldier. 13 “terrorists” were also killed in the fighting.
• Troops, backed by Pakistani Air Force, also destroyed militant hideouts in the Khyber tribal region.

Pakistan Saturday July 22, 2017:

• The son of the Taliban chief was one of the three suicide bombers who died earlier this week while attacking Afghan security check posts in Helmand province.
• Abdul Rahman, son of Mullah Haibatullah, was one of the insurgents who carried out three car bomb attacks in Geresk district and launched coordinated attacks on the Afghan forces which prompted the US air support and security reinforcements.

Pakistan Sunday July 23, 2017:

• The Pakistani Army has cleared two strongholds of terrorists in Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan after gaining control of a key mountain top. The army captured two major passes in Rajgal Valley connecting Pakistan to Afghanistan.
• Terrorists hideouts are being targeted by artillery and army aviation. Terrorists are on the run. The Pakistan flag fluttered 12,000 feet above sea level.

Pakistan Monday July 24, 2017:

• At least 26 people have been killed in a bombing in the eastern city of Lahore. More than 50 others were injured in the explosion on the busy Ferozepur Road close to a vegetable market in the south of the city. The Pakistani Taliban said it was behind the explosion.
• It was a suicide bomber on a motorbike, and the target may have been police working in the area. Police officers are among the dead. Windows were blown out in nearby buildings by the force of the blast.
• The market was full of police at the time because officers had been sent to clear stalls that had illegally spilled into the road. ---

Pakistan Thursday July 27, 2017:

• Some 20 people from Multan have been arrested for ordering the rape of a teenage girl, in revenge for a rape her brother allegedly committed. The families of the two girls are related. Members of both had joined forces to decide what should be done.

Pakistan Friday July 28, 2017:

• Revelations of his family's finances that emerged in the Panama Papers leak led to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's resignation after the country's Supreme Court disqualified him in a corruption probe.
• The high court ruled that Sharif had been dishonest to Parliament and to the judicial system and was no longer deemed fit for office. A five-judge panel announced its unanimous decision.

Pakistan Saturday July 29, 2017:

• A roadside bomb has struck a vehicle carrying villagers in a southwestern border town near Iran, killing four people and wounding five others. The incident took place in the remote town of Panjgur in Baluchistan province.

Pakistan Tuesday August 1, 2017:

• Pakistan's parliament has elected Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the country's new prime minister, after a Supreme Court decision last week disqualified Nawaz Sharif, his predecessor, over allegations he lied on a wealth declaration.
• Abbasi, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party, was elected after a vote by members of the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, in Islamabad.
• The ruling PML-N holds a comfortable majority in the lower house, and Abbasi's election was considered a foregone conclusion ahead of the vote. Several smaller parties also supported Abbasi's election in the vote, results showed.
• Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the former petroleum minister, was elected as the country's new prime minister, replacing ousted veteran leader Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan Sunday August 6, 2017:

• A gas explosion in a coalmine in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir has killed five miners and injured two after a part of the mine collapsed.
• The explosion took place about 32 kilometres, north of the regional capital of Muzaffarabad. The police arrested six officials of the mining company for failing to maintain safety standards.

Pakistan Monday August 7, 2017:

• At least one person was killed and 33 were left wounded in an explosion that took place at Sagian Bridge near the Bund Road area in what authorities say was a truck carrying fruits.

Pakistan Wednesday August 9, 2017:

• An army major and three other officers have been killed in a shoot-out with militants in the country's tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
• One militant blew himself up and another was shot and killed in the raid on a home in the Sherotkai area of the Lower Dir tribal region. Up to nine more troops were wounded in the operation, and one suspected militant was captured.

Pakistan Friday August 11, 2017:

• At least three people have been killed in a powerful bomb blast that ripped through a small town in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region on the border with Afghanistan. At least 25 people were also injured in the explosion in the Char Mang district of Bajaur.
• The explosion was caused by a roadside bomb. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but initial reports said it was remotely detonated. Bajaur is one of the seven tribal agencies that makes up Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along its volatile border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan Saturday August 12, 2017:

• A suicide bomber on a motorcycle has targeted a military truck with a bomb killing eight soldiers and seven civilians in the south-western city of Quetta.
• The bomb also wounded 25 people, including 15 civilians. The explosives sparked fires in nearby vehicles. ---

Pakistan Tuesday August 15, 2017:

• A roadside bomb killed eight soldiers in a remote district in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, the second attack within days in the troubled region.
• The blast in Harnai district was some 160 km east of the provincial capital, Quetta killing eight soldiers and seven civilians. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) group claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Pakistan Thursday August 17, 2017:

• Rocket attacks from the Pakistani side of the Durand Lineinfo-icon have injured two civilians in the Momand Dara district of eastern Nangarhar province.
• Pakistani forces have fired 36 rockets into the district since Wednesday. The rocket-shelling neither caused casualties nor financial losses.

Pakistan Saturday August 19, 2017:

• Pakistani soldiers carried the flag-draped coffin of German-born Catholic nun Ruth Pfau to a state funeral where she was honoured after devoting her life to eradicating leprosy in the country. Widely known as Pakistan's Mother Teresa, Pfau died last week in the southern city of Karachi at age 87. She is to be buried in her adopted homeland.
• Mourners paid their last respects as Pfau's coffin was carried to the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre that she founded before being taken on to St. Patrick's Cathedral for the official service. Pfau had been living in Pakistan since 1960, and her leprosy centre in Karachi was Pakistan's first hospital dedicated to treating the disease. She later opened treatment centres across the country.
• Gunmen on a motorcycle have killed a local leader of Pakistan's pro-Taliban Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam party in an apparent assassination in the northwest before fleeing.
• Attaullah Shah was walking home after praying at a mosque in the city of Dera Ismail Khan when the assailants opened fire early Saturday.

Pakistan Tuesday August 29, 2017:

• The Pakistan Army Aviation Corps (PAAC) took delivery of four Russian-made Mi-35M attack helicopters.

Pakistan Thursday August 31, 2017:

• Monsson rains in port city of Karachi left at least eight people dead in flood-related mishaps. The destruction came on the heels of days-long downpours in neighbouring India that especially caused havoc in Mumbai.
• The heavy downpour in Karachi flooded streets and disrupted normal life in Pakistan's largest city. People in some areas were seen wading through waist-high water.

Pakistan Friday September 1, 2017:

• A roadside bomb has struck a vehicle carrying an anti-Taliban tribal elder in the northwest, killing him, his son and another person. Three people were also wounded in the attack in the town of Ambar in Mohmand Province, a tribal region. ---

Pakistan Friday September 1, 2017:

• A bomb attack killed three people and wounded two others in Pakistan's northwestern tribal district. A father and his son were among those killed as they returned home from morning prayers in the Ambar area of Mohmand, one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal districts along the Afghan border.
• The improvised explosive device (IED) planted near the mosque exploded when people were returning home after offering Morning Prayer. All those killed and wounded were civilians.
• A five-year-old Pakistani girl was killed after she was hit in the head by a bullet fired by Indian troops across the border in disputed Kashmir.   
• The incident took place in Polas village at Abbaspur sector on the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir between nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India.   

Pakistan Saturday September 2, 2017:

• Two gunmen targeting an ethnic party lawmaker after Eid prayers instead shot down two others, including a child, in the southern port city of Karachi.
• Lawmaker Khawaja Izharul Hasan escaped uninjured in the attack but the child and a police officer were killed. One of the attackers was also gunned down by police during a chase.

Pakistan Monday September 4, 2017:

• A suspect involved in an attack on a lawmaker killed one police officer and wounded another during a raid at his house and he was able to escape from his eastern Karachi neighbourhood. The suspect was wounded in the raid.
• Karim Siddiqi was the mastermind of an attack on an ethnic lawmaker on Saturday. The lawmaker escaped unhurt but a policeman and a child were killed. Police later shot and killed one of the attackers.
• Siddiqi belongs to a militant group and planned to assassinate Khwaja Izharul Hasan to ignite violence in the city. Hasan's party the Muttahida Qaumi Movement has a history of violent reaction when its people are killed.
• Hours after the early morning raid a police team raid a construction site in eastern Karachi, where four Islamic militants were holed up. All four militants were killed in an hour-long gun battle.
• Gunmen have ambushed a paramilitary patrol, killing three troops, including a lieutenant colonel, and wounding another three.
• The attack on the Frontier Corps happened in Panjgur district, in the southwestern Baluchistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.

Pakistan Tuesday September 5, 2017:

• Eight people including four security personnel have been killed in three separate clashes with militants in southwest Pakistan and Karachi.
• In a major attack on Monday, militants ambushed a Frontier Corps convoy in Panjgoor district of Balochistan province, killing three personnel including a lieutenant colonel and wounding three others.
• In a separate incident, police in the southern city of Karachi killed four suspected Pakistani Taliban militants in a shootout.
• In another incident in Karachi, suspected militants killed a police official and wounded another when they raided a house to detain a suspect for an assassination attempt on an MP, which took place on Saturday. Two people, a 10-year-old boy and a security guard, were killed in that attack.

Pakistan Saturday September 9, 2017:

• A Christian teenager has been beaten to death by his classmates in Pakistan. Sharoon Masih was the only Christian in his year and was attacked after he apparently drank from the same glass as a Muslim. The 17-year-old had only been at MC Model Boys Government School Burewala in Punjab for three days before the incident.
• Pakistani security forces have killed a Taliban commander suspected of taking part in the gun attack on Birmingham education activist and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai.
• The commander, known as Khursheed, was also the cousin of Mullah Fazlullah, the head of the Pakistani Taliban. Fazlullah ordered the attack on Yousafzai in 2012 when she was just 15 years old after she became championing education for females which was banned under the militant group's rule.
• Khursheed was not the gunman suspected of shooting Yousafzai, but police said he played a key role in planning the attack. He was shot dead along with three other suspected terrorists in a police raid in Karachi.
• At least 12 people, including women and children, have drowned at a beach near the port city of Karachi after being swept away by strong waves in the Arabian Sea.
• Initially two people drowned after enjoying a picnic at the beach and the others died trying to rescue them. At least seven of the dead belonged to the same family.

Pakistan Sunday September 10, 2017:

• Ten members of a family who were on their way to a wedding celebration have died when their van collided with a long trailer in Punjab province.
• Another 14 people were injured in the accident on a highway near the town of Layyah. Six children and three women were among those killed. ---

Pakistan, Monday September 11, 2017:

• Gunmen have shot and killed four Shiite Muslims in an apparent sectarian attack. Two other people were wounded in the overnight shooting near Quetta, in the southwestern Baluchistan province.
• Those killed were members of the Shiite Hazara, a minority group in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They were traveling to Quetta from Afghanistan. The vehicle was attacked when they stopped for fuel.
• Pakistani teenage couple who tried to elope were murdered with electric shocks in an "honour killing" by family members who were carrying out the orders of an influential tribal council.
• The teenagers in the port city of Karachi were said by the Pashtun council of elders, or jirga, to have brought dishonour on the community.
• They were tied to a charpai (rope bed) and given electric shocks. The police arrested the two fathers and two uncles and is pursuing some 30 members of the jirga who have gone into hiding.
• The 15-year-old girl had allegedly run away with her 17-year-old boyfriend last month. The girl was killed and buried first followed by the murder of the boy the next day.

Pakistan Friday September 15, 2017:

• A US drone killed three suspected militants in an attack on a compound in Pakistan's tribal region. The strike took place in remote Ghuz Ghari village in Kurram agency, close to the Afghan border where at least five fighters from the Afghan Taliban had gathered.
• The US drone fired two missiles, at least three fighters from the Afghan Taliban have been killed and two wounded. One of the dead belonged to the Haqqani network.

Pakistan Sunday September 17, 2017:

• The wife of Pakistan's former prime minister who stepped down over a corruption inquiry has won a key seat in Lahore. Kulsoom Nawaz stood in place of her husband Nawaz Sharif, who was disqualified from office in July.
• She won 61,000 votes, 14,000 more than her nearest rival. The vote was seen by both the ruling PML-N party and the opposition as a referendum on the Supreme Court's decision to disqualify Mr Sharif.
• Ms Nawaz is currently in London for cancer treatment. Her daughter, Maryam, spearheaded the campaign for the PML-N party in her absence.
• A roadside bomb killed a local government official and five policemen in the northwestern tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
• The blast took place in the town of Mamoond, some 25 kilometres from Khar, the main town of Bajaur, one of the country's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts, where the army has been battling Taliban militants.
• A local government officer and five tribal police were killed when an improvised explosive device planted on a roadside exploded when their vehicle passed.

• A woman was killed and five other civilians injured as Pakistani troops shelled border out posts along the International Border in Jammu district. This is the fifth ceasefire violation by Pakistan in as many days.

    . Pakistani Rangers used heavy mortars and targeted dozens of BoPs and scores of villages along the IB in Arnia sector since last night.
    . Over 10 to 12 shells exploded at the Arnia bus stand.
    . Six persons, including three women were injured and admitted to GMC Hospital, where one Ratno Devi later succumbed to injuries today.
    .Over a dozen of structures including some houses suffered damages; four cattle were killed in shelling in Jorafarm village.
    . Yesterday, Pakistani troops had opened fire with small and heavy weapon at BoPs and border hamlets of Arnia Sector.
    . On September 15, 32-year-old Constable Bijender Bahadur sustained a bullet injury in Pakistani firing and later died.
    . On September 14, a woman was injured in Pakistani firing along the LoC in Noushera sector of Rajouri district.
    . On September 13, Pakistan Rangers fired mortars on Brahman Bella and Raipur Border out Posts (BoPs) along the IB in Pargwal sector of Akhnoor belt in Jammu district resulting in exchange of fire in which a BSF jawan was injured.
    . In another ceasefire violation on September 13, the Pakistan Army shelled Indian posts along the Line of Control in Mankote, Sabjian and Digwar forward areas in Poonch.
    . Two BSF jawans and three civilians suffered injuries in the heavy exchanges of fire.

Pakistan Tuesday September 19, 2017:

• An accidental explosion at a cement factory in the country’s south has killed at least five people. The casualties included two policemen, a paramilitary ranger and two factory workers. The blast also injured eight people. Foul play was ruled out.
• The blast happened during an inspection of explosives that the factory uses for mining, which required the presence of policemen.
• After a two-day lull in cross-border firing and shelling, Pakistani troops targeted Indian border outposts and villages along the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Samba districts injuring three civilians.
• Pakistan Rangers started unprovoked firing and later shelling in Arnia Sector, targeting BSF posts. The Indian troops retaliated effectively. ---

Pakistan Thursday September 21, 2017:

• Pakistan says Indian shelling across the disputed Kashmir frontier has killed at least four civilians, including two women.
• The deadly incident took place in a remote village in the Charwa sector. Pakistani forces responded, targeting Indian posts from where fire on the civilian population originated.

Pakistan Friday September 22, 2017:

• Shelling along the disputed border between Pakistan and India killed six civilians, and wounded an additional 30 people.
• The firing took place across the frontier separating Pakistan’s Punjab province from Indian-administered Kashmir’s Jammu region, and most of the casualties were reported on the Pakistani side.

Pakistan Saturday September 23, 2017:

• Pakistani troops targeted Indian border outposts and hamlets in Jammu, Samba and Poonch districts in overnight firing and shelling, injuring two BSF jawans and five civilians.
• Continuous violations of the ceasefire by Pakistan along the International Border (IB) and the Line of Control (LoC) have forced hundreds of border residents to flee their homes.
• Pakistan troops engaged in heavy firing and mortar shelling on villages and border outposts in Arnia, R S Pura and Ramgarh sectors along the IB in Jammu and Samba districts since last evening. They targeted over 20 villages.
• Three civilians in Satowali village of R S Pura sector were injured in Pakistani shelling and had to be hospitalised; another villager was injured in Treva in Arnia sector.
• In Ramgarh sector in Samba, two BSF jawans suffered minor injuries in Pakistani firing.
• Pakistan also engaged in heavy firing and shelling in Poonch sector along the LoC. An eight-year-old boy was injured in the firing.
• Over 500 people were evacuated by the police from a few border hamlets targeted by Pakistani troops. The villagers have been housed in a camp.
• Over 20,000 people have also fled their homes and hearths in Arnia and R S Pura sectors.
• There have been continuous firing and shelling by Pakistani troops along the IB and the LoC between September 13 and September 18.
• Firing and shelling resumed on September 21 after a two- day lull.
• A BSF jawan and a civilian were killed and 25 others including five BSF personnel were injured in the shelling and firing by Pakistani troops during the period.

Pakistan Sunday September 24, 2017:

• Indian troops have fired across the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region, killing a young girl and wounding two other people.
• The shooting took place late Saturday, in violation of a 2003 cease-fire agreement. There was no immediate comment from India.

Pakistan Wednesday September 27, 2017:

• Indian troops have fired across the frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir, killing a young man and wounding four people.
• The shooting targeted the civilian population in the border villages in the Nikyal sector. Three women are among the four wounded.
• Two civilians were killed and two others wounded after Indian troops fired into Pakistani Kashmir, in a village in Abbaspur sector on the Line of Control. A brother and a sister were killed and two other women were wounded.
• Pakistan's foreign ministry lodged "a strong protest on the unprovoked ceasefire violation", summoning India's deputy high commissioner.
• Indian forces in the past two weeks have killed 13 civilians and wounded 39 others.
• Pakistan's military have executed three militants sentenced to death by military courts after being convicted of carrying out terror attacks in recent years. ---

Pakistan Thursday October 5, 2017:

• A suicide attacker blew himself up outside a Sufi shrine in southwest Pakistan killing 18 people including three children under the age of 12 and two policemen, and wounding at least 27 others, 14 of them seriously. The incident follows a deadly bomb blast at the same shrine in the oil and gas rich Balochistan province in 2005, which killed 35 people.
• The incident occurred as Muslims attended annual celebrations of a local saint. Members of Sunni and Shiite sects make daily visits to the shrine in Jhal Magsi district but attendance climbs significantly during festivities.

Pakistan Saturday October 7, 2017:

• At least 14 people were killed and 27 were injured in a collision between a passenger van and a bus in southwestern Pakistan. The bus was carrying university students from Quetta to a nearby picnic spot in Mastung district.
• The accident took place near Quetta in Balochistan Province after the driver of the van lost control due to speeding and collided with the bus coming from the opposite direction. The victims, which included children, were all in the passenger van while students and staff on the bus only suffered injuries.

Pakistan Monday October 9, 2017:

• Gunmen ambushed a car with minority Shiite Muslims in Quetta, killing four of them and a passer-by, while a Taliban attack on a military vehicle in northwestern Pakistan left three soldiers dead.
• In the attack in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, two other passers-by were also wounded.

Pakistan Wednesday October 11, 2017:

• Three members of Pakistan's persecuted Ahmadi sect have been sentenced to death for blasphemy by a court in Sheikhupura. Mubasher Ahmad, Ghulam Ahmed and Ehsan Ahmed were convicted by the court for insulting Prophet Mohammad under the country's strict blasphemy laws.
• The three men were arrested in May 2014 after they tore down religious posters in Bhoiwal, a village about 22km southwest of the city of Lahore. Khalil Ahmed, a fourth accused, was shot and killed in police custody just days after the incident took place.
• While the accused claimed the posters carried anti-Ahmadi slogans, the prosecution said they carried religious significance and that tearing them down was tantamount to insulting the prophet.

Pakistan Sunday October 15, 2017:

• Explosions hit a military check post leaving at least four soldiers killed and two others injured.
• The explosions were reportedly triggered by about three landmines at the check post in the semi-autonomous Kurram Agency located along Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
• Bomb blasts killed a Pakistani army officer and three soldiers searching for the kidnappers of a freed U.S.-Canadian family in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
• The attacks in Kurram tribal district also wounded three soldiers during the search for those who held American Caitlan Coleman, her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, and their three children hostage.
• Around 800 Islamic State militants turned in themselves to the Kurdish Peshmerga troops in Kirkuk.
• Thirty IS leaders, who were emirs of four of the group’s states, including Kirkuk, Diyala and Salahuddin, were among those who extradited themselves.
• The Peshmerga did not provide information about places to which the militants were transferred.

Pakistan Tuesday October 17, 2017:

• Two suspected U.S. drone strikes killed 11 people on the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, following a strike a day earlier that killed 20.
• Four unmanned drones fired six missiles in Monday's attack, and four more were dropped in two strikes on Tuesday.
• The drones fired missiles on Taliban hideouts, killing at least 31 people over two days with all three attacks taking place on the Afghan side.
• Twenty people were killed yesterday, mostly from the Afghan Taliban, and 11 more were killed in today's attacks.

Pakistan Wednesday October 18, 2017:

• A suicide bomber has killed at least seven police officers and wounded 22 others in the southwestern city of Quetta.
• The attack targeted a truck carrying police personnel on the city's main Saryab road. Those attacked were "elite" officers.
• The militant commander accused of masterminding Pakistan's deadliest ever extremist attack, a massacre at a school in Peshawar in 2014, has been killed.
• The Mansour-led faction of the TTP, the Tariq Gidar Group (TGG), had claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in Peshawar, in which more than 150 people were killed, most of them children.

Pakistan Friday October 20, 2017:

• Unidentified men threw a grenade into a labourers’ hostel in the port of Gwadar wounding 26 of them; the attack is likely to raise concern about security for the Pakistani section of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative.
• The labourers were having dinner at the hostel when motorcyclists attacked them with a grenade. ---

Pakistan Sunday October 22, 2017:

• Paramilitary Rangers along with counterterrorism police raided a house in Karachi, triggering an hours-long shootout. It says five “terrorists” were killed inside the hideout while three others were wounded and later died on the way to a hospital. A counterterrorism officer and two paramilitary troops were wounded.
• Two of the gunmen who were killed were identified as members of the Ansar al-Shariya militant group, and that weapons and explosives were seized from the hideout.

Pakistan Tuesday October 24, 2017:

• Pakistan accused India of killing at least two women and injuring six other people in unprovoked firing along the Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border that divides the disputed Kashmir valley between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
• Unprovoked Indian border forces fired with artillery, heavy mortars and automatic weapons in the Leepa valley near the LoC and targeted the civilian population in different villages. Pakistani troops engaged Indian troops and destroyed four Indian posts.

Pakistan Friday October 27, 2017:

• A bomb struck a vehicle carrying the local leader of a secular political party, Abdur Razzaq) in southwestern Pakistan, killing him and his brother.
• The attack took place in the town of Harnai, about 200 kilometres north of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
• At least six people were wounded when a bomb went off along railway tracks in southwestern Pakistan, halting train service in the region.
• The train was traveling from Baluchistan’s capital of Quetta to the eastern metropolis of Lahore when a blast on the main railway track damaged one of its cars. One train bogie was damaged in the blast and a portion of the tracks blown up. Quetta’s train services had been suspended.

Pakistan Monday October 30, 2017::

• A roadside bombing has killed one paramilitary soldier and wounded another in the South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border.
• The bomb exploded when the two Frontier Corps members were bringing water containers on mules for their post in the region’s Tiarza area. A spokesman for a local Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Thursday November 2, 2017:

• Police have arrested eight men on suspicion of marching a naked teenager through her village in revenge for her brother allegedly damaging their family "honour".
• The men assaulted and humiliated the 16-year-old in retaliation for her brother having a romantic relationship with a girl from their family outside marriage three years earlier.
• The incident occurred the 27 October when the girl was fetching water. She was set upon by the men, stripped naked and dragged along the ground before being made to walk around the village for an hour. ---

Pakistan Wednesday November 8, 2017:

• At least 22 people were killed and 51 others injured when a passenger bus fell into a ravine in Attock district of Punjab province. The death toll might further rise as seven injured were still in critical condition.
• The doomed bus was carrying 82 passengers to a religious congregation in the provincial capital of Lahore from Attock.
• A Pakistani sepoy Muhammad Ilyas was killed during an exchange of fire with terrorists in Khyber Agency.
• Terrorists opened fire at multiple places at the newly established Pakistani posts in Rajgal Valley, exploiting the absence of any control in Afghan border areas.
• The Pakistan Army responded and five terrorists killed and four injured.

Pakistan Thursday November 9, 2017:

• A suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying a deputy inspector general of police in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing him and three other officers. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
• Nine people, including police officers, were also wounded in the attack that targeted Hamid Shakil, who had played a key role in arresting militants and members of small separatist groups in recent years. The attack took place when Shakil's convoy passed through a residential area.

Pakistan Monday November 13, 2017:

• At least eight militants were shot dead and two Pakistani soldiers died in a skirmish along the border with Afghanistan as Islamabad tries to tighten its grip on the frontier.
• Militants have crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan and killed a Pakistani army officer and a soldier.
• The uneasy neighbours accuse each other of harbouring militants on either side of the border, and their two armies have exchanged fire across it during periods of tension over recent years.

Pakistan Wednesday November 15, 2017:

• Pakistani police found 15 bullet-ridden bodies of kidnap victims near the border with Iran, a favoured route for human traffickers taking workers illegally to Europe.
• The bodies were found abandoned in a mountainous region of Buleda, in Baluchistan province, 600 km south of the provincial capital of Quetta.  Documents and other belongings found on the bodies suggested that they were en route to Iran illegally.
• Human smuggling is big business in Pakistan and other poor South Asian countries. There have been instances of workers being killed in border areas, or sometimes dying during road or sea travel.
• Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a senior Pakistani police officer, as well as his wife, son and grandson as the family was driving in Baluchistan province.
• Two attackers opened fire on the vehicle carrying District Superintendent Muhammad Ilyas and his relatives to Quetta. His four-year-old granddaughter survived and was taken to hospital.

Pakistan Sunday November 19, 2017:

• A car carrying a family has fallen off a mountainous road into a deep gorge killing five and wounding one in the country's northwest. Three young girls were among the dead along with their father and grandfather. The driver of the car was being treated for critical injuries.
• Such accidents often take place in Pakistan because of poor road conditions and disregard for safety standards and traffic rules by motorists.

Pakistan Monday November 20, 2017:

• A head-on collision between a minibus and a truck loaded with coal has left at least 20 people dead and several others injured. The accident occurred in "heavy fog" on a road in Sindh Province's Khairpur district. The van's passengers included women and children.
• At least one of the vehicles was speeding and visibility was poor due to a thick morning fog.
• Islamic State militants have freed a kidnapped citizen in Diyala Province, after his family paid a $50,000 ransom.
• IS militants had kidnapped the citizen from his house in Jalawla Town, in Diyala Province, two weeks ago. The abducted citizen was released after his family sold their farm to pay the ransom. IS terrorists had demanded a $150,000 ransom first, but the kidnapped citizen’s family managed to reduce it to 50,000 U.S. dollars.
• An explosive device planted near a shop of construction materials went off in Abu Ghraib District, west of Baghdad, leaving four people injured. ---

Pakistan Friday November 24, 2017:

• A suicide bomber on a motorcycle has killed a senior regional police official in northwestern Pakistan and one of his guards. Six other police officers were injured in the attack in Peshawar that killed deputy provincial police chief Ashraf Noor, city police chief Tahir Khan said. Noor also held the additional rank of inspector-general of police.
• Khan said Noor was traveling to his office when the attacker slammed into his vehicle with the motorcycle. Some of the attacker's remains had been recovered by police.

Pakistan Saturday November 25, 2017:

• The army has been called in by the government to restore order following violent protests by Islamist groups which have left at least six people dead and around 200 injured.
• The country’s Ministry of Interior authorised the military deployment as clashes between protesters and police spread from the capital Islamabad to other cities, with hundreds of police officers in riot gear firing tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds.
• Early on Saturday, after a midnight deadline expired, police launched an operation to clear protesters from an intersection linking Islamabad with the garrison city of Rawalpindi, prompting other demonstrators to take to the streets in solidarity, bringing several major cities to a virtual standstill.
• A suicide attack in the southwestern city of Quetta on a paramilitary forces convoy has killed at least four bystanders. At least 15 people were wounded in the attack.
• The attack aimed at vehicles carrying personnel of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force, which largely controls security in the Balochistan provincial capital.

Pakistan Monday November 27, 2017:

• Pakistan’s law minister has resigned after weeks of big protests staged by a hard-line cleric against a perceived softening of the country’s blasphemy laws.
• At least six protesters were killed and 200 injured in Islamabad on Saturday when thousands of police officers unsuccessfully tried to disperse a three-week sit-in that had virtually paralysed the capital.
• Zahid Hamid’s resignation is the latest in a series of government concessions to religious extremists, who have been edging their way further into the political mainstream.
• The police have arrested ten people for killing a newly-wed couple who entered into a free-will marriage in the southern port city of Karachi.
• Abdul Hadi, 24, and Hasina Bibi, 19, were killed by relatives last week for marrying without permission from their elders earlier this month. Hadi's father and nine other relatives were arrested after the couple's bodies were found in a local graveyard on Sunday. He said Bibi's father has absconded.
• The men confessed to murdering the couple with knives upon the orders of a "Jirga," or tribal council, for dishonouring their Pashtun culture. Nearly 1,000 Pakistani women are killed by close relatives each year in so-called honour killings.
• Pakistani authorities are asked to release Khalil Afridi and conduct an efficient and thorough investigation into who planted a bomb under his car. It is outrageous that Pakistani forces should detain and question the victim of an attack on press freedom, rather than focusing on the hunt for the attackers.
• Afridi had rented a car in the town of Jamroud and was traveling to the Khyber tribal region with four other journalists when the bomb was discovered. The group was covering a vintage car rally in the Khyber region.

Pakistan Wednesday November 29, 2017:

• Gunmen killed one person and wounded at least four others outside a Shiite mosque in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The firing erupted as people left the Bab-ul-Ilm mosque following evening prayers.
• Two gunmen approached a water cooler installed outside the mosque's main gate and filled their glasses with water, then opened fire indiscriminately on people as they came out. The gunmen arrived on foot and then ran away after the shooting, disappearing into a nearby greenbelt. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Thursday November 30, 2017:

• An U.S. drone strike has hit a militant compound near the Afghan border, killing three militants. The drone fired two missiles at a compound of the militant Haqqani network's commander Abdur Rasheed in the Kurram tribal district.
• It's unclear if Rasheed was at the compound located on the Pesho Ghar Mountain in the Kurram tribal region's Ghuzgari area.
• Pakistan opposes drone strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and claims it has eradicated militant sanctuaries there. The drone strikes, however, effectively target hideouts of militants who operate on both sides of the border.
• A roadside bomb killed five anti-Taliban fighters and wounded two others in the country's northwest.
• The incident took place in South Waziristan's Spinkai area near the Afghan border when a group of anti-Taliban fighters were returning from a function. Their vehicle was attacked using a remotely detonated bomb. The group was part of a volunteers' militia helping the military in operations against Islamist militants.
• The group's leader, Wali Jan, had earlier survived a suicide attack but continued to play a role in fighting Taliban militants.
• A faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, known as the Sajna group of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack.

Pakistan Friday December 1, 2017:

• Pakistani Taliban gunmen disguised in burqas stormed the campus of an agriculture college in Pakistan killing at least nine people and wounding 35. Police and army troops killed all of the attackers in the northwestern city of Peshawar about two hours into the attack.
• The gunmen arrived at the campus in an auto-rickshaw. They shot and wounded a guard before entering the campus.

Pakistan Sunday December 3, 2017:

• Pakistani security forces arrested 11 militants during intelligence based operations in the country's Balochistan province and recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition.
• The operations were carried out in various parts of the province by paramilitary troops, frontier corps, police and intelligence agencies.
• Arms and ammunition were recovered during intelligence-based operations (IBO) in Dera Bugti and Dukki districts of the province.
• In another operation, four improvised explosive devices were recovered and later defused in Qila Saifullah district of the province.

Pakistan Tuesday December 5, 2017:

• At least six people have been killed and eight others wounded in a roadside bomb blast in the North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan. The bomb was planted in a motorcycle parked on the side of the road.
• The attack took place on a road in the Khadi area. All those killed and injured were civilians. The attack was targeting at least one vehicle transporting military recruits.

Pakistan Thursday December 7, 2017:

• At least 13 people were killed and more than 20 are still missing after two passenger boats collided in the sea off southern Pakistan. The 13 killed included women and children, and 20 others were pulled from the sea alive.
• The boats, carrying more than 60 people in total, were ferrying passengers to visit a popular Sufi Muslim shrine in the Sindh province when they collided and overturned in heavy winds near the ancient city of Thatta. ---

Pakistan Saturday December 9, 2017:

• More than 300 Baloch separatist militants have surrendered over the past few months after a ceremony to mark the downing of guns and militants' return to civilian life.
• The surrenders are part of government efforts to end a decade-long insurgency in the southwestern Baluchistan province by offering amnesties and financial rewards to soldiers and commanders to help them re-integrate into the society.
• In a high-profile ceremony on the lawn of the Baluchistan provincial assembly in the western city of Quetta, the regional capital, some 313 militants from three separatist movements handed over weapons to Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, the Chief Minister of the province.
• About 2,000 militants have surrendered over the past 18 months. In April, the government held a similar ceremony where about 400 militants handed over their guns.
• The latest ceremony saw surrenders by 143 militants from the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), 125 fighters from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and 17 from Baloch Liberation Front (BLF).

Pakistan Wednesday December 13, 2017:

• Pakistan has ordered almost 30 international non-governmental organisations to leave the country, the latest sign of a wider crackdown on human rights and civil society across south Asia.
• The interior ministry has in recent days written to 29 organisations, including ActionAid, Plan International and Marie Stopes, to warn them their applications to continue working in the country have been rejected and that they should leave within 60 days. None has been given a reason.
• The development is the latest example of Islamabad’s hostility towards international NGOs, which began in 2011 after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Pakistani intelligence services accused Save the Children of being complicit in helping the US Central Intelligence Agency find the al-Qaeda leader — something the charity denies.
• The move is also part of what many view as deteriorating human rights across the region, which has seen foreign funding for NGOs cut off, activists disappear and journalists killed.

Pakistan Sunday December 17, 2017:

• Two suicide bombers have attacked a church in Quetta, killing nine people and wounding more than 50.
• Hundreds of worshippers were attending services at the church before Christmas; the attackers clashed with security forces, with one assailant killed at the entrance while the other made it inside.
• The attacker who made it inside was wounded and unable to reach the main building. Otherwise the loss of lives could have been higher. A search was under way for two suspected accomplices who escaped.

Pakistan Thursday December 21, 2017:

• A speeding passenger bus has collided with a parked long trailer on a highway in central Pakistan where heavy fog limited visibility, killing 11 people and wounding 20 others.
• The accident happened near the town of Khanewal, about 50 kilometres southeast of the city of Multan in the Punjab province.

Pakistan Friday December 22, 2017:

• Three FC (Jawans) troops were killed in cross-border firing from terrorists on the Pak-Afghan border. The FC personnel were busy constructing a new border post when the attack took place in the Shunkrai area of Mohmand agency.
• At least five terrorists were killed by retaliatory fire from Pakistani forces and another 11 were injured.
• Pakistan has ordered 27 international aid groups to shut down and stop working in unauthorised areas, spurring human rights campaigners to denounce swelling constraints on free speech and humanitarian work.
• The Ministry of Interior gave the 27 NGOs 90 days to conclude operations. Among those being expelled are Action Aid, World Vision, Plan International, Trocaire, Pathfinder International, Danish Refugee Council, George Soros' Open Society Foundations, Oxfam Novib, and Marie Stopes.
• The reason for shutting down the NGOs was because they were doing work in Pakistan "which is beyond their mandate and for which they have no legal justification".

Pakistan Sunday December 24, 2017:

• A roadside bomb killed three soldiers in a remote part of northwest Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.
• The bombing took place in the village of Ghulam Khan in North Waziristan, one of the country's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas where the military has been battling Islamist militants, including the Pakistani Taliban.
• The soldiers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps were searching for bombs to clear the area for the passage of a convoy.

Pakistan Monday December 25, 2017:

• Indian forces killed three Pakistani soldiers near the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region.
• The Pakistani said the "unprovoked cease-fire violation" took place in Rawalakot in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. It came two days after India's army said four of its soldiers were killed by Pakistani fire along the de facto border between the South Asian rivals.
• The Indian military said that their soldiers targeted Pakistani posts after they were fired upon. The Indian troops did not suffer any casualties.

Pakistan Tuesday December 26, 2017:

• A U.S. drone attack along the Pakistani-Afghan border killed an Islamist militant commander from the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network.
• It was not immediately clear whether the missile struck on the Afghan or Pakistani side of the border. But it was more probably in Pakistan. ---

Pakistan Wednesday January 10, 2018:

• The Pakistan Army has suffered 138 fatal and 155 non- fatal casualties in tactical operations and retaliatory cross-border firings along the LoC in 2017.
• A total of 28 Indian soldier were killed and 70 were injured during cross border firings and other incidents.

Pakistan Monday January 15, 2018:

• Four Pakistani soldiers were killed after Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded gunfire in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.
• Pakistan's military said that the Pakistani soldiers were "doing maintenance" on communication lines in the border village of Kotli when they came under fire. It said the troops were on the Pakistani side of the boundary. Pakistani troops returned fire, reportedly killing three Indian soldiers.
• An Indian military official blamed Pakistani soldiers for attacking Indian positions and claimed their counter-offensive killed seven Pakistani soldiers.
• Separately, at least five suspected militants were killed in a gun battle with Indian troops after they crossed into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir from the Pakistani side.

Pakistan Thursday January 18, 2018:

• Pakistani and Indian troops traded gunfire in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir leaving three civilians and a soldier dead amid increasing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Pakistan’views:

• Pakistan's military accused Indian troops of initiating fire from across the border and targeting Pakistani villages along Kashmir, killing two civilians and wounding five others in the latest "unprovoked" cease-fire violation; the dead were women.
• Three women were included among the five villagers wounded by Indian fire.
• Pakistan's foreign ministry said Indian forces carried out more than 100 ceasefire violations in Kashmir in January. It said the "unprecedented escalation in ceasefire violations" by India forces was continuing since 2017 when the Indian forces committed more than 1900 ceasefire violations and deliberately targeted civilian population.

India’s views:

• India quickly rejected the claim, saying in fact Pakistan initiated the fire, killing a teenage girl and a soldier on the Indian side of the volatile frontier.
• At least six Indian civilians and a soldier were also wounded by Pakistani fire. Pakistani soldiers fired mortars and automatic gunfire at least 15 posts in the Jammu region.

• Gunmen have shot and killed a mother and her daughter who were immunising children against polio in Pakistan’s south-western city of Quetta.
• Sakina Bibi, 50, and her 20-year-old daughter, Alizah, were providing polio immunisation drops to children when two gunmen riding on a motorcycle shot them. Both died on their way to the hospital.
• The attack took place as hundreds of polio teams, many of them volunteers, were out working on a campaign against the disease.

Pakistan Saturday January 20, 2018:

• A soldier and three civilians were killed in cross-border firing by the Indian and Pakistani armies. The latest wave of violence this week has left at least 21 dead, including soldiers, suspected militants and civilians on both sides.
• One Indian soldiers was killed by Pakistani fire in Poonch sector along the de facto border, the Line of Control (LoC). Two civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed in a separate cross border assault along a stretch of uncontested frontier between Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab.
• A 60-year-old civilian Pakistani was killed and two others including a six-year-old were injured in firing by Indian soldiers. Four civilians had died in the firing during the previous two days.

Pakistan Sunday January, 21, 2018:

• Gunmen have shot and killed a former police officer who was fired over the 2011 killing of five Chechen women in the southwestern city of Quetta. Two gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on Fazlur Rehman outside a car showroom.
• Rehman and another police officer said they mistook the Chechen women for terrorists and opened fire on them. Both were fired, and the other police officer was shot dead in 2013. The Pakistani Taliban claimed the attack, saying it was revenge for the killing of the women.

Pakistan Monday January 22, 2018:

• A Pakistani student shot and killed his school principal in a dispute that stemmed from the student missing classes to attend rallies supporting strict blasphemy laws.
• Sareer Ahmed, the principal of the private Islamia College in the northern town of Charsadda, had an argument with one of his students for missing a number of classes. The student then shot the principal on campus.
• The unnamed student had attended a sit-in staged by a new ultra-religious political party, Tehreek-e-Labaik, late last year to oppose a small change in wording to an electoral law, which it said amounted to blasphemy.
• A cleric has beaten his eight-year-old pupil to death after he tried to flee a religious school. The boy -Mohammed Hussain- had been repeatedly struck with a blunt object after he managed to run away from the Islamic seminary in Bin Qasim Town, Karachi.
• His parents then returned their son to the school after his Sunday escape, at which point cleric Qari Najmuddin allegedly killed him.

Pakistan Tuesday January 23, 2018:

• Authorities in the city of Kasur in eastern Punjab province announced the detention of a 24-year-old man, named only as Imran, in connection with the killing of Zainab, a seven-year-old girl whose death prompted widespread protests; a number of other girls have also been killed.
• Imran's DNA was a match with samples found on Zainab's body, which was dumped in garbage about 100 meters from her home. She appeared to have been raped.
• The suspect was accused of seven other attacks. He did not specify how many of them died but at least four were killed.

Pakistan Wednesday January 24, 2018:

• A U.S. drone attack on a house near the Afghan border has killed two militants from the extremist Haqqani network. The strike took place in the village of Dapa Mamuzai near the northwestern Kurram tribal area. One of the militants was identified as commander Ahsanullah.

Pakistan Thursday January 25, 2018:

• A missile from an U.S. drone killed an Afghan militant commander as he was having a shower in his village close to the Pakistani border with Afghanistan.
• Nasir Mahmood -a member of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network- was in a house in Pakistan's semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas when he died. He was also known as Ihsanullah and as Khowarai by his fighters. ---

Pakistan Saturday January 27, 2018:

• Nationwide protests at the police killing of a young ethnic Pashtun man in Pakistan's largest city have shone a spotlight on allegations of persecution by the authorities against refugees from the country's conflict-ridden northwest.
• The country's Supreme Court launched an inquiry into the death of 27-year-old aspiring fashion model Naqibullah Mehsud. He was one of four men killed in what police initially said was a shoot-out with suspected Islamist militants.

Pakistan Tuesday January 30, 2018:

• A roadside bomb killed eight people including three women and a child in the northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border. The improvised explosive device exploded in the Shiite-dominated Maqbal area of Kurram tribal district as a van carrying nine people drove by.
• Eight passengers including three women and a seven-year-old boy were killed. Initial evidence suggested all the passengers were Shiite Muslims.

Pakistan Friday February 2, 2018:

• Up to 11 Pakistani citizens are among migrants who drowned after a boat capsized off Libya's coast.
• About 90 migrants are feared to have drowned in the capsizing and that the boat was carrying mostly Pakistani migrants.
• Pakistani provincial minister Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, who was found dead in his house along with his wife, first killed her and then committed suicide with the same weapon. The police suspect a domestic dispute to be behind the incident.

Pakistan Saturday February 3, 2018:

• A suicide bombing in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley killed 11 soldiers and wounded 13.
• The bomber detonated his explosives vest near an empty lot used by the soldiers for sports and exercise in the Kabal area. Three troops died in the attack but later another eight soldiers who were critically wounded died of their wounds. One officer was among those killed.

Pakistan Monday February 5, 2018:

• Gunmen opened fire on two Chinese nationals in Karachi killing one and wounding the other.
• The two employees of a shipping firm were targeted in an upscale neighborhood while out shopping for groceries.
• The perpetrators fired nine shots before fleeing in a car. One victim was shot twice in the head and died at a hospital while the other was shot in the leg. It was not clear what motivated the attack.

Pakistan Sunday February 11, 2018:

• A passenger bus bound for the city of Karachi has skidded off a road and plunged into a ditch in southwestern Pakistan, killing eight people. The bus was speeding in rainy conditions.
• Two women and three children among the dead and that 15 people were injured. The bus left from the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta.

Pakistan Monday February 12, 2018:

• The deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Khalid Mehsud, also known by his alias Sajna, was killed in the Paktika province, near the border with Pakistan, last week.
• However, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as Pakistani Taliban, claim that Mehsud was killed on the Pakistani side of the border, in the North Waziristan region. Pakistani Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah appointed a commander called Mufti Noor Wali Wali to replace their dead deputy. Wali, like his predecessor, would lead militants in South Waziristan. ---

Pakistan Friday February 16, 2018:

• Pakistan's army claimed it killed five Indian soldiers when it destroyed their post in the Himalayan region of Kashmir in retaliation against Indian sniper fire that struck a school van, killing the driver.
• The Indian post near Tatta Pani Village was "destroyed" late Thursday after sniper fire earlier in the day hit a school van carrying children in Pakistan's part of Kashmir, killing the driver and traumatizing students but they escaped unhurt.
• Pakistan says gunfire hit a Pakistani school van days after India said gunmen belonging to the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed were behind a weekend attack on an army camp in Indian-controlled Kashmir. In that Saturday attack, gunmen stormed the Sunjuwan army camp and fought Indian troops, leaving five Indian soldiers and one civilian dead.

Pakistam Monday February 19, 2018:

• Indian troops have opened fire in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, killing an 8-year-old boy. The boy was killed in Jijot Bahadar village in the Khuiratta region of Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir.
• Pakistan claims that so far this year, Indian forces have violated the cease-fire dividing their respective sectors of Kashmir more than 335 times, killing 15 civilians and wounding 65.

Pakistan Wednesday February 28, 2018:

• A suicide bomb attack near Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta has killed at least four paramilitary soldiers and wounded about eight others.
• The bomber struck a security post of the Frontier Corps force about 20 kilometers from the capital of Baluchistan province. The attacker had strapped up to 10 kilograms of explosives around his body.
• Earlier, gunmen on motorbike ambushed a vehicle carrying a senior police officer in Quetta and sprayed it with bullets. The attack killed two security guards, but the senior police officer survived. The outlawed Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Pakistan Wednesday March 7, 2018:

• At least 20 members - fidayeen, or suicide bombers- of the Pakistani Taliban, including the son of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Mullah Fazlullah, have been killed in a US drone strike in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar; another six fighters were wounded.
• The fighters, including Abdullah, were killed in a strike on a TTP camp. Prominent TTP commander Gul Muhammad and fidayeen trainer Yaseen were also killed in the strike.
• A suspected suicide bombing near a police checkpoint killed five police and four bystanders and wounded 27 others near the city of Lahore in eastern Pakistan.

Pakistan Saturday March 17, 2018:

• Militants have ambushed a polio vaccination team in a remote tribal region, killing two of the medical workers and seriously wounding another two. The gunmen also attacked tribal police and the paramilitary Frontier Corps when they responded to the attack.

Pakistan Friday March 30, 2018:

• Malala Yousafzai, the women’s education activist and youngest ever Nobel Prize Winner, plans to return permanently to Pakistan in two years after finishing her course in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University.
• Ms Yousafzai or ‘Malala’, was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 while she was campaigning for female education in the Swat Valley.
• Militants that struck a police convoy with a bomb attack have killed three officers in the country's northwest.
• The attack was aimed at the newly appointed district police chief, Zahid Ullah, who escaped unhurt.

Pakistan Saturday March 31, 2018:

• Malala Yousafzai, the 20-year-old Pakistani education rights icon, has returned home to her native Swat Valley for the first time since being shot by the Taliban there more than five years ago.
• Yousafzai flew from the capital Islamabad to Mingora, the main town in Swat, by helicopter. She briefly met friends and teachers from her old secondary school before heading to an event organised in her honour at a nearby college.
• Security was tight across the valley, with local police coordinating with the military, which still has a sizeable presence in a valley once ruled by the Pakistan Taliban. ---

Pakistan Monday April 2, 2018:

• At least four people have been killed in an attack targeting Christians in Quetta, a violence that targets members of the minority in the South Asian country.
• The four men, all members of the same Christian family, were shot to death outside a relative's home in the Shah Zaman neighbourhood of the city. One young girl has been wounded.
• The family had travelled to Quetta to celebrate Easter with relatives.

Pakistan Friday April 6, 2018:

• Indian troops have fired across the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region, killing a woman and wounding six others.
• According to Pakistan, Indian forces since January have carried out over 900 ceasefire violations, killing 21 civilians.

Pakistan Monday April 9, 2018:

• A suicide bomber has struck a vehicle carrying security forces in the southwestern city of Quetta, wounding five soldiers. The attack took place in a residential area.

Pakistan Sunday April 15, 2018:

• Gunmen have opened fire on worshippers coming out of a church in Quetta, killing two people and wounding five others.
• Two gunmen riding on a motorcycle targeted churchgoers as they were leaving after the Sunday evening service in the Eisa Nagri neighborhood of Quetta. A young girl was among the wounded and that two others were in critical condition.
• Afghan troops clashed with Pakistani forces near the disputed border. Fighting killed two Pakistani paramilitaries and wounded five others.
• The Pakistani Frontier Corps was carrying out “routine surveillance” along the border when it was “fired upon from the Afghanistan side. Afghanistan said the fighting broke out after Pakistani forces crossed into Afghanistan.

Pakistan Wednesday April 18, 2018:

• A Shiite shopkeeper was killed in a drive-by shooting in Quetta.
• Gunmen riding on a motorcycle opened fire at an auto parts shop, killing the shopkeeper on the spot. The shopkeeper was from the Shiite Hazara community and that it appeared to have been a targeted killing.
• It was the fourth attack in recent months targeting the country’s Shiite minority. No one has claimed the attacks, but they bear the hallmarks of Sunni extremists, who view Shiites as apostates deserving of death.

Pakistan Friday April 20, 2018:

• A road accident on a highway in the south has killed seven members of a family, including a newlywed couple. Only a 2-year-old girl, who was thrown out of the car in the crash, survived when an SUV rear-ended the family’s car. The car caught fire, quickly turning into a fireball.
• Eight people were crammed into the car, including a policeman and his bride, returning home to the town of Jacobabad after the wedding in Karachi.
• Deadly accidents are common on Pakistan’s poorly maintained roads where motorists commonly disregard traffic rules and safety standards.

Pakistan Sunday April 22, 2018:

• Two people from the ethnic Hazara community were shot dead in a sectarian attack in southwestern Pakistan; they killings of minorities have continued despite improvements in overall security.
• Three Hazara men were traveling together on the outskirts Quetta, capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on them, killing two and wounding the third. It is a sectarian target killing.

Pakistan Tuesday April 24, 2018:

• A suicide bomber attacked Pakistani police and troops killing six officers and leaving at least eight others injured.
• The assailant targeted the police officers in the southwestern city of Quetta, ramming his explosive-laden motorcycle into a police van that was traveling to the airport. ISIS claimed responsibility in an online statement.
• Earlier, two other suicide attacks targeting police checkpoints took place on the outskirts of the city, injuring eight military personnel.

Pakistan Saturday April 28, 2018:

• Two people from the ethnic Hazara community were shot dead in a sectarian attack in southwestern Pakistan. In the attack, two men who were relatives were targeted at their shop in a busy shopping area of Quetta. The attackers then fled on a motorcycle. Both men died on the spot after suffering multiple bullet wounds.
• Quetta was also rocked by three suicide bombings aimed at Pakistani police and paramilitary soldiers on Tuesday. Six police were killed and 15 members of the security forces wounded in those bombings.
• Gunmen fatally shot three local tourists and their driver in a tribal region along the Afghanistan border.
• A group of tourists from Dera Ismail Khan were camping in the Momi Karam area when the gunmen struck Friday night. The attackers torched the camp after shooting the tourists and fleeing.
• No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack. At least six Hazaras have been killed in targeted killings in the past two months in Quetta.
• Hazaras are a mainly Shi'ite Muslim community, and are frequently targeted by Taliban, Islamic State, and other Sunni Muslim militant groups for their religious beliefs in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. ---

Pakistan Thursday May 3, 2018:

• A suicide bomber on a motorcycle has struck a bus carrying employees of the country’s nuclear agency, killing two people and wounding several others.
• The attack targeted a bus of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in the Punjab province. The assailant opened fire on the bus, prompting the driver to stop the vehicle and chase him. The attacker then set off his explosives.

Pakistan Saturday May 5, 2018:

• A methane gas explosion in a coal mine has killed at least six miners in southwest Pakistan. Eleven coal miners ware also missing after the incident in Marghat village in the Baluchistan province.
• A rescue operation is underway but the missing miners' chances of survival were slim. Marghat village is located near Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
• Two days later we were told that 16 miners died on Saturday and more than a dozen others remained trapped after an explosion in the mine.

Pakistan Sunday May 6, 2018:

• The interior minister Ahsan Iqbal has been shot in the arm in an assassination attempt at a public meeting in Punjab province but will survive. Ahsan Iqbal was targeted and shot in the arm. The attacker has been arrested.
• Iqbal had been attending the meeting in his constituency in Narowal district when he was shot in the right arm. The attacker was about to fire a second shot when police and people in the meeting overpowered him.
• At least 23 miners have been killed in accidents triggered by a gas explosion at a coal mine in western Pakistan.
• A cave-in at a mine in Marwaarh, east of the city of Quetta in Balochistan, killed 16 miners. Seven more were killed in a landslide at another mine nearby. At least 15 more miners were injured in the two incidents.
• Rescue teams are trying to find others still trapped in the rubble. The blast was caused by a build-up of methane gas.

Pakistan Monday May 7, 2018:

• Four people were burned alive when a truck collided with the motorized rickshaw they were in near a famous shrine in the country’s south.
• The four victims were cousins from Karachi who were travelling home late the previous night after attending an annual festival at the famous shrine of Sufi saint Shahbaz Qalander in the town of Sehwan.
• The head-on collision with the truck triggered an explosion of the fuel tank of the three-wheel rickshaw, turning it into a fireball.

Pakistan Sunday May 13, 2018:

• At least five students have been killed and several others were missing after a bridge collapsed at a tourist site in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The structure, in mountainous Neelum district, gave way as dozens of university students crossed it to view a waterfall

Pakistan Thursday May 17, 2018:

• Pakistan's military killed a senior member of an Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi(LeJ) and two would-be suicide bombers in a raid and later five bombers who tried to mount a revenge suicide attack.
• A senior military intelligence officer was killed and four other soldiers wounded during an operation targeting Salman Badeni, the Baluchistan regional chief of LeJ, on the outskirts of provincial capital Quetta.
• At least one soldier was killed and several others were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a paramilitary forces vehicle in Nowshera, a city in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The bomber targeted the vehicle stationed near the district court.
• At least 14 people, including seven members of the Frontier Corps, were injured in the attack.

Pakistant Friday May 18, 2018:

• The Pakistani army said Indian shelled a district bordering Kashmir killing four civilians including three children. The shelling also wounded another 10 Pakistani citizens. Paramilitary Pakistani Rangers responded and targeted the Indian posts.
• Eight civilians, including an Indian husband and wife and four members of a Pakistani family, were killed when Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at border posts and villages along the highly militarized frontier in disputed Kashmir. An Indian soldier was also killed in the fighting.
• The cross-border firing and shelling spread to dozens of posts in the Jammu region of the Himalayan territory. Indian paramilitary officials said their soldiers responded to Pakistani gunfire and shelling. The paramilitary soldier was killed by a Pakistani sniper leading to cross-border firing and shelling at several forward posts.
• The husband and wife were killed when a shell fired from the Pakistani side hit their home. Two other civilians were also killed on the Indian side. At least 12 civilians were also wounded and were being treated in hospitals.
• A Pakistani woman, Kulsoom Hussain, and her three children were killed when a mortar fired by Indian troops from across the frontier struck their home. ---

Pakistan Monday May 22, 2018:

• Hotter than average temperatures have killed at least 65 people in just three days in Karachi. Temperatures reached a high of 44 degrees Celsius, way above the average daily high for May of 35 degrees Celsius.
• The situation was exacerbated by power outages citywide and ongoing fasting for the holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours.

Pakistan Sunday June 2, 2018:

• At least 25 people have been wounded after an attack by gunmen on members of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (Pashtun Protection Movement or PTM) in northwestern Pakistan.
• Gunmen belonging to the Pakistan Taliban opened fire on the rights activists, led by PTM leader Ali Wazir at a gathering in the South Waziristan tribal district. At least three members of the movement were killed. The attackers started beating people and firing upon them.

Pakistan Thursday June 7, 2018:

• A roadside bomb killed a local police chief and his driver in northwestern Pakistan; the blast in the Dir district also wounded some passers-by.

Pakistan Saturday June 9, 2018:

• A huge cache of explosive materials was discovered by Afghan security forces in a vegetable truck crossing from Pakistan. This was one of the largest ever finds: nearly eight tons of ammonium nitrate -the chemical widely used in making explosives- hidden beneath sacks of vegetables on the vehicle at the Torkham border crossing, at the end of the Khyber Pass.
• Ammonium nitrate is often used as a fertiliser, but since it is often used to make improvised explosive devices, imports into Afghanistan are banned.

Pakistan Friday June 15, 2018:

• We were told that a US drone strike has killed the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah. Two other Taliban militants were also killed in the strike in Kunar province.
• Fazlullah led the insurgency in Pakistan’s Swat valley between 2007-09 and ordered some of the most shocking attacks in the country’s history, including an assault on a school that killed 132 children and the shooting of the young activist Malala Yousafzai.
• Reports of the death of Fazlullah, who took over as leader of the TTP in 2013, were welcomed in Pakistan, where he is reviled for ordering the 2014 Peshawar school massacre. He also oversaw the failed bombing of Times Square in New York in 2016.

Pakistan Saturday June 16, 2018:

• It was confirmed that the commander of the Taliban in Pakistan has been killed in a US drone strike in the border area of Marawera district of Kunar province in Afghanistan.
• At least three security personnel were killed when militants ambushed their vehicle in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province.
• The incident took place soon after Eid prayers on a busy city street. The security forces were on their way back after offering Eid prayers when heavily armed gunmen sprayed their vehicle with bullets that resulted in instant death of the two, while the third succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

Pakistan Wednesday June 20, 2018:

• Gunmen opened fire on a police officer's car in the Pakistani city of Quetta killing his young son and uncle, and critically wounding the officer. Abdul Samad came under attack while returning home after purchasing food for breakfast. The attackers escaped on motorcycles.
• The attack came hours after counter-terrorism police killed four suspected militants in an overnight raid in Quetta. Six officers were wounded in an hours-long firefight.

Pakistan Friday June 22, 2018:

• Pakistan has confirmed its most wanted militant leader was killed in a recent U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan. The June 13 strike in the Afghan border province of Kunar eliminated Mullah Fazlullah, the head of the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, along with several key militant commanders.
• Afghan President Ashraf Ghani telephoned Pakistani leaders to confirm the attack killed Fazlullah.
• The Pakistani Taliban is blamed for killing tens of thousands of people, including security forces, in suicide and targeted terrorist attacks during the past decade in Pakistan. The U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million reward for the militant leader. Fazlullah was accused of directing numerous high-profile attacks against American and Pakistani targets since he was appointed the group's leader in 2013.
• U.S. and Pakistani officials say he was also behind a December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in which 151 people were killed, including more than 130 children.

Pakistan Saturday June 23, 2018:

• The Pakistani Taliban has announced the appointment of a new leader, acknowledging that its former chief, Mullah Fazlullah, was killed in a US drone strike. ---

Pakistan Monday July 2, 2018:

• Six members of Pakistan’s paramilitary force and two police officers have been killed in separate attacks in the country's southwest and northwest. Two paramilitary troops were also injured when gunmen ambushed their convoy with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
• In the North Waziristan tribal region, an attack left two police officers dead. A government official and a police officer were also wounded in the attack,

Pakistan Wednesday July 11, 2018:

• At least 21 people -including a secular Pakistani politician- have been killed after a suicide bombing at an election rally.
• Haroon Ahmed Bilour, who was standing for election in the provincial legislature, was among those died in the explosion. The candidate's father, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, was also killed by a suicide bomber in 2012.
• The Pakistani Taliban said it was behind the attack, which targeted the Awami National Party (ANP) rally in the city of Peshawar.

Pakistan Friday July 13, 2018:

• Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam have been arrested on their return to Lahore from London. Uniformed men escorted the pair, who were sentenced in absentia on corruption charges last week, from their plane after it touched down.
• Mr Sharif was sentenced to 10 years while his daughter Maryam was given seven years after corruption charges. Pakistan's National Accountability Court ordered their arrest for failing to explain how the family acquired London properties.
• The case came to light after the 2016 Panama Papers revealed that the apartments were bought through offshore companies.
• Mr Sharif was in London to be beside his wife, who is undergoing cancer treatment.
• A suicide bomber killed 128 people and wounded over 150 at an election rally in southwestern Pakistan.
• Among those killed was Baluchistan provincial assembly candidate Siraj Raisani, whose brother Nawab Aslam Raisani had served as the provincial chief minister from 2008 to 2013.

Pakistan Sunday July 15, 2018:

• The death toll in one of Pakistan's bloodiest attacks that targeted an election campaign event continues to rise as the country prepares for general elections later this month. The number of dead increased to 149 with 189 other people wounded in Mastung district in Balochistan province.
• A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at an election rally of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) in the southwestern town of Drigarh, about 35km south of the provincial capital Quetta, on Friday afternoon.
• It was the third deadliest attack in Pakistan's history after the Karsaz bombing in 2008 and an attack on a school in Peshawar in 2014.

Pakistan Monday July 16, 2018:

• At least 15 people have been killed after a truck hit a parked passenger bus carrying wedding guests on a busy road near Hyderabad. The accident took place before dawn in the town of Matiarai in the southern Sindh province. 17 other people were injured in the crash, with some of them in a critical condition.
• The crash appeared to have been caused by negligence on the part of the truck driver.

Pakistan Friday July 20, 2018:

• Pakistani security forces killed the mastermind of the country's worst ever suicide bombing in an early morning shootout in the southwest province of Balochistan.
• The operation was carried out on an intelligence tip off about the presence of an Islamic State (IS) operative identified as Hidayat Ullah in a house in Darenjo village of Qalat district.

Pakistan Sunday July 22, 2018:

• An election candidate for Imran Khan's party was killed in a suicide bombing three days ahead of polling in Pakistan's general election. Ikramullah Gandapur was fatally wounded along with his driver, while three companions were badly hurt when a 20lb bomb tore through his vehicle as he returning home from a political meeting.
• The killing was claimed by Pakistan's Taliban and deepened fears of more attacks ahead of polling for the country's 106 million voters. Mr Khan condemned the attack on his candidate who was standing for a seat in a provincial assembly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. ---

Pakistan Wednesday July 25, 2018:

• A suicide bomber struck outside a crowded polling station in Quetta, killing 31 people as Pakistanis cast ballots in a general election meant to lead to the nation’s third consecutive civilian government.
• The attack in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, also wounded 35 people and several were reported to be in critical condition. A motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters just seconds before the explosion. There was a deafening bang followed by thick cloud of smoke and dust and so much crying from the wounded people.
• Baluchistan also saw the worst violence of the election campaign earlier this month when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally, killing 149 people, including the candidate Siraj Raisani. Another 400 were wounded. Voting in that constituency has been suspended.

Pakistan Friday July 27, 2018:

• The former international cricket star Imran Khan has declared victory in Pakistan’s general election, hailing what he described as “the fairest” vote in the country’s history, despite widespread allegations it was rigged in favour of his Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Khan pledged to rise above personal attacks and lift up the poor.
• With half the vote counted the PTI was projected to win about 120 of the 272 contested seats in the national assembly, leaving it only a few shy of a majority coalition.
• Shahbaz Sharif, the leader of the second-placed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said his party would “wholly reject” the result. “It is a sheer rigging. The way the people’s mandate has blatantly been insulted, it is intolerable.

Pakistan Friday August 3, 2018:

• Alleged militants attacked and burned down at least 12 schools in Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan region. At least half were girls’ schools. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
• The devastating attacks on schools in Diamer highlight the dangers that many students and teachers in Pakistan face on a regular basis. The government should promptly investigate and prosecute these attacks and ensure that children have a safe place to attend school.
• Militants have previously targeted girls’ schools in Diamer district. In February 2004, attackers destroyed nine schools, eight of them for girls. Explosives hit two girls’ schools in December 2011.
• Gunmen killed three police officers in an attack, while a suicide bomber wounded three Chinese engineers and three paramilitary guards in a separate incident.
• One of the gunmen who attacked the police post was killed in the ensuing shootout. Another two police officers were wounded in the attack.
• The suicide bomber struck near a bus carrying Chinese engineers from Balochistan to Karachi; six people were wounded.

Pakistan Sunday August 12, 2018:

• Police have detained eight Chinese nationals who tried to enter a power plant with weapons in the eastern Punjab province.
• The eight men were stopped at a checkpoint outside the Qadirabad power plant in Sahiwal after a pump-action gun, a handgun, a rifle and ammunition were found in their vehicle.
• More than 30,000 Chinese nationals live in Pakistan, many of them working on projects under the “Belt and Road Initiative”, Beijing’s vast trade and infrastructure strategy.

Pakistan Monday August 13, 2018:

• A mine explosion in Quetta killed at least seven coal miners; the death toll could rise. Efforts are being made to retrieve six more men trapped in the mine but feared dead.
• The explosion was caused by accumulation of methane gas. The miners were working at the depth of 400 feet at the time.
• Explosions are not uncommon in Pakistan's coal mines, most of which are in Baluchistan and the neighboring province of Sindh, where safety measures can be lax. ---

 Pakistan Saturday August 18, 2018:

• Former cricket star Imran Khan has been elected prime minister of Pakistan in a vote at the country's National Assembly. His PTI party won the most seats in July's elections but he needed the help of small parties to reach the majority in Parliament.
• He ran on an anti-corruption platform that pledged to improve the lives of the country's poor with an "Islamic welfare state".

Pakistan Sunday August 19, 2018:

• Imran Khan said that the country is in the worst economic condition it has seen and pledged to cut government expenditure, end corruption and repatriate public funds.
• Khan promised reforms across all fields. "I want to see Pakistan a great country" with social services for the poor, Khan said.
• Khan pointed to the growing divide between the rich and poor and said he would adopt austerity measures to relieve the strain on the economy and tackle the country's foreign debt, over $95 billion.

Pakistan Tuesday August 21, 2018:

• Pakistan condemned rocket attacks on Kabul close to the Afghan Presidential Palace during Eid prayers. Multiple rockets hit near the diplomatic area in Kabul as fighting had broken out between security forces and militants in the city’s old quarter.
• It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, which came just days after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered the Taliban a three-month ceasefire.
• Military helicopters were firing above the Eidgah Mosque in Reka Khana district, where smoke was rising as clashes were underway, amid a heavy security presence near the Kabul Stadium.

Pakistan Sunday September 2, 2018:

• The US has confirmed it will cut $300m in aid to Pakistan over its perceived failure to tackle militant groups, ratcheting up the tension in a deeply strained relationship ahead of a visit to Islamabad by the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on Wednesday.
• The so-called Coalition Support Fund was suspended earlier this year after Donald Trump tweeted that the US had received nothing but “lies and deceit” in return for $33bn (£25bn) of financial support to Pakistan since 2002.
• A spokesperson for the Pentagon said that “due to a lack of decisive actions in support of the South Asia strategy, the remaining $300m was reprogrammed”, withdrawing for good a previous offer to unfreeze the funds if Pakistan took decisive action against militant groups.
• The Trump administration says Islamabad offers sanctuary to Taliban fighters waging a 17-year war in Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan denies.

Pakistan Wednesday September 5, 2018:

• Pakistan's Foreign Ministry summoned India's deputy high commissioner in Islamabad to protest the killing of a Pakistani villager in "unprovoked firing" by Indian troops in the Himalayan region of Kashmir.
• Abdul Rauf was fatally shot by Indian security forces in the Kotkoterra Sector while grazing animals.

Pakistan Wednesday September 12, 2018:

• Nine coal miners have been killed and four others injured when the roof of a mine collapsed. The accident occurred in the northwestern town of Darra Adam Khel as workers entered the coal mine.
• The incident is the second fatal coal-mining accident in Pakistan in a month.  On August 13, at least 18 miners were killed after a blast at a mine near the southwestern city of Quetta. An average of 200 miners a year die in accidents. ---

Pakistan Friday September 14, 2018:

• A roadside bomb has exploded near a security convoy in the country's southwest, killing three security personnel and wounding two others. The attack took place near the town of Pashi, about 50 kilometers north of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan Province.
• The bomb was placed on a motorcycle and had targeted the car of the area’s assistant commissioner, Amir Zaman Kakar, but he was not in the vehicle at the time. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Pakistan Sunday September 16, 2018:

• The roof of a mud and brick house collapsed amid heavy rain in northwestern Pakistan killing four members of a family and injuring another. A couple and their two minor children were buried under the debris when the roof collapsed the previous night amid heavy rains in the region.
• There are reports of damage to other mud houses but no other immediate reports of injuries or fatalities.

Pakistan Saturday September 22, 2018:

• An intense gunfight with militants near the border with Afghanistan has killed seven soldiers, including an officer. The clash in North Waziristan erupted while security forces were conducting a counter-terrorism operation based on intelligence information in the remote region.
• Pakistani security forces raided the compound and killed nine “terrorists” in the ensuing “intense exchange of fire.”
• The Waziristan region until recently used to be a major training ground for local and foreign militants, including Taliban insurgents waging a deadly insurgency inside Afghanistan.

Pakistan Sunday September 23, 2018:

• Gunmen have attacked the base camp of a pro-government militia, killing four of its members. The attack occurred in the Dasht-e-Goran area of Baluchistan. The southwestern province is home to a low-level separatist movement and Islamic extremist groups.
• The 2,000-strong militia was formed a few years ago to help security forces, and its posts have been targeted in the past by Baluch separatists.

Pakistan Tuesday September 25, 2018:

• Gunmen shot dead a policeman guarding health workers.
• The policeman named Mohammad Sarfraz was shot dead in the Bajur region of the country's North West on the first day of a campaign to vaccinate 39 million children under 5. Suspects have been seized after the killing in the village of Badam.

Pakistan Sunday September 30, 2018:

• Leader of the Pakistan-administered Kashmir region has accused Indian troops of shooting at his helicopter while it was flying close to the highly militarised Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border dividing the region.
• The incident happened in Havaily district in Poonch sector in the India-administered Kashmir when Raja Farooq Haider Khan, prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir region, was on his way to a nearby village to give condolences to the family of a local politician who had died. ---

Pakistan Sunday October 21, 2018:

• At least 19 people have been killed and 35 injured when two buses collided in eastern Punjab province.
• The collision took place over a bridge near the city of Dera Ghazi Khan; the death toll could increase as many of the injured are in critical condition.
• Both buses were speeding when they collided. Most of the victims, including women and children, were from one extended family travelling from Dera Ghazi Khan to Multan.
• Traffic accidents are common in Pakistan where motorists largely disregard traffic rules and ignore safety standards.

Pakistan Monday October 22, 2018:

• Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has confirmed claims made by the Jaish ul-Adl terrorist group about the names and number of the Iranian border guards abducted in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan on the border with Pakistan. 12 border guards have been kidnapped.
• Terrorists attacked Iranian border bases 50 times during the past year. Using infiltrators was a tactic used by such groups, which had generally failed except for the recent kidnapping of Iranian forces in which they managed to execute their plan.

Pakistan Tuesday October 23, 2018:

• Three employees of an oil and gas Exploration Company and their paramilitary escort were kidnapped and shot dead in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border.
• The killings happened in North Waziristan where the Pakistani military has been engaged in a series of offensives against Taliban and Al Qaida linked militants for over a decade.
• The employees and their escort, an official of Frontier Corps, were heading towards their office when kidnapped by unknown gunmen. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found near Spinwam.

Pakistan, Thursday October 25, 2018:

• Ethnic Baloch separatists have killed at least two Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in a coordinated attack on a senior officer's convoy in the southwestern province of Balochistan. The attack occurred in Washk district, about 345km south of the provincial capital, Quetta.
• For more than a decade, armed Baloch separatist groups have been fighting for independence against Pakistani security forces, whom they consider to be an occupying force in Pakistan's largest and least-populated province.

Pakistan Sunday October 28, 2018:

• At least 17 people have been killed after a bus plunged into a deep ravine in the northern district of Kohistan; at least eight passengers still missing after the accident.
• The accident took place on a remote road winding through steep mountains near the boundary between Kohistan and the Gilgit-Baltistan region, about 200km north of the capital Islamabad.
• The vehicle then overturned on the road, before falling into a deep ravine. The survivor was thrown through a window before the bus went over the cliff.
• At least 25 people, including the driver, were on board the bus when it entered Kohistan district. Rescue officials are continuing to search for the eight missing passengers.

Pakistan Friday November 2, 2018:

• The Pakistani cleric Maulana Sami ul-Haq, known as the Father of the Taliban, has been killed in the northern city of Rawalpindi. Family members said that he was stabbed to death. But other reports say he was shot dead. The motive for the attack is unclear.
• Haq was the head of the Haqqania madrassa in the north of Pakistan, where many Taliban members -including the group's founder, Mullah Omar- had studied.

Pakistan Saturday November 10, 2018:

• An Army soldier was killed in sniper fire by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The soldier was Rifleman Varun Kattal (21), a resident of Mawa-Rajpura area of Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir. He is survived by his parents, father Anchal Singh and mother Pinki Rani.
• This was the second sniper attack along the LoC in two days.

Pakistan, Thursday November 15, 2018:

• Pakistan security forces safely recovered five of the 12 Iranian guards abducted near the countries' shared border a month ago.
• The extremist group Jaish al-Adl had claimed responsibility for the abduction of Iranian security personnel, which included member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
• The Iranians, including intelligence officers, were abducted near Lulakdan, a village 150 kilometers southeast of Zahedan, the capital of Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan Province.
• The rescued guards "are in good health, being handed over to Iranian authorities. Efforts were being made "to recover the other guards."

Pakistan Wednesday November 21, 2018:

• Armed separatists have stormed the Chinese consulate in Karachi, triggering an hour-long shootout during which two Pakistani civilians, two police officers and the three assailants were killed.
• The assault, claimed by a militant group from the south-western province of Balochistan, reflected the separatists’ attempt to strike at the heart of Pakistan’s close relationship with China, which has invested heavily in road and transportation projects in the country.
• A suicide attacker on a motorbike set off explosives in a crowded festival and market in northwest Pakistan’s Orakzai region, killing at least 25 people at around the same time as the Karachi bloodshed.

Pakistan Friday November 23, 2018:

• A bomb smuggled into a market inside a carton killed as many as 31 people in northern Pakistan.
• The explosion took place in the vegetable section of the market in Kalya in Orakzai Agency. The majority of the dead were Shia.
• At least 51 people were injured, 17 critically. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Saturday December 1, 2018:

• Pakistani security forces have killed a local Taliban commander who had taken six people hostage in the country's northwest. Security forces rescued all the hostages safely in an operation in the Daraban area of Dera Ismail Khan overnight.
• Four security men were wounded in a shootout that continued till morning. The Taliban commander, Hakim Khan, was in possession of an assault rifle, ammunition and grenades.
• The police surrounded the house after receiving information that a wanted man was holed up there. Dera Ismail Khan is near the South Waziristan tribal region.

Pakistan Saturday December 8, 2018:

• An overnight blast targeting a religious gathering of an ethnic party has wounded six people in the southern port city of Karachi.
• The blast took place as hundreds of supporters of a faction of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement were present in the neighborhood of Gulshan-e-Johar. No one has claimed responsibility.
• The attack happened a day before Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to visit Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province
• The Muttahida Qaumi Movement party represents the Urdu speaking population and its two factions have an uneasy relationship with each other.

Pakistan Friday December 14, 2018:

• Six members of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force in charge of security were killed in "heavy" firing along a mountainous stretch of road in the Kech district. Fourteen others were wounded.
• The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Baloch Raji Ajoie Sangar (BRAS), armed Baloch separatist groups, have both claimed responsibility for the attack. ---

Pakistan Monday December 24, 2018:

• Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been sent back to jail after a fresh corruption conviction. The anti-corruption court in Islamabad gave Sharif a seven-year term for investments beyond his declared assets.
• Sharif, who denies wrongdoing, was jailed in July in a different corruption case but bailed on appeal when the Islamabad High Court suspended his 10-year sentence in September.

 
Pakistan Tuesday 25, 2018:

• A suicide bomber disguised as a beggar has killed six people in a wealthy subdivision of the southern city of Kandahar.
• The attack happened a block away from his home and appeared to have targeted a group of Pakistanis from that country's Baluchistan region.
• No one immediately claimed the attack. Several militant and separatist groups operate in Baluchistan.

 
Pakistan Monday December 31, 2018:

• Indian troops have fired across the two countries' line of control in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding three people.
• Pakistani troops returned fire after India's cease-fire violation. Both sides are still exchanging gunfire.
• The windows of the town's main hospital were damaged from the gunfire and residents in the border town of Aathmuqam are fleeing to safer places.

Pakistan Tuesday January 1, 2019:

• Gunmen attacked a security forces' training base in the southwestern province of Balochistan setting off a gun battle in which at least four members of the security forces and four attackers were killed.
• The attackers apparently intended to hit a residential compound at a training centre of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Loralai district but were challenged at the entrance.
• Four members of the security forces were killed and two wounded in an initial exchange of gunfire before the attackers were isolated in an adjacent compound. Four gunmen, including one who detonated a suicide vest, were subsequently killed.
• The attack was the latest in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and poorest province which is at the centre of the strategic China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure development project.
• The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which is separate from the Afghan Taliban, claimed responsibility.

Pakistan Saturday January 5, 2019:

• A car bomb has exploded in a Peshawar neighborhood wounding three people and damaging several shops.
• The explosion took place outside a mosque in the Kali Bari area of the city. A woman was among the wounded, who were rushed to a nearby hospital.
• The area was nearly deserted at the time of the early morning blast. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Sunday January 6, 2019:

• Two roadside bombs blasts have wounded eight people in the southwestern Baluchistan province.
• The convoy was targeted in Pishin district with a roadside bomb planted in a motorcycle. The attack left Malik, his two subordinates and three civilians wounded.
• In the second attack, a Frontier Corps paramilitary soldier and a civilian were wounded in Panjgur district when a remote-controlled bomb exploded as a paramilitary vehicle was driving by. The security vehicle was badly damaged.
• No one claimed responsibility for either attack. Baluchistan has been a scene of low level insurgency by Baluch separatists who have claimed such attacks in the past.

Pakistan Monday January 7, 2019:

• At least 595 people, including Pakistani security officials, have been killed and 1,030 others injured in 262 terror attacks in the country during 2018. Most of the attacks were targeted at security and law enforcement agencies. Among these attacks, the most menacing were carried out on political leaders and workers.
• The deadliest attacks took place in the run-up to the July 25 general elections.
• In July, a suicide bomber killed 128 people at an election rally in southwestern Pakistan in the second election-related attack. The bombing was the most deadly attack in Pakistan in over three years.
• There was a "29 per cent decline in terrorist attacks and 27 per cent in consequent fatalities in 2018, compared to previous year".
• The PIPS said that about 38 per cent of the total 595 people killed in acts of terrorism in Pakistan in 2018 were the result of five lethal attacks claimed by ISIS in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
• Balochistan was the only region where terrorism-related killings surged, by over 23 per cent, when compared to 2017; most of these fatalities resulted from attacks by religiously-inspired militant group.
• Around 171 attacks in entire Pakistan were perpetrated by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its splinter groups – Jamaatul Ahrar, Hizbul Ahrar and others, which killed 449 people.
• Nationalist insurgent groups, mostly in Balochistan and a few in Sindh, carried out 80 attacks, martyring 96 people.
• As many as 11 terrorist attacks were sectarian-related, killing 50 people and injuring 45 others. More than half of these attacks, around 136, hit security and law enforcement agencies. The security forces killed a total of 120 militants in 2018 as compared to 524 in 2017.
• It noted that 24 attacks were against political leaders and workers, in which 218 people were killed martyred and 394 injured.
• A total of 131 cross-border attacks from Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan, India and Iran, claiming 111 lives and injuring 290 others.
• Balochistan remained the centre of attention with 354 people martyred in attacks while 59 per cent of the total toll in Pakistan took place in the province.

Pakistan Friday January 11, 2019:

• Security forces have raided militant hideouts in the country's southwest, triggering shootouts that left two of the insurgents dead.
• The military troops also seized a cache of guns, grenades, rockets, land-mines, explosives and communications equipment in the operations.
• Although Pakistan's government claims it has quelled the Baluch separatists' insurgency, violence has persisted in the province.

Pakistan Tuesday January 15, 2019:

• An assistant commandant of the Border Security Force (BSF) was killed in sniper firing by Pakistan Rangers along the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district.
• Pakistan troops also violated the ceasefire and resorted to firing and shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district, prompting the Indian Army to retaliate strongly.
• The BSF troops were carrying out border domination along the IB, when snipers of Pakistan Rangers opened fire on them in Hiranagar-Samba sector of Kathua district.
• Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was critically injured in the sniper fire and the officer was evacuated to the Military Hospital at Satwari (Jammu), where he succumbed to his injuries and attained martyrdom.
• In another incident, Pakistan troops also resorted to firing and shelling along the LoC in Sunderbani sector.

Pakistan Saturday January 19, 2019:

• Authorities have arrested counterterrorism police officers after they allegedly killed a middle-aged couple, their 13-year-old daughter and another man in what the police initially claimed was a shoot-out with armed fighters.
• Police killed grocery store owner Mohammad Khalil, his wife Nabila, their daughter Areeba and a family friend, Zeeshan Javed, after stopping their vehicle near Sahiwal city in Punjab province.
• Police claimed Javed was a "wanted terrorist" and initially accused him of using the others as human shields. Residents protest the killings by blocking traffic.
• Family members and witnesses said police killed the four in cold blood and then tried to cover up their actions. Angry residents in the area kept the bodies on the road in protest. Authorities have launched an investigation and arrested the officers involved, without saying how many.

Pakistan Tuesday January 29, 2019:

• At least nine people died and 21 were wounded when gunmen blasted their way into a police station in southwestern Pakistan while candidates were sitting for a police entrance exam.
• A group of three gunmen attacked the entrance of the deputy police inspector’s office in Loralai district in Balochistan, a volatile southern province which has seen a string of militant attacks.
• One gunman blew himself up and the others opened fire on police and around 800 candidates taking an exam to join the force, killing three police, five civilian employees and one candidate. Twenty one people including 12 police and nine candidates were wounded.
• During the clearance operation, the remaining two suicide bombers have been shot dead and the area has been cleared. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan or TTP and which is separate from the Afghan Taliban, claimed responsibility.

Pakistan Tuesday February 12, 2019:

• Five Pakistani police officers have been killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
• Local police said that four police officers died during the ambush in the Dera Ismail Khan district.mA fifth officer later died of his wounds in hospital.
• Two other policemen were injured in the attack, which was claimed by a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban. The attackers managed to flee the scene and the security forces have launched a search operation.

Pakistan Wednesday February 20, 2019:

• The death toll stands at 26 after a powerful storm unloaded torrential rain across Pakistan at midweek. Many of the fatalities occurred when the victims were swept away by floodwaters or killed by roofs collapsing.
• Four of those killed by roofs failing amid the heavy rain were in the city of Multan in central Pakistan.

Pakistan Sunday February 24, 2019:

• Two Pakistani nationals, who were top commanders of the Jaish-e-Mohammad and wanted for a "series of terror crimes", were among the three militants killed in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district.
• The militants have been identified as Raqib Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of Shiganpora in Kulgam, and Pakistani nationals Waleed and Numan.
• A deputy superintendent of police, an army jawan and the three Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants were killed during the encounter in the district's Turigam area.
• The three terrorists killed have been identified as Raqib Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of Shiganpora in Kulgam, and incriminating material was recovered from the site of the encounter, the other two terrorists have been identified as Waleed and Numan, foreigners from Pakistan.
• According to police records, the three slain militants were affiliated to proscribed terror outfit JeM

Pakistan Tuesday February 26, 2019:

• Four people have been killed and seven others wounded in an exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops in Pakistan-administered Kashmir's district of Kotli.
• The dead included a woman and her two children in Nakyal along the Line of Control (LoC), the heavily militarised de facto border between India and Pakistan. Another death was reported from Khuiratta town in the semi-autonomous region.
• Meanwhile, India said at least five of India's soldiers were also wounded in cross-border firing along the LoC.
• The civilian deaths in Pakistan-administered Kashmir came as India earlier on Tuesday said it had launched air raids near Balakot, a town 50km from the LoC inside Pakistan's territory.
• The raids followed a suicide attack earlier this month in India-administered Kashmir, which killed 42 Indian troops when a rebel rammed his explosives-laden car into a paramilitary convoy.
• It was the deepest cross-border attack launched by India since the last of its three wars with Pakistan in 1971 when the two nations fought over Bangladesh's independence.

Pakistan Wednesday February 27, 2019:

• Pakistan has conducted airstrikes over the ceasefire line in disputed Kashmir and claims to have shot down two Indian jets that responded by entering Pakistani airspace, capturing both of the pilots.
• India confirmed that one of its pilots is missing in action and said it shot down one of the Pakistani jets as it escaped over the heavily militarised border separating the two.
• The skirmishes, a day after India flew sorties into Pakistan for the first time in nearly 50 years, are steep escalations in the most serious military crisis in south Asia since the pair fought a brief war in the Himalayas in 1999.

Pakistand Friday March 1, 2019:

• Pakistan has freed an Indian fighter pilot captured after his plane was shot down in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was handed over to Indian officials at the only legal border crossing with Pakistan.
• Minutes earlier, the pilot said on Pakistani TV that he was "very impressed" by the Pakistan army. On Thursday Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said the pilot's release was a "peace gesture" to India. India and Pakistan - both nuclear powers - claim all of Kashmir, but each controls only parts of it.
• The pilot is being hailed as a hero in India, with fireworks being set off in the capital Delhi.

Pakistan Saturday March 2, 2019:

Villagers carry offer prayers at the funeral of a boy killed by Indian shelling, at a village in Hatian Bala, 40 kilometers from Muzafarabad, capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

Two Pakistani soldiers have been killed in ongoing military skirmishes with India across the disputed Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control (LoC).

 This comes a day after Pakistan, in a “gesture of peace,” returned an Indian pilot who was captured alive when his plane was shot down. The overture does not seem to have affected the situation in Kashmir, which continues to be the scene of relentless heavy mortar and artillery shelling between Pakistani and Indian militaries.

India repatriated the body of a Pakistani prisoner who was killed by angry inmates in an Indian jail following a February 14 suicide bombing in Pulwama.

Within the past two days at least six Pakistani civilians have died in shelling from India. There were reports of troop casualties and damage to outposts on the Indian side “due to an effective response by the Pakistan Army.”

Heavy mortar and artillery shelling from Pakistani forces Friday night killed a woman and two children, raising the overall civilian death toll to four. They also confirmed two Indian soldiers were injured.

Pakistan Saturday March 9, 2019:

• The Indian Army shot down a Pakistani military drone in Sri Ganganagar sector of the India-Pakistan border in Rajasthan. This is the third Pakistani drone to have been shot down by Indian forces since the February 26 air strikes carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF). It was shot down as it had entered Indian airspace.

Pakistan Saturday March 16, 2019:

• Pakistan Army troops shot down an Indian spying quadcopter in Rakhchikri Sector along Line of Control.
• The quadcopter had come 150 meters inside Pakistan.

Pakistan Sunday March 16, 2019:

• Four people were killed and 10 injured when a bomb went off on a train track in the resource-rich province of Baluchistan, where separatist rebels have been fighting the security forces for years.
• There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but ethnic Baluch separatists, fighting what they call the unfair exploitation of their province’s gas and other resources, have attacked trains in the past.

Pakistan Wednesday March 20, 2019:

• Militants attacked a remote security outpost in the southwestern Balochistan Province, killing six members of the paramilitary forces.
• The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack in Balochistan's Ziarat district saying in a statement that the action was in revenge for the deaths earlier of their comrades at the hands of the paramilitary Balochistan Levies Force.

Pakistan Saturday March 30, 2019:

-    At least seven people were killed, including six female students, in a collision between a rickshaw and an over speeding bus at Jhang road.
-    A bus hit a rickshaw carrying students of 9th grade, who were returning to their village after giving their examination.
-    The bodies were badly mutilated and the rickshaw's body had to be cut open to get them out as part of the rescue operation.

Pakistan Tuesday April 2, 2019:

• At least three Pakistani soldiers have been killed when India and Pakistan exchanged fire across the Line of Control in the disputed region of Kashmir. The soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire in the Rawalakot area of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Another soldier was wounded, the military said.
• Tensions have been high in South Asia since India and Pakistan conducted air raids on each other's territory and Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet in February.
• The military escalation followed a suicide attack in the Indian-administered Kashmir town of Pulwama that killed at least 40 Indian security personnel and which India blames on Pakistan.
• Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir - a territory over which they have fought two of their three wars - in full but administer separate portions of it, divided by the Line of Control (LoC).
• On Monday, an elderly man was killed and five others wounded by Indian shelling in the Nezapir area of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan Saturday April 6, 2019:

• A 15-year-old Christian girl has been kidnapped, sold and given in marriage to a Muslim man after being forcibly converted. The young woman is called Shalet Javed and comes from a very poor family.
• The story of the 15 year old Shalet dates back to March 25th. She lives in the village of Dhandra, in the district of Faisalabad. After a fight with one of her siblings, she left her home and sought refuge from a family friend, Ms. Goshi, 36, who she regards as an aunt, living in Salam Pura. In the evening, when her mother Tasleem (35 years old) returned home and did not find her daughter, she launched searches. Goshi denies ever having met the young woman, but faced with Tasleem's insistence that she would report everything to the police, she admits that the girl is in the company of another lady named Rukhsana (42).
• The family tried in vain for three days to file a complaint, but found only the wall of silence by the police, which instead of starting the investigation, suggested that Shalet ran away from home with someone. After three days, the agents arrested Ms. Rukhsana who confessed that she sold the young Christian to a 28-year-old Muslim man, Rafel, known to the authorities for trafficking in women. The following week, the family received a letter containing the wedding certificate (Nikkah) of the daughter with a Muslim named Zafar Iqbal. The agents arrested Rukhsana and Rafel, but then released them on bail.

Pakistan Sunday April 7, 2019:

• Pakistani police say a vehicle tumbled off a mountainous road into a river, killing seven people. The vehicle was carrying passengers from Neelum Valley to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, when it veered off the road at a sharp curve.
• Rescue workers retrieved the bodies with the help of local residents. Two women and a child were among the dead.
• Fatal road accidents are common in Pakistan because of lax safety standards and disregard for traffic laws.

Pakistan Tuesday April 9, 2019:

• A polio worker was shot dead while trying to persuade a family to vaccinate their children against the crippling virus. Wajid Ali was killed in Mohmand district in northern Pakistan after allegedly remonstrating with a man over his failure to allow his children to take polio drops.
• His killing was the latest of many attacks on vaccinators in Pakistan and comes amid growing concern over attacks on health workers worldwide. Two men were accused of involvement in the killing, with one arrested and one still on the run.
• Scores of frontline polio workers and their guards have been killed over the years in attacks by militants and extremists who claim the vaccination programme is a conspiracy, or the drops are harmful.

Pakistan Friday April 12, 2019:

• At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb claimed by a Sunni Muslim militant group ripped through a fruit market in Quetta.
• The attack hit the city's Hazarganji district, which is home to a large community from the Hazara Shia Muslim minority.
• At least seven Hazara were among the dead, along with one security official. ---

Pakistan Monday April 15, 2019:

• A woman who was gang-raped in Pakistan has accused a police officer of raping her in a further attack when she went to report the crime.
• The woman, from the city of Uch Sharif, claims the officer took her to a house on the pretext of wanting to interview her, and then attacked her. 
• She also alleges that the police officer filmed the attack and threatened her if she reported it to anyone. The assistant sub-inspector has now been arrested.
• Five people are reported dead after a dust storm engulfed the city of Karachi. 86 people were also injured following the storm.
• One man died after a tree fell on him, while two children were among the fatalities in separate incidents.
• Meanwhile five students were injured and rushed to hospital after the roof of their school collapsed. The imam of a mosque was also hurt after the building’s makeshift roof collapsed.

Pakistan Tuesday April 16, 2019:

• Police and army commandos killed five Pakistani Taliban militants during an overnight siege at a house in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
• One police officer was killed and two wounded during the 16-hour operation. It ended when the house was destroyed by what police believe was an improvised explosive device.

Pakistan Thursday April 18, 2019:

• At least 14 people have been shot dead by attackers after several buses were ambushed in the remote Ormara area of the southwestern Balochistan province.
• The travelers were removed from the buses and taken to a second location, where they were shot dead.
• "They identified non-Baloch by checking their identity cards and employee cards”. "They took them to the nearby mountains and shot them dead after tying their hands."
• Most had been shot in the head. They were all bullet injuries”. "There are no wounded, all are dead."

Pakistan Wednesday April 24, 2019:

• Gunmen shot and killed a police officer guarding a polio immunization team, the latest attack on efforts to protect children from the crippling and sometimes deadly disease.
• Polio workers are often targets in Pakistan where hardline clerics and Islamist militants have claimed the government’s polio eradication campaign is a foreign ploy to sterilise Muslim children or a cover for Western spies.
• The police constable was on duty with a polio team in the remote Buner district in northern Pakistan when unknown gunmen opened fire. He was shot in the head and shoulder and died immediately. Officers had been assigned to polio teams in the district after a rise in threats against workers.
• Pakistan is one of the only three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, that suffers from endemic polio, a childhood virus that can cause paralysis or death.

Pakistan April 25, 2019:

• A young woman vaccinating children against polio has been shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike, in the third attack this week.
• The Taliban claims the vaccine is part of a foreign plot to sterilise Muslims, and that those administering it are Western spies.
• Mosques in the northwestern city of Peshawar broadcasted false reports on Monday, claiming that the vaccine had made children sick.
• In the ensuing panic, worried parents took thousands of children to hospitals and clinics.
• In the latest attack, two gunmen on a motorbike attacked a medical team in the district of Chaman, on the country's western border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan Saturday April 27, 2019:

• Three members of a Pakistani paramilitary security force have been killed and another injured by a bomb that exploded in the northwestern tribal area of North Waziristan.
• The bomb attack targeted a checkpoint of a locally recruited tribal force known as the Khasadar in the Shewa area of North Waziristan, about 20 kilometers east of the border with Afghanistan.
• The bomb had been planted at the checkpoint during the early morning hours when there were no security forces present.
• The bomb was detonated when four members of the Khasadar force arrived for duty and entered the post.

Pakistan Monday April 29, 2019:

• Pakistan has suspended an anti-polio vaccination campaign after a health worker and two police were shot dead, and a social media health scare caused near hysteria.
• Unknown gunmen killed one health worker and two police guards in separate attacks in north eastern Pakistan, while fake claims that the vaccine was harmful started a panic among parents in the region.
• More than 25,000 children were admitted to hospital after false reports the vaccine was causing vomiting and fainting. A mob also burned down a health centre.
• Pakistani health officials had hoped to end the circulation of the virus this year, but recent months have seen a stubborn increase in cases, while samples show it is still in sewage in many cities.
• Conspiracy theories that polio drops are a Western plot to sterilise Muslims, or rumours they are harmful, have fed a small, but stubborn and occasionally violent resistance to vaccination. The CIA's use of a fake vaccination campaign to gather DNA samples in the hunt for Osama bin Laden added to suspicion.

Pakistan Sunday May 5, 2019:

• Indian troops fired across a cease-fire line in the disputed Kashmir region, killing a woman and a 12-year-old boy. Another woman was wounded in the attack.
• Pakistani troops responded to the fire, but there was no word on any Indian casualties.

Pakistan Wednesday May 8, 2019:

• At least nine people have been killed in an explosion outside a major Sufi Muslim shrine in Lahore. Five police officers are reportedly among the dead. A police van was the prime target.
• Police have described the blast as a suicide attack. It has been claimed by the Hizbul Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban.
• The explosion occurred near the Data Darbar Sufi shrine, one of the oldest Sufi shrines in South Asia.
• The bloodshed comes as Pakistani Muslims mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Pakistan Thursday May 9, 2018:

• At least five people have been killed in a gun and bomb attack on a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan, officials say, the latest in an uptick of violence by ethnic Baloch separatists. Two miners, two security personnel and a driver were among the dead after armed attackers stormed a coal mine in Harnai district, about 70km east of the provincial capital of Quetta.
• First unidentified armed men opened fire on two labourers working in the coal mine, killing both on the spot.
• As the security forces responded to the attack, a vehicle belonging to the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) that was rushing to the scene was hit by a landmine explosion about a kilometre away from the coal mine. One FC soldier was wounded in the attack, he said.
• Hours later, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an armed separatist group based in Balochistan province, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan Saturday May 11, 2019:

• Three gunmen attacked a luxury hotel in the southwestern port city of Gwadar killing at least one guard and battling security forces from inside the building.
• Most guests had been evacuated from the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel, which helicopters circled as fighting continued.
• Three gunmen killed a guard at the entrance to the hotel when they entered. Security forces had cordoned off the area and cornered the attackers in a staircase leading to the top floor. The three gunmen were killed too.

Pakistan Sunday May 12, 2019:

• Gunmen who attacked a luxury hotel in Balochistan province on Saturday killed four hotel employees and a soldier. The three attackers were also killed during a siege that lasted several hours. Six people were injured.
• The Zaver Pearl-Continental Hotel in the port of Gwadar said there were few guests because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army said it carried out the attack.

Pakistan Monday May 13, 2019:

• At least four policemen have been killed and several others wounded after a bomb attack targeted their vehicles while they stood guard outside a mosque in the southwestern Balochistan province.
• The attack, the third in the region in three days, targeted two police vehicles parked in the Satellite Town area of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.
• Police vehicles provide security in various parts of the city for Taraweeh prayers [special prayers during Muslims' holy month of Ramadan]. "As two of these vehicles stopped outside the al-Huda mosque, an explosion took place.
• Twelve people were wounded; two of them were suffering from serious head wounds.

Pakistan Thursday May 16, 2019:

• Pakistani security forces killed nine Islamic State militants during an hours-long raid near Quetta in the southwest of the country that has been hit by repeated jihadist attacks this month.
• Four members of the security forces were wounded in the operation, which took place in a mountainous area called Qabu Koh-e-Mehran in the Mastung district, 29 miles from Quetta city.

Pakistan, Friday May 24, 2019

• An explosion targeted a mosque in Quetta. The bomb attack killed at least three people and wounds 28 others inside mosque before Friday prayers.
• The explosive device went off next to the prayer leader, who was among those killed. Video footage from the scene showed debris from the blast strewn within the mosque, with ceiling tiles lying smashed on the floor.

Pakistan Sunday May 26, 2019:

• Pakistani troops clashed with protesters near the border with Afghanistan, leaving at least three people dead and scores wounded. The violence broke out as several hundred people, including two Parliament members, were protesting for the rights of Pakistan’s Pashtuns in the North Waziristan region. They fought with security officials at a military check post.
• Leaders of the Pashtun movement say they are exercising their right to protest peacefully. But the military sees the movement as being propped up by foes of the state and accuses neighboring Afghanistan and India of trying to stir up unrest with support of the movement in areas straddling the Afghan border.

Pakistan Monday May 27, 2019:

• Militants attacked an army post in a troubled region bordering Afghanistan where ethnic tensions have recently flared up with minority Pashtuns, triggering a shootout that killed a soldier. Five soldiers were also wounded in the clashes.
• Just hours earlier a minority Pashtun group led by two lawmakers attacked another army post in the same region, the Khar Kamar post, setting off a shootout that killed three activists. Lawmakers Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were seeking to pressure authorities to release terror suspects arrested recently in North Waziristan.
• Wazir and Dawar represent a Pashtun rights group that has denounced what it says is the military’s excessive use of force against tribesmen in the region. Wazir and eight others were arrested in the Khar Kamar incident. Dawar said they attacked no one and claimed their convoy was targeted by the security forces while traveling to a planned protest rally in the area.
• The troops found five bullet-riddled bodies about a mile away from the Khar Kamar post, but it was unclear who the victims were and who killed them.
• Elsewhere, security officials arrested three suspected militants in two raids in eastern Punjab province, foiling possible attacks.
• In the first raid, in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan, a man was arrested for suspected links to the Islamic State group, the agency said. Grenades and “funds for terrorism financing” were seized during the operation. In the second raid, two members of the outlawed Sunni Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group were arrested for planning to target minority Shiites.
• Last week, Punjab police as part of an ongoing crackdown on terror groups arrested six people for collecting funds for outlawed militant groups in the province.

Pakistan Wednesday May 29, 2019:

• A Pakistani man killed his HIV positive wife in southern Pakistan, where hundreds of people have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks, stirring panic and casting a light on the country's dismal public health standards.
• The murder took place in a village near the epicentre of the outbreak on the outskirts of Larkana city in Sindh province, where thousands have been screened in the last month.
• The victim - a 32-year-old mother of four - tested positive in recent days; her husband accusing her of having an extramarital affair. The husband strangled his wife with a rope and then hung her from a tree outside his home.

Pakistan Friday June 7, 2019:

• Four Pakistani soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED) in North Waziristan. Four other soldiers were injured in the blast near the town of Khar Kamar.
• Pakistani security forces clashed with members of the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) near the same location on May 26. At least 13 civilians and one soldier were reported killed during that incident, with the PTM saying soldiers opened fire on protesters and the military saying the protesters stormed a security post to free a "terrorist facilitator."
• The PTM has been campaigning against the perceived brutality of Pakistani security forces against ethnic Pashtuns.

Pakistan Saturday April 13, 2019:

• At least six women and children were killed and four others injured when a car was caught by flash flooding in northwestern Pakistan.
• A car returning from a wedding ceremony carrying over 10 people, mostly women and children, was hit by a flash flood in Toi Khullah in South Waziristan near the Afghan border. Six dead bodies have been recovered, while four injured people were rescued and taken to the local hospital.
• Heavy rain in areas of northwestern and southern Pakistan caused flash floods. ---

Pakistan Sunday June 23, 2019:

• Nine people drowned when a vehicle plunged off a mountainous road into a river in the country’s northwest.
• The passenger truck was carrying more than twenty people to the Gadar area, when it toppled off a road in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The road’s condition caused the accident.
• Seven people have been rescued from the river, and efforts were underway to retrieve bodies.
• In Pakistan, bad road conditions, disregard for traffic rules and ignorance about safety standards often caused such fatal accidents.

Pakistan Wednesday June 26, 2019:

• A police constable was killed and five people injured following a gun battle with Taliban militants at a police housing and training complex.
• Three militants wearing suicide vests attempted to storm the complex in the southwestern province of Baluchistan when confronted by guards at the entrance.
• Police personnel deployed at the gate killed one of the suicide bombers.
• The other two blew themselves up inside the police complex. A senior constable was killed in the attack, and five wounded people were taken to hospital.
• The attack was claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan Monday July 1, 2019:

• A man shot his wife, four of her female relatives and four children in an alleged honour killing in central Pakistan.
• Muhammad Ajmal killed the nine family members because he thought his wife, Kiran, was having an affair. He then burned their bodies by setting his wife’s family home on fire.
• In addition to killing his wife and their children, Mr Ajmal killed his mother-in-law, three sisters-in-law and two of their children.
• Ali Razi, Kiran’s brother, said that only he and his father escaped the attack.

Pakistan Thursday July 11, 2019:

• At least 33 people have been killed in two crashes in Pakistan, with dozens more injured.
• A passenger train rammed into a stationary freight train at Walhar Railway Station in Rahim Yar Khan, in the eastern Punjab province, killing at least 20 people and injuring 78 others.
• Local media is reporting that 13 people were also killed and 34 injured when a passenger bus crashed in Hasanabdal.
• The bus was travelling to the eastern city of Lahore from the northwestern region of Swat and crashed on a motorway. Survivors told reporters the bus was speeding on a wet and slippery road when it skidded and fell into a gorge.
• The death toll from a train collision in central Pakistan rose to 23 after several people succumbed to their injuries overnight.
• The incident took place in Rahim Yar Khan district in Punjab province when a passenger train coming from the eastern city of Lahore rammed into a goods train that had stopped at a crossing.
• The accident saw mangled carriages flipped on their sides and left debris strewn by the sides of the tracks as rescuers.

Pakistan Sunday July 21, 2019:

• At least nine people have been killed and 30 others were injured after a complex attack involving a suicide bomber, believed to be a woman wearing a burqa.
• The bomber struck outside a hospital as the wounded were being brought in from an earlier shooting targeting police.
• The assault in Dera Ismail Khan was claimed by Tehrik-e-Taliban also known as the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan Saturday July 27, 2019:

• 10 soldiers have been killed in separate attacks within hours on Pakistan security forces.
• A military vehicle was ambushed and six soldiers killed in the country’s mountainous northern areas bordering Afghanistan. Terrorists from across the border” fired on a patrol near Gurbaz in the North Wazirstan region.
• The attack came after four paramilitary officials patrolling in the southwestern Baluchistan province were killed in an ambush by unidentified militants.
• Saturday’s ambush was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, which is separate from the insurgent movement across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan Sunday July 28, 2019:

• Twenty-two students of a religious seminary in the northwestern tribal region were injured when the tractor trailer they were travelling aboard overturned.
• The incident happened in Kot village on the outskirts of Dargai tribal district.
• The students aged 9 to 16 years were going to a picnic when their tractor trolley turned turtle injuring 22 students.
• The driver was blamed for negligence for the accident.
• At least seven people died and dozens more were injured in separate rain-related incidents across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
• Five people including two children and a woman were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).
• Two of the deaths were occured in Shangrila and one each in Buner, Mansehra and Abbottabad. In more rain-related incidents, 18 people sustained injuries including six women and one child.
• Heavy rainfall in K-P also caused damage to five houses, two huts and three school buildings. Different areas of Chitral including Tirich Mir and Kosht were closed off for traffic due to flooding.
• Over in Punjab, at least two people died and dozens more sustained injuries.
• A roof collapse in Sargodha killed two children and injured one more. Five more roof collapse incidents were reported in Sheikhupura and officials placed the num that included 13 civilians and five crew members ber of injured at 10.
• Incessant rainfall across Punjab has led to power outages in many major cities. 54 millimetres of rain was recorded at Tajpura, 39mm at Lakhshmi Chok, 34mm in Pani Wala Talab, 33mm at Upper Mall, 32mm in Farrukhabad, 26mm in Mughalpura and 25mm at Chowk Nakhuda.

Pakistan Tuesday July 30, 2019:

• Eighteen people were killed - that included 13 civilians and five crew members- when a small military plane crashed into a residential area in Rawalpindi.
• The plane crashed into a poor village near an upscale neighbourhood in the garrison city that is home to the army's headquarters, creating a fireball that lit up the night sky and terrified residents.
• A blast near a police car in Quetta has killed four people -including two children and one woman- and wounded more than two dozen.
• The attack targeted the vehicle parked in the middle of the city, where security forces and members of the minority Shi'ite Muslim community often come under attack.
• Another 25 people were being treated in hospital and some of them were in critical condition. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Pakistan Monday August 5, 2019:

• A roadside bomb attack in the Bajaur district has killed two soldiers and injured four others. An army major was among the dead in the remote controlled attack on their vehicle.
• The outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the attack in a statement sent to the local media.
• Bajaur is one of Pakistan's seven tribal districts, which borders Afghanistan. The area had once been the stronghold of the Pakistani and foreign militants. However, the Pakistani forces had cleared the area in major operations in the past years.

Pakistan Thursday August 8, 2019:

• Pakistan has announced plans to downgrade diplomatic relations and suspend trade with India over the decision to strip the contested Kashmir region of its special constitutional status.
• India removed a constitutional provision on Monday that allowed Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state, to make its own laws and placed the region on lockdown, with phone networks and internet cut off since Sunday evening.
• Pakistan added that it would expel India’s top diplomat, high commissioner Ajay Bisaria, on Wednesday as part of the ongoing dispute.
• Our ambassadors will no longer be in New Delhi and their counterparts here will also be sent back,” foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said. China, which also claims parts of the region, has strongly opposed the move to strip Kashmir of its autonomy. ---

Pakistan Monday August 12, 2019:

• Monsoon rains have inundated much of Pakistan, leaving large parts of the southern city of Karachi under water and causing at least 17 deaths.
• Seven people died from electrocution and three people died after a roof collapsed in Karachi. Five people died in a flash flood and another two were electrocuted in Punjab province, which also saw heavy rains
• The death toll was expected to rise as roads and streets were still flooded in some parts of the city, making it impossible for rescuers to reach the victims. The downpour and flooding began overnight, with authorities reporting more than 180mm of rain in the port city.
• The military was assisting the civil administration in pumping the water out of the inundated streets. Pakistan often struggles to cope with the annual monsoon, which runs from July to September and causes flooding across South Asia.

Pakistan Thursday August 15, 2019:

• Pakistan says three of its soldiers were killed in clashes with India across the disputed Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control (LoC), amid increasing tensions between the two nations over the Himalayan region.
• Five Indian soldiers also were killed in retaliatory fire. Skirmishes were ongoing intermittently.
• Indian military officials are denying any of their personnel were killed, but they said three Pakistani forces were killed in retaliatory action.

Pakistan Friday August 16, 2019:

• A powerful bomb went off inside a mosque during Friday prayers in southwest Pakistan, killing at least four people and wounding 20. The imam of the mosque, located in the town of Kuchlak some 25km from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, was killed in the explosion.
• The blast was carried out through a timed device that was planted under the wooden chair of the prayer leader.
• No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Pakistan Saturday August 17, 2019:

• A senior politician was shot dead along with his grandson and two security guards in the Balochistan province
• Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) leader Amanullah Zehri was returning to his residence in the wee hours when his convoy was ambushed by unidentified gunmen in Khuzdar district.
• Zehri, his 14-year-old grandson Mardan Zehri and his two guards were killed on the spot.
• The deputy commissioner said the entire tehsil was sealed and search was on to find the assailants.
• An Army jawan was killed during Cease Fire Violations (CFV) on the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmir.
• At about 0630 hours, Pakistan initiated ceasefire violation by firing of small arms and shelling with mortars in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district. Indian Army is retaliating.
• Lance Naik Sandeep Thapa (35) from Village Rajawala of Sahaspur district, Dehradun with 15 years service sustained fatal injuries in the CFV. He is survived by his wife Nisha Thapa.

Pakistan Friday August 23, 2019:

• Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a security post overnight in the northwestern Daraban Kalan area, killing two employees at a nearby gas station.
• The eight militants also wounded two people in a bus getting gas when the shooting started.
• A faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place close to the former Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan Friday August 30, 2019:

• A bus has fallen off a mountainous road into a river, killing at least 24 passengers and injuring two in the country's northwest.
• All those aboard the bus were members of an extended family from Upper Kohistan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. They were returning after attending a wedding ceremony when the accident happened in Kandian area of the district.
• An army major and a soldier were killed in a bomb explosion near the border with Afghanistan. The improvised explosive device (IED) was targeted at workers who were installing a border security fence in the remote Mohmand district.
• The army major was “supervising fencing work in an area,” which is a “critical infiltration route,” when both soldiers “fell victim to an IED planted by terrorists from across the border.”
• Cross-border militant attacks often target Pakistani troops building a robust fence along the country’s nearly 2,600-kilometer largely porous border with Afghanistan.
• Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in the North Waziristan district on the border when they came under attack from the Afghan side of the frontier.

Pakistan Sunday September 22, 2019:

• More than 20 people have been killed in a passenger bus crash on a mountainous road in northwestern Pakistan. The accident happened in the Babusar Top area, bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with Gilgit-Baltistan.
• Among the 26 dead were members of Pakistan's army. A dozen people were injured and being tranferred to a local hospital in a helicopter. Six children were among the dead and six of the injured were in a critical condition.
• The bus was travelling from Skardu city in Gilgit-Baltistan, which is at an elevation of nearly 2,500 metres above sea level, to the city of Rawalpindi. Gilgit-Baltistan is a mountainous region that is home to some of the world's highest peaks. The main ranges are the Karakoram and the western Himalayas.

Pakistan Wednesday September 25, 2019:

• At least 19 people have been killed and 300 injured after a shallow earthquake struck north-eastern Pakistan, tearing car-sized cracks into roads and heavily damaging infrastructure.
• The quake sent people in Lahore and Islamabad running into the streets. With rescue operations expected to continue overnight, residents in the worst-hit areas described their horror as walls collapsed and houses fell.
• The epicentre of the 5.2-magnitude quake was near the city of Mirpur, 22 kilometres north of the city of Jhelum along the boundary separating the agricultural heartland of Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
• On one of the district’s two main roads, AFP reporters could see cracks at least four feet deep, some filling with water from a nearby canal. Television images showed cars wedged in to some cracks, while a bus and a truck lay by the side of the road. In the village of Sahankikri, on the outskirts of Mirpur, residents said almost all the 400 houses were damaged.
• A Pakistani Christian man died on 3 September as a result of severe torture inflicted while held in police custody in Lahore, according to a post-mortem examination.
• The examination found evidence of torture on the hands, back and arms of Amir Masih, a gardener who went to North Cantonment Police Station voluntarily to give a statement to clear his name following a minor theft from his employer’s home. His ribs were also broken.

Pakistan Saturday September 28, 2019:

• A blast in the southwestern province of Balochistan killed three, including an opposition political leader.
• Maulana Mohamad Hanif, Deputy Secretary General of the opposition party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), was among those killed in the town of Chaman, nor far from the Afghan border.
• Unknown perpetrators planted an improvised explosive device on a motorbike parked in front of a business centre and detonated it when Hanif left the building.

Pakistan Sunday September 29, 2019:

• At least two people were killed in renewed gunfire exchanges between Pakistani and Indian border forces in the disputed region of Kashmir.
• Indian soldiers opened fired across the Line of Control -- the de facto frontier that divides the Himalayan region -- into the Kotli district of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
• At least two people were killed and another four wounded in shelling by Indian forces. The fatalities were apparently a woman and a young boy.
• Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-led India have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, two of which were over control of Kashmir, the divided region claimed by both countries in its entirety.

Pakistan Thursday October 10, 2019:

• Two sisters have been subject to a gang-rape by five people in Kabirwala, a small impoverished town in the Punjab Province  who kidnapped them on gun point from their house
• The victims, who are daughters of a worker, were taken at gun point after being woken up by the armed kidnappers; they were fast asleep. They were then taken to a mango orchard before being subjected to the gang-rape.
• The brother of the victims said that his sisters, who are in their 20s, were raped by at least five people.

Pakistan Tuesday October 15, 2019:

• At least three civilians, including two children, have been killed and eight others wounded after "unprovoked firing" by Indian troops in the disputed Kashmir region. The incident took place on the Pakistani side of the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border dividing the region.
• Indian Deputy High Commissioner Gaurav Ahluwalia was summoned to condemn the "unprovoked ceasefire violations".
• The Indian occupation forces along the LoC and working boundary have continuously been targeting civilian-populated areas with artillery fire, heavy-calibre mortars and automatic weapons, which still continues. Women and children were among those injured. ---

Pakistan Thursday October 31, 2019:

• At least 74 people have died after a train travelling between the Pakistani cities of Karachi and Rawalpindi caught fire in the middle of its journey.
• The fire started when a gas cylinder, which passengers were using to cook breakfast on board, exploded. The huge blaze spread to at least three carriages.
• Many victims died as they tried to jump off the moving, burning train. Another 40 people were injured. The number of victims may still rise.

Pakistan Sunday November 10, 2019:

• Gunmen have ambushed a security force vehicle in Punjab province, killing five people. The dead were two police officers, two intelligence officers and an informant.
• They came under attack while en route to raid a militant hideout in the Arbi Tabba area of Rajanpur district. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
• But the area borders southwestern Baluchistan province, which has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baluch separatist groups.

Pakistan Wednesday November 13, 2019:

• As many as 26 people, including women and children, were killed in the Sindh province due to lightning following heavy rains. The lightning incidents took place in the areas of Mithi, Chhachhi and Ram Singh Sodho village in Tharparkar district after widespread rains began battering the desert region. Moreover, dozens of animals have been killed in the region during the last 24 hours.
• The incidents of thunder strike took place at Islamkot, Nagarparkar, Mithi, Chhachhro and other areas of Tharparkar. An incident of thunderbolt in Kotdiji in Khairpur district set a tree on fire.
• 16 injured were shifted to health facilities; officials confirmed that at least 10 bodies were brought to different hospitals in the region.

Pakistan Thursday November 14, 2019:

• Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle in northwestern Pakistan, killing a senior counterterrorism officer and wounding his driver and a passerby before fleeing the scene.
• Deputy Police Superintendent Ghani Khan was killed in the attack which occurred on the outskirts of the city.
• Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders Afghanistan. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has witnessed dozens of militant attacks in recent years, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
• No one immediately claimed responsibility and the motive behind the attack was unclear. Khan had led several raids on militant hideouts in recent years.

Pakistan Tuesday November 26, 2019:

• At least nine members of the Pakistan navy were killed and 29 other people injured -including women and children- when their bus fell into a deep roadside ditch in the south of the country.
• The bus was on its way to Karachi from a naval base in Balochistan province when it developed a technical fault and crashed on a mountain pass on the Makran Coastal Highway.

Pakistan Saturday December 7, “019:

• An explosion near a religious congregation in the eastern city of Lahore has killed one and wounded four others. One of the wounded was hospitalized in critical condition .
• The blast is being investigated; it took place in a neighborhood where a congregation was gathered to pray near a mosque said to be run by supporters of the banned group Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The blast was the result or could have come from a burst air compressor at an air conditioner repair shop nearby.

Pakistan Thursday December 12 2019:

• Three patients died when hundreds of lawyers attacked a hospital in Lahore during a furious dispute with doctors. Video showed the lawyers ransacking wards at the cardiac hospital, beating up staff and smashing equipment.
• As panic spread, doctors and paramedics hid, leaving patients unattended, including those in a critical state.
• Riot police fired tear gas to disperse the lawyers and more than 20 arrests were made. It took more than two hours to restore order
• The lawyers had been protesting over the alleged mistreatment of some of their colleagues by hospital staff last month. But the final trigger for the violence appears to have been a video posted on social media by a doctor on Tuesday night in which he poked fun at the lawyers.

Pakistan Friday December 13, 2019:

• At least 13 people have been killed in the southwestern district of Qila Saifullah after a collision between a passenger bus and a pick-up truck suspected to be carrying smuggled fuel.
• The accident took place after the pick-up vehicle sped away from a security checkpoint to evade capture near the town of Qila Saifullah, about 140km north of the provincial capital Quetta. At a checkpost, police gestured to stop the cars carrying the smuggled fuel. One car escaped, and when they chased them they saw that the vehicle had been involved in an accident. Both vehicles fell into a ditch next to the road.
• A fire ignited by the fuel completely engulfed the passenger coach, killing 13 passengers. One man survived the fire with minor injuries. ---

Pakistan Wednesday December 18, 2019:

• Two policemen have been killed in an attack targeting a polio vaccination drive in northwest Pakistan, the latest in a series of attacks targeting eradication efforts in one of only three countries in the world where the disease remains endemic.
• The two officers were killed while on their way to accompany a polio vaccination team in the Lower Dir district, about 180 kilometres northwest of the capital Islamabad. They were shot with pistols; it is not known how many attackers there were.

Pakistan Wednesday December 25, 2019:

• At least four people, including two Pakistani and an Indian soldier, have been killed in an exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops in the disputed region of Kashmir.
• The Pakistani soldiers were killed in the Dewa area of the mountainous region. Three Indian soldiers were killed in the exchange.

Pakistan Friday December 27, 2019:

• Pakistan has arrested five suspected al Qaeda militants planning an attack on security personnel.
• The raid in Gujranwala city hit an important media cell and financing network for the jihadists. Laptops with encrypted data, cell phones, a printing press, explosives, five Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition and cash were found.
• For years militants have held sway in remote northwestern regions on the Afghan border but some have also established networks in Punjab, Pakistan’s richest and most populous province.

Pakistan Tuesday January 7, 2020:

• Two people have been killed and several others wounded after a bomb targeted a security personnel vehicle in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.
• The attack took place at an intersection near the city's busy Liaqat market.
• A Pakistani jet crashed during training in the eastern Punjab Province, killing the two pilots. The FT-7 jet trainer went down in an open area and caused no damage on the ground.
• A probe had been opened to determine the cause of the crash, which occurred close to the district of Mianwali, 300 kilometers from Lahore.
• In October, a trainer aircraft crash-landed in a field near Wazirabad in Gujranwala district. Both pilots aboard the plane survived.
• In July, 19 people died when a Pakistani military aircraft crashed into a residential area on the outskirts of the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistan Friday January 10, 2020:

• At least 14 people, including a senior police official, were killed in an explosion that took place inside a religious seminary in southwest Pakistan.
• The blast occurred inside a seminary located in southern outskirts of Quetta the capital of southwestern Balochistan province, during sunset prayer.
• Some 19 people were also injured in the blast, second in the past two days in the city. Two people were killed and over a dozen others injured in an improvised explosive device blast at a busy market on Wednesday.
• The nature of the blast is yet to be known, however, it is suspected that it was the act of a suicide bomber. The deceased included a deputy superintendent of police.

Pakistan Sunday January 12, 2020:

• A small aircraft crashed in northeastern Pakistan killing two people including the pilot.
• The aircraft crashed near Sadiqabad area of Rahim Yar Khan district in Punjab province while it was spraying pesticides for locusts.
• Two people including a pilot and an engineer of the Plant Protection Department were killed in the incident. The crash apparently happened due to technical fault.
• Swarms of locusts have headed to Pakistan in the last few months wreaking havoc on crops.

Pakistan Sunday January 12, 2020:

• Severe winter weather has struck parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, with heavy snowfall, rains and flash floods that killed at least 43 people. Authorities struggle to clear and reopen highways and evacuate people to safer places.
• 25 people were reported killed in the southwestern Balochistan province that was the worst affected.

Pakistan Tuesday January 1, 2020:

• Avalanches, flooding and harsh winter weather have killed more than 130 people across Pakistan and Afghanistan and left others stranded by heavy snowfall.
• At least 93 people died and 76 were injured across Pakistan in recent days – with several still missing – while a further 39 were killed in Afghanistan. Forecasts suggest more harsh weather is on the way.
• Pakistani Kashmir was the worst-hit area, with 62 people killed and 10 others missing.

Pakistan Tuesday January 28, 2020:

• At least 12 people were killed and two injured in a series of gas cylinder explosions inside a perfume factory in Pakistan’s northeast. The explosions also caused a huge fire that swept through the factory located in a slum area of Lahore -the country's second-largest city and capital of Punjab province- and caused the roof of the building to collapse.
• The locality is dotted with several industrial units where safety standards are rarely followed.
• Pakistan has a history of industrial accidents, mainly caused by poor infrastructure and lack of safety standards.
• Suspected militants blew up a major gas pipeline in the northeast, disrupting gas supply to many areas
• The explosion caused major damage to the pipeline near Rahimyar Khan district that supplies gas to northeastern Punjab -the country's largest province- from southern Sindh province.
• The pipeline, which was exploded using a time device, is an act of terrorism.
• The company was awaiting security agencies' clearance to begin the repair work.

Pakistan Wednesday January 29, 2020:

• Two female polio vaccinators were shot dead in northwestern Pakistan in the latest attack on the global campaign to eradicate the crippling virus.
• Unidentified gunmen on motorcycles opened fire at the polio team in the town of Swabi. One woman, identified only as Shakeela, died immediately and another, Ghuncha, died later of her wounds in a Peshawar hospital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
• The shootings came as Pakistan is trying to redouble its campaign to vaccinate children after a sudden jump in cases and international fears Islamabad is losing grip on a virus that appeared close to extinction.
• Pakistan had hoped it was within reach of wiping the virus out in 2018, when only 12 cases were reported across the nation of more than 210 people. Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are currently the only two countries in the world with new cases of the wild virus.
• Yet cases last year leapt to 140 as international monitors raised concerns the programme had become riven by political infighting and officials were failing to overcome stubborn public distrust of the campaign.

Pakistan Friday February 7, 2020:

• The Pakistani Taliban has confirmed that one of its key leaders and another member of the group were killed in a clash with security forces in Afghanistan.
• The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said Sheikh Khalid Haqqani, who served on the group's consultative council and had been a deputy leader, had been killed January 31.
• Haqqani's close confidant Qari Saifullah Peshawari was also killed in the clash that took place inside Afghanistan during a "mission".

Pakistan Sunday February 9, 2020:

• Indian soldiers fired at civilian areas along the highly militarized frontier in divided Kashmir, killing one civilian and wounding five others.
• Chaudhry Zulqarnain, a senior police officer in Kashmir, said Indian troops fired mortars and small arms the previous evening at the Chaffar Kakuta village and surrounding areas in the Chirikot sector along the Line of Control, which divides the Himalayan region of Kashmir between Pakistan and India.
• The overnight shelling destroyed a house and that the slain civilian's young daughter was among the wounded.
• A Pakistani military statement called the firing an “unprovoked” violation of a 2003 cease-fire accord between India and Pakistan.
• A roadside bomb exploded near a paramilitary vehicle in the southwestern Baluchistan province, killing one soldier and wounding five others.
• The paramilitary troops were attacked while on patrol near the Sharag coal mines. The wounded were taken to a nearby medical facility. ---

Pakistan Tuesday February 11 2020:

• At least eight people were killed and five others injured as an under construction building collapsed in Pakistan’s northeast. The three-story building collapsed in remote Muzzafargarh district of Punjab province. The deceased included four children and two women.
• Still images broadcast by the channel showed rescue workers pulling some bodies and injured out of the rubble. It was unclear how many people were trapped under the debris.
• Pakistan has a long history of buildings collapse and fire incidents, mainly due to lack of safety standards.

Pakistan Saturday February 15, 2020:

• A young girl has been raped, murdered and dumped in bushes sparking fury across the country. 
• The child, identified only as Madiha, was found after vanishing from her home in Saro Khel, a village in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. Her age has been reported in multiple sources as between seven and nine years old.
• After her body was found, her family and other locals took to the streets and formed a roadblock to demand justice for Madiha.

Pakistan Monday February 17, 2020:

• A suicide bomb attack near a religious rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta has killed at least seven people and wounded 25 others.
• The explosion took place close to the event organised by Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ), a political party allegedly linked with a sectarian armed group.

Pakistan Tuesday February 18, 2020:

• At least 10 people were killed and dozens injured when a suicide bomber detonated his device near a police vehicle in southwestern Pakistan.
• The attacker tried to enter a Sunni religious rally near a press club in the city of Quetta, and blew himself up as police tried to stop him.
• Two officers are among the dead, said the city's police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema. At least 30 are injured.
• At least one policeman has been killed and two others wounded after an improvised explosive device hit a police vehicle on its way to provide security to a polio vaccination team in northwestern Pakistan.
• The attack took place in the Kulachi area of the town of Dera Ismail Khan, about 255 kilometres south of provincial capital Peshawar.

Pakistan Thursday February 20, 2020:

• Authorities in Pakistan are working to determine the cause of 14 deaths in Karachi, with officials so far giving differing explanations.
• At least 500 people have reported falling sick, with symptoms such as chest pains, breathing difficulties and burning eyes. Many are hospitalised and in a critical condition.
• Some officials have cited a gas leak in Keamari, close to Karachi’s main port, as a possible cause of the deaths and illness. But Pakistan’s federal minister for maritime affairs said that business at the port was continuing as usual.
• But the conflicting explanations given by local and national authorities have fuelled speculation of a cover-up, and led to criticism of officials.

Pakistan Saturday February 22, 2020:

• Five suspected militants were killed in an overnight raid in the country's northwest, and two other militants were arrested in a separate operation.
• The shootout took place at a compound in the working-class suburb of Mathra near Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The militants belonged to a banned group and that security forces found suicide vests, sub-machine guns and other weapons at the scene.

Pakistan Wednesday February 26, 2020:

• A local leader of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and member of an anti-militant group has been gunned down in the country's northwest.
• Javedullah Khan, who was appointed as the bureau chief of the daily Ausaf in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province's Swat district last month, is the 15th member of his family to be killed since 2008.
• Javedullah Khan, 36, was travelling in the town of Matta late the previous day when unidentified assailants opened fire on his car. A police guard accompanying him was unhurt.

Pakistan Friday February 28, 2020:

• At least 20 people have been killed and several others injured in a collision between a train and a passenger bus in southwest Pakistan.
• The collision occurred in Kandhra town of Sukkur district, located some 500 kilometres from the port city of Karachi.

Pakistan Thursday March 5, 2020:

• Pakistani rescuers using their bare hands searched for seven people missing after an apartment building collapsed, as more bodies were pulled from the rubble, taking the death toll to 16.
• Soldiers have been deployed to help in the search efforts after a five-story building and two adjoining houses collapsed in the port city of Karachi on Thursday.
• The residential building had been constructed as a four-story complex, but another floor was added about a year ago, in violation of construction rules.
• A building inspector said the sewage system appeared to have triggered the disaster, but a full technical investigation would be carried out.
• "The death toll in the building collapse rose (from 11 on Thursday) to 16, after five more bodies were pulled out of the rubble today”.

Pakistan Saturday March 7, 2020:

• At least 20 people are dead and dozens more injured after torrential rainstorms collapsed several homes. Heavy rains have lashed stretches of the country near the Afghan border since Thursday.
• Fourteen children and three women were killed in "rain-related incidents" in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The National Disaster Management Authority confirmed those deaths, adding that three more people had died in southwest Balochistan province.
• In the worst single incident, five children were killed when the roof of their home collapsed in northern Dargai town. Rain also damaged another 51 houses and snowfall blocked several roads in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. More harsh weather is expected in the coming days. Many poorly built homes across the country -particularly in rural areas- are at risk of collapse during the annual spring rains.

Pakistan Monday March 8, 2020:

• A passenger bus tumbled off a winding mountainous road and into a ravine in northern Pakistan killing 26 people and injuring several others.
• The cause of the accident was unclear, and rescue workers were still working at the scene recovering the injured and the dead and taking them to a nearby hospital.
• Such accidents are common in Pakistan, mainly due to insufficient enforcement of safety standards and poor infrastructure, particularly on battered mountain roads.
• The bus had been headed to the town of Skardu in the Gilgit Baltistan region from the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
• Skardu serves as the gateway to K-2, the world's highest peak after Mt. Everest, which is also part of the Himalayas. Large numbers of local and foreign tourists visit the peak annually. Skardu is around 240km north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
• At least three people were killed during a security operation in northwestern Pakistan. The fatalities included a colonel and two suspected militants.
• Security forces conducted a counter-terror operation in Tank district that borders of South Waziristan region acting on an intelligence tip off.
• As soon as troops cordoned off the area, the terrorists opened fire; a large cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from the terrorist hideout. But the latest operation is part of an ongoing crackdown against the Pakistani Taliban, which Islamabad claims has set up bases across Afghanistan's border to attack Pakistani forces.
• More than 5,000 suspected militants and over 700 soldiers have been killed in airstrikes, clashes and landmine blasts over the past six years.

Pakistan Wednesday March 18, 2020:

• Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in a former Taliban stronghold bordering Afghanistan triggering a shootout that killed four soldiers and seven militants.
• The military said a member of the raiding team, which was acting on intelligence it received, was also wounded in the exchange of fire near the town of Dattakhel in the district of North Waziristan. Security forces later seized a cache of weapons and guns.

Pakistan Tuesday April 7, 2020:

• Pakistani security forces acting on intelligence raided two militant hideouts in former Taliban strongholds in the country's northwest near Afghanistan killing seven militants.
• Four militants were killed in the first raid in North Waziristan, which in recent years was the location for the headquarters of several local and foreign militant groups. Another three militants were killed in the former tribal region of Mohmand. Troops seized a cache of weapons from both militant hideouts.
• It wasn't immediately clear what militant group was raided and the military provided no further details.
• The Pakistan Taliban had its headquarters in North Waziristan up until 2017 when the military in a series of operations dismantled the insurgent group's network and killed, arrested or evicted scores of them.

Pakistan Friday April 10, 2020:

• Government troops raided a militant hideout in a former Taliban stronghold near Afghanistan triggering a shootout in which seven militants and two soldiers were killed. The raid took place in the North Waziristan region, in the village of Zakir Khel.
• Troops carried out the raid after authorities received "confirmed information about the presence of terrorists."
• The operation follows after a similar raid on March 18 against a suspected militant hideout in Zakir Khel resulted in the deaths of seven militants and four members of Pakistan’s security forces. North Waziristan served as a stronghold for local and foreign militants until 2014, when the Pakistani Army launched a massive military operation to clear the region of combatants.
• Earlier, a roadside bomb exploded near a Pakistani paramilitary vehicle in the southwestern Balochistan Province. That explosion killed two soldiers who were clearing the area ahead of the construction of fencing along the border with Afghanistan. Two other people were wounded in the blast near the Chaman border crossing.

Pakistan Sunday April 12, 2020:

• At least three civilians have been killed after Pakistan and India exchanged fire across the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed Kashmir region between the two countries.
• Tensions between India and Pakistan flared as both armies targeted civilian areas on Sunday with heavy artillery fire in violation of the 2003 ceasefire accord.

Pakistan Monday April 13, 2020:

• Two pilots were killed as a Pakistani army aircraft crashed in the northeastern Punjab province. The plane was on a training mission and crashed near Gujrat district, some 140 kilometers from the provincial capital Lahore.
• Both pilots -the instructor Major Umer and the student Lieutenant Faizan- were killed in the crash.
• There was no immediate cause cited for the crash, which is the fourth this year involving planes of Pakistan’s armed forces, including two in a single week in February. The last crash was on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad on March 11. The F-16 fighter jet went down while practicing maneuvers for a Pakistan Day airshow, killing the pilot, Wing Commander Nauman Akram.
• On Feb. 12, a training aircraft came down near Takht Bhai, some 63 kilometers from Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The pilot managed to eject safely.

Pakistan Monday April 20, 2020:

• Militants armed with assault rifles attacked a Pakistani army security post in a former Taliban stronghold in the country's northwest, triggering a shootout that killed a soldier. Five insurgents were also killed.
• The attack took place near the town of Miran Shah, the main urban center in the North Waziristan district that borders Afghanistan. Three troops were also wounded in the shootout.
• North Waziristan was a militant base until recent years when the Pakistani military said its successive operations there had cleared the area of the Taliban. However, violence has increased there in recent weeks, spreading fear among residents that the military might carry out more operations.

Pakistan Sunday April 26, 2020:

• At least nine suspected militants and two solders have been killed in a clash in northwest Pakistan. Five security personnel also got injured while one militant was apprehended during the clash in North Wazirista. Security forces recovered weapons and ammunition during a search operation in the area.
• A soldier and five suspected terrorists were killed in a similar clash in the district on April 20.
• North Waziristan -once dubbed the heartland of militancy- is one of seven former semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan where the army has conducted a series of operations since 2014 to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban.
• The erstwhile federal territories have recently been given the status of districts, and merged with the northwestern Khyber Pakhtukhwa province.
• More than 5,000 suspected militants and over 700 soldiers have been killed in aerial strikes, clashes, and landmine blasts over the past six years. The figures, however, could not be independently verified as media access to the areas is restricted.
• Successive operations have pushed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan towards the neighboring Afghanistan, and Islamabad claims the terrorist network has now set up bases across the border to attack Pakistani security forces.
• The military operations have also displaced over a million people, but the government claims a majority of them have returned to their homes. (---)

Pakistan Wednesday April 29, 2020:

• Pakistani and Indian troops traded fire in the disputed region of Kashmir, killing three Pakistanis and a teenage Indian student.
• The military blamed Indian troops for initiating an “unprovoked cease-fire violation” in the villages of Kailer and Rakhchikri along the Line of Control.
• The military said it lost a soldier when India’s fire hit a Pakistani post while a Pakistani woman and a 16-year-old girl were killed and two civilians were wounded when Indian mortars hit their homes.
• Indian officials blamed Pakistan for initiating fire. They said Pakistani troops attacked Indian positions with small arms and mortar shells in at least four places on Wednesday evening and on Thursday.
• He called the firing an “unprovoked” violation of the 2003 cease-fire accord between the two countries. An Indian local civil administrator, Rahul Yadav, said a teenage student was killed in the shelling from the Pakistani side.
• Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said earlier Thursday that it summoned an Indian diplomat in Islamabad to protest New Delhi’s cease-fire violations, which Islamabad says pose a threat to regional peace and security. Kashmir is divided between the two nuclear-armed rivals but claimed by both in its entirety.

Pakistan Friday May 8, 2020:

• A roadside bombing in a remote area in southwestern Pakistan, close to the border with Iran, struck a patrol vehicle killing six soldiers, including an army major.
• The attack happened as the troops, assigned to look for smuggling routes and militants, were returning to camp from a mountainous border district of Baluchistan province.
• No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in the Keck district, but such attacks are common across Baluchistan and in its capital, Quetta.
• The province has for years been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists who complain of discrimination and demand a fairer share of the province’s resources and wealth. Militants also have a presence in the province.

Pakistan Thursday May 14, 2020:

• Two teenage girls have been murdered in a so-called "honour killing" in north-west Pakistan. They are said to have been shot dead by a family member earlier this week in a village on the border of the North and South Waziristan tribal districts.
• The murders came after a video appeared on social media showing the girls with a young man. Two men were reportedly arrested on Sunday in connection with the case. The two men were relatives of the victims.
• The incident is said to have taken place at Shaam Plain Garyom, a border village of North and South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan Monday May 18, 2020:

• The father and brother of two teenage sisters shot dead in Pakistan after mobile phone video of them with a man surfaced online have been arrested, police said, drawing praise from women's rights activists.
• The man who shot the video has also been arrested, while a relative suspected of carrying out the killing is still at large.
• At least seven soldiers have been killed in two separate attacks in the southwest province of Balochistan.
• Six soldiers were killed when their vehicle was targeted by a roadside bomb in the Pir Ghaib area, about 55km southeast of the provincial capital Quetta.
• In a separate attack a soldier was killed during "an exchange of fire with terrorists" in the Mand area of the province, along the border with neighbouring Iran.

Pakistan Saturday May 23, 2020:

• At least 97 people are confirmed to have died after a Pakistani passenger aircraft crashed into a residential area near Karachi’s airport.
• The pilot of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Airbus A320 jet travelling from Lahore called in to air traffic control describing a technical fault minutes before the crash.At least two of the 98 people onboard the plane survived: the president of the Bank of Punjab, Zafar Masud, who was “out of danger” in hospital, and a man identified as Mohammed Zubair.
• The plane crash was in a residential area so it is proving difficult to get the bodies out and there were also residents who were injured as well. We’ve had seven residents from the area brought into the hospital, of which six are in severe condition in the burns unit. The rescue operation is still continuing, with a focus on finding more bodies.
• The flight was just seconds from the runway when it fell. It crashed into a street in a densely populated area, completely demolishing five houses and damaging 15 others.

Pakistan Friday June 5, 2020:

• At least seven children drowned in River Indus in southern Pakistan. The boys aged between 6 and 10 were swimming in shallow waters and were presumably pushed deep inside the river near Thatta district.
• Rescuers pulled out all seven bodies.
• Pakistan has a history of such incidents, mainly in summers when people take a dip in rivers and streams to beat the sizzling heat.

Pakistan Wednesday June 10, 2020

• Two Pakistanese soldiers were killed and two others wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in a remote volatile region next to the Afghan border. The troops were conducting routine patrolling near Miranshah, the administrative center of North Waziristan district.
• Until a few years back, the district was a hub of local and foreign militant groups blamed for terrorist attacks in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan.
• Sustained counter militancy operations have dismantled the "terrorism infrastructures," killing thousands of militants and pushing others into Afghan border provinces.
• Officials attribute an improved national security situation in Pakistan to military gains in and around the Waziristan district.
• However, the volatile border region has seen an uptick in militant attacks in recent weeks, in which dozens of troops have been killed or injured.

Pakistan Wednesday June 17, 2020:

• Pakistan said Indian troops fired across the de facto Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control, killing four civilians and injuring another.
• A late-night army statement said India violated a mutually agreed-on cease-fire and “initiated unprovoked” firing against villages in the Pakistani-ruled part of the divided Himalayan region. Pakistan army troops responded effectively to Indian firing.
• There was no immediate reaction available from Indian officials. New Delhi controls two-thirds of Kashmir and Islamabad the rest, with both countries claiming the region in its entirety.

Pakistan Friday June 19, 2020:

• Three consecutive explosions claimed by a little-known separatist group killed four people including two soldiers in the southern province of Sindh. At least a dozen people were also injured.
• Shadowy secessionist organization the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, which wants the province to break from the Pakistani federation, said it carried out the attacks.
• One of the blasts was in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the capital of Sindh, where a civilian died and eight others including a paramilitary soldier were injured. That explosion was outside a centre for distribution of government cash handouts, and police believe the target was a vehicle of the Sindh Rangers paramilitary force parked outside.
• The second blast was reported in Ghotki district, 500 km north of Karachi, where two Rangers soldiers died along with a passerby
• The third blast took place in Sindh's Larkana district, where no casualties were reported.
• The Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army has carried out low-intensity attacks in the past, including blowing up train tracks, but its separatist fight has been less violent than that of neighbouring Balochistan province.

Pakistan Sunday June 28, 2020:

• Four gunmen attacked the Pakistani stock exchange in Karachi, killing two guards and a policeman and wounding seven others before being shot dead.
• The assailants launched a grenade attack at the main gate to the building and opened fire but they failed to make it to the trading floor.
• Staff took refuge in locked rooms and many were evacuated as security forces put an end to the assault. Militants from the Baloch Liberation Army say they were behind the attack. Ethnic Baloch groups have fought a long-running insurgency for a separate homeland and a greater share of resources in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

Pakistan Tuesday June 30, 2020:

• The European Union’s announcement that Pakistan International Airlines would be barred from flying into Europe for at least six months is the latest blow to the country’s national flag carrier, which has been mired in financial and administrative troubles and has come under scrutiny after a crash in May that killed 97 people.
• The decision by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency to temporarily ban Pakistan International Airlines followed revelations last month by the Pakistani aviation minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, that a large number of pilots there and at other airlines had dubious credentials. Pakistan International has now grounded 150 of its pilots and an inquiry is underway to review their licenses and other documentation.
• The reports of the questionable credentials have put Pakistani pilots under international scrutiny. Earlier this week, Vietnam grounded 27 Pakistani pilots who fly for Vietnamese airlines. The United Arab Emirates has also sought verification of the credentials of Pakistani airline employees.

Pakistan Friday July 3, 2020:

• A passenger train crashed into a bus carrying Sikh pilgrims at an unmanned railway crossing in eastern Pakistan killing 20 people, including seven women. At least eight pilgrims were injured. The accident happened in the district of Sheikhupura in Punjab province.
• The Sikh pilgrims were from the northwestern city of Peshawar and were returning home from a visit to the shrine of Nankana Sahib in Sheikhupura. The injured were later transported to a hospital in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, with two of the victims listed in critical condition.
• An initial assessment indicated the bus driver tried to cross the railway tracks as the train neared but the bus skidded and got stuck. 

Pakistan Wednesday July 8, 2020:

• Indian and Pakistani soldiers barraged each other with mortar shells and gunfire along the highly militarized frontier in Kashmir killing a woman and wounding another in the Indian-controlled portion of the disputed Himalayan region. The 60-year-old woman was hit by a splinter while visiting relatives near the de-facto border. Another woman was injured and was being treated at a hospital.
• Indian army spokesman Lt. Col. Devender Anand said Pakistani troops hit Indian positions at two places in southern Poonch district along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the two countries early Wednesday.
• Anand called it an “unprovoked violation” of a 2003 cease-fire accord between the two nuclear rivals. He said Indian troops “retaliated befittingly” and the fighting continued for 45 minutes. ---

Pakistan Sunday July 12, 2020:

• Four army troops and as many militants were killed in a clash in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region. The clash occurred near Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan, during a raid on a hideout and resulted in the death of four troops.
• As soon as the troops cordoned off the area, terrorist opened fire. All dug out terrorists were shot down by security forces. In exchange of fire, four soldiers embraced shahadat (martyrdom).
• North Waziristan – once dubbed the heartland of militancy – is one of seven former semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan where the army has conducted a series of operations since 2014 to eliminate Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Pakistan Tuesday July 14, 2020:

• Three soldiers of Pakistan Army were killed and eight others, including an officer, were injured in an ambush on their convoy near Gichak valley in Balochistan’s Panjgur district. The Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) has claimed responsibility for the attack.
• The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that security forces were patrolling near Gichak valley in the Panjgur district of Balochistan when they came under attack.
• Three soldiers embraced shahadat [martyrdom] while eight soldiers received injuries, including an officer. Five injured are critical. The injured soldiers were shifted to Combined Military Hospital in Quetta where 5 remain in critical condition. The attack was a “condemnable act of terrorism”.

Pakistan Tuesday July 21, 2020:

• Rights groups have demanded information on the whereabouts of a prominent Pakistani journalist, known for his criticism of the country's powerful military, after he disappeared.
• Police said Matiullah Jan was last seen outside a government school in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Tuesday morning. He came here to the government girls school in the G-6 neighbourhood, where his wife is a teacher, to drop her off. His car is still standing here. Jan's wife Kaneez Sughra, 42, told Al Jazeera she heard sounds of a scuffle outside the school, but she had not thought seriously about it at the time.
• Mountaineer Paul Hegge became the first and until now only Belgian to successfully climb K2 in Pakistan in 2018. By coincidence he reached the peak on 21 July, Belgium’s national day.
• At a webinar organised by Pakistan’s embassy in Brussels yesterday, the Embassy paid tribute to Paul Hegge by showcasing a video film from his climbing of K2, and launching a video game about scaling K2 while beating COVID-19.

Pakistan Thursday July 23, 2020:

• At least 16 people were wounded in a powerful explosion in the northwestern region near its border with Afghanistan. The bomb was planted under a sack of fruits in a market in Parachinar, the only Shia-dominated tribal area.
• The injured, some of them critically, were taken to the local hospital.
• Soon after the explosion, army troops and police cordoned off the area and launched a search operation. In 2017, at least 72 people were killed and over 280 people were wounded in three separate explosions including in Parachinar city, the capital of northwestern Kurram tribal district.

Pakistan, Saturday July 25, 2020:

• A Pakistani army soldier was killed and three others were injured when their convoy was ambushed by militants in the restive Baluchistan’s Turbat area.
• The incident happened after militants opened fire on the security forces during their routine patrolling near Pidarak in Kech district, approximately 35 kilometres southeast of Turbat. During the exchange of fire, Lance Naik Javed Karim was killed while three other soldiers got injured.
• Security forces have come under increasing terror attacks in Baluchistan and also the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in recent weeks. On July 14, three soldiers were killed and eight others injured when they were ambushed by militants in the Panjgur district of Baluchistan.

Pakistan Wednesday July 29, 2020:

• A Pakistani man on trial for blasphemy has been shot dead in a courtroom, in the latest violent incident connected with the country’s blasphemy laws.
• Tahir Ahmed Naseem had been in prison since his arrest in 2018, allegedly after claiming he was a prophet. He is a member of the Ahmedi sect, which is persecuted in Pakistan where they have officially been declared non-Muslims.
• The shooting took place at a high-security complex next to the Peshawar high court.

Pakistan Monday August 10, 2020:

• At least five people were killed and another ten injured in an explosion in southwestern Pakistan. The explosion, he latest in a series of similar incidents, occurred in the remote Chaman district, a gateway to the neighboring Afghanistan, and a key NATO route.
• The bomb was planted in a motorcycle parked outside a construction site on Mall Road, the city's downtown, and was detonated via remote control. At least eight injured were reported to be in critical condition.
• Authorities suspended traffic into Afghanistan via the Chaman border following the explosion.

Pakistan Saturday September 5, 2020:

• Police in southwest Pakistan have launched a hunt for the killer of a female journalist who was shot at her home; her husband being one of the suspects.
• Shaheena Shaheen, a talk show host at state-owned broadcaster Pakistan Television and editor of a local magazine, was shot dead at her home in Turbat.
• Shaheen's family suspected her husband of the murder. Shaheen had a court marriage about six months ago and was living with her husband.
• A soldier was killed and two others were injured in ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC) at Naugam sector in Baramulla
• Army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said in Srinagar that Pakistan initiated the unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing mortars and other weapons.

Pakistan Monday September 7, 2020:

• A collapse at a marble mine in a remote area of Pakistan has killed at least 19 people, with rescuers scrambling to search the rubble.
• Boulders of white marble came crashing down on workers in the mountainous Mohmand district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the border with Afghanistan. The marble buried people and blocked the entrance to the mine, trapping people inside for several hours.
• Between 40 and 50 people were at the site at the time of the collapse, and at least 20 miners are still missing.
• The cause of the collapse is still unknown, but there was speculation among local residents that explosives were detonated to extract the marble, triggering a rockslide.
• The actual number of fatalities was unclear because some families took bodies of loved ones directly to their homes from the site.
• Cellular signals and other communication facilities are unreliable in large parts of Mohmand district, including the area where the mine is located.
• Deadly incidents are not uncommon in Pakistani mines, which are notorious for hazardous working conditions and poor safety standards. In February, at least 10 workers were killed in a rockslide at a marble quarry in the northwestern district of Buner, and 30 workers were killed in explosions at two coal mines killed in explosions at two coal mines near the southwestern city of Quetta in 2018.
• At least 43 miners were killed in Sorange district of Balochistan in 2011 as a result of a blast at a coal mine.

Pakistan Tuesday September 8, 20209:

• At least 19 miners were killed and more than a dozen were still trapped on after a rockslide at a marble quarry in northwest Pakistan.
• A huge boulder fell on the labourers in the Mohmand district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province overnight.
• At least seven more bodies were retrieved from the rubble when the rescue was resumed after a brief pause. Twenty injured people were rescued.
• At least 20 to 25 workers might still be trapped.
• Twin mining accidents kill 23 in Pakistan.

Pakistan Friday September 11, 2020:

• An 11-year-old Pakistani girl was killed and four other villagers critically wounded by Indian troops firing into the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed region of Kashmir.
• The “unprovoked firing” by Indian troops using long-range guns and artillery targeted the Pakistani border villages of Hotspring and Rakhchikri along the so-called “line of control” in Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety.
• Pakistan and India often exchanged fire along the highly militarised frontier in the disputed Himalayan region, with each blaming the other side for initiating the firing.
• The Pakistani military said a 75-year-old woman was among the four civilians wounded on Friday. It said its forces responded by firing at Indian army posts, without elaborating.
• India said Pakistani soldiers targeted several Indian military positions along the disputed border on Saturday and Sunday. He said Pakistani soldiers initiated the firing and shelling on both days, to which Indian soldiers “retaliated befittingly” and that there were no casualties on the Indian side.
• Pakistan’s foreign office said it had summoned India’s diplomatic representative to protest over the incident.
• In June, Pakistani officials blamed Indian troops for killing four villagers in the Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir. Days later, they said Indian shelling killed a 13-year-old-girl and wounded her mother and brother.
• Tensions have grown between Pakistan and India since August 2019, when the Hindu nationalist-led government led by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, revoked Muslim-majority Kashmir’s decades-old semi-autonomous status, sparking anger in Indian-controlled Kashmir and in Pakistan.
• Since gaining independence from British rule in 1947, the two nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

Pakistan Sunday September 13, 2020:

• Pakistan’s military have killed a key militant commander along with his three accomplices near Afghanistan border, describing it a major breakthrough in ongoing security operations against suspected terrorists.
• In a major breakthrough, terrorist commander Ihsan Ullah alias Ihsan Sanray along with 3 other terrorists killed during an Intelligence Based Operation today in Ghariom, Shaktu near the inter district boundary of North and South Waziristan. The deceased commander was mastermind of numerous terrorist activities.
• More recently he was involved in planning and execution of terrorist attacks in Shaktu area, which led to martyrdom of several soldiers & officers including Lt. Nasir (Shaheed), and Captain Sabih (Shaheed).
• North Waziristan – once dubbed the heartland of militancy – is one of seven former semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan where the army has conducted a series of operations since 2014 to eliminate Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
• Successive operations have pushed the TTP towards neighboring Afghanistan, and Islamabad claims the terrorist network has now set up bases across the border to attack Pakistani security forces.
• The military operations also displaced over a million people, but the government claims most of them have returned to their homes.
• In 2018, the tribal agencies were given the status of districts, and merged with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Pakistan Friday September 18, 2020:

• The security forces have killed four terrorists in southwestern Balochistan province during an operation. The security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation on confirmation of presence of terrorists in Awaran district of Balochistan, and killed four terrorists in exchange of fire.
• The terrorists' hideout and a logistic base were destroyed while a large cache of arms, ammunition and communication equipment recovered. The army statement did not provide information about the affiliation of the terrorists.
• Earlier on Sunday, the Pakistani military said security forces had killed a terrorist commander along with three other terrorists in the Waziristan area of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

10.3.2 Libya
- On January 12, 2003, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi of Libya told US newspapers that Libyan intelligence has provided information to the US on al-Qaida. He added that, as a result, the sanctions against his country would be lifted.

- On December 19, 2003, we were told that secret negotiations started in March 2003 between Libya, Britain and the USA. Libya took the initiative to contact Britain -that informed the US- after agreeing to pay $2.7bn to the victims of the Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 103 bombing that killed 270 people in 1988. Libya was ready to stop its programme of weapons of mass destruction in exchange if the UN -and especially the USA- lifted their sanctions and if Libya was taken off the list of "rogue states" by the USA. Libyan president, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, admitted he had been trying to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons but that he was now ready to dismantle all the programmes.

- British and American experts have already visited weapon research and production sites in Libya. They found high-speed centrifuges to enrich uranium, chemical weapons such as mustard gas and nerve agents, equipment to carry these chemical weapons and missiles. Libya admitted to contacts with North Korea, a supplier of long-range ballistic missiles. It has already been agreed that Libya will eliminate all elements of its chemical and nuclear weapons programmes: declare all nuclear activities to the IAEA; eliminate all chemical weapon stocks and munitions; destroy all its missiles with a range above 186 miles and with a payload above 1,102 pounds; accept international inspections to be certain that it adheres to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; allow immediate inspection and monitoring.

- This was a great victory for Bush and also for Blair, in their strategy of pre-emptive war against potential threats as well as an example of their disponibility to use diplomacy to achieve the same results. Libya's decision is thought to have been influenced by the invasion of Iraq. Of course Libya is also a potential big oil supplier -US oil companies had to leave Libya in 1986 after President Reagan imposed sanctions. Libya, 7th ranking oil producer, pumps about 1.4 million barrels a day and sell most of it to Germany, France, Italy and Spain. It could produce more, " million barrels a day (to compare to the 11.2 million barrels a day imported by the USA.

- The question now is: Were Bush and Blair right after all to invade Iraq and its opponents -France, Germany, Russia, China- wrong? If the answer is Yes, these last countries have a big problem in front of them. As usual the Libyan exiles and the right wing American politicians said immediately that this a ploy by Gadhafi to stay in power. They believe that he will not destroy his weapons of mass destruction and that his decision to disarm is a public relation gesture. On the other hand, Bush and Blair are praising Gadhafi's statesmanship while before they described him as a dictator, a tyrant and an enemy to destroy.

- On December 20, 2003 the experts who inspected Libya in the last 9 months said that they did not find evidence of any biological weapons or that Libya had tried to produce weapon grade Uranium required to build atomic bombs. Their chemical weapons -mustard gas- was at least 10 years old. However they found high speed centrifuges usable to enrich uranium, dual-use biological agents {that could be used to produce military weapons and no-military products) as well as a programme to develop long-range missiles.
- On December 29, 2003, the Head of the IAEA, Dr Mohamed El-Baradei, said, after inspecting four nuclear installations at the beginning of the month, that Libya's nuclear programme was 3 to 7 years away from producing a nuclear weapon and was largely dismantled. However he added that Libya had acquired a great deal of high technology equipment to enrich uranium through black market. In his opinion the programme is in its early stage of development.
- The USA and Britain will send their own experts to Libya, as they do not trust the IAEA. The CIA says that there are at least 11 nuclear sites in Libya and the IAEA has only visited four until now. On December 31, it became clear that the Libyan turn-around was not the result of a personal decision by Colonel Gadhafi. In fact 3 months before Libya's decision, a shipment of centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium was intercepted on its way to Libya. These machines were loaded in a Persian Gulf port on a German ship that was diverted to an Italian port.
- On January 1, 2004, Libya said that the USA should lift the sanctions quickly to reward its people for abandoning its secret weapon programmes. The Libyan Prime Minister, Shukri Ghanim, warned that if the USA does not do it by May 12, 2004, Libya would not pay the remaining $6m promised to every family of the victims of the Lockerbie air disaster. Lifting the sanctions would allow US oil companies to return and invest in Libya. On January 3, the US government rejected Libya's demands and said that it will start discussing the relations between the two countries only after Libya has dismantled it programmes of weapons of mass destruction.
- On January 5, 2004, Pakistan was said to be the source of the centrifuge found in Libya. On January 6, the government of Pakistan denied that its scientists gave high-tech centrifuge design technology to Libya or, at least, Pakistan never knew that its scientists were selling information. However there are little doubts that Pakistan, in one way or the other, has supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with the technology for these countries to develop their military nuclear programme. More specifically Pakistan provided the knowledge to build high velocity centrifuges to enrich uranium and, possibly, sold them the equipment.
- Pakistan has a problem: if it says that it sold the equipment then it did it breaching the UN sanctions that prohibit the export of these materials. If it says that this was done directly by its scientists or its industry, then the Pakistani government does not control its military nuclear industry, and this could mean that terrorists could have access to nuclear know-how too. In both cases the USA must do something but what? If it pushes to hard, President Musharraf may scale down his participation in the antiterrorism war and Washington needs his help. Or he could fall and be replaced, possibly, by an Islamic extremist regime, and this would be a disaster for the Americans. Most probably the USA will go on supporting President (Dictator) Musharraf as long as he is useful to then drop him as they dropped Saddam Hussein in the past.
- On January 9, 2004, Libya agreed to pay $170m to the families of the victims (($1m ahead) killed in a French plane over Africa in 1989. This will help the UN to lift the sanctions.
- On January 20, 2004, we were told that Libya disarmament -the dismantling, destroying and removing of technology and materials- will be done by weapon experts from the US and Britain. These two countries do not trust the IAEA to do a proper job! The role of the IAEA will be limited to verifying the destruction and the removal work. On January 23, 2004, the IAEA said that Libya handed a detailed drawing of an atomic bomb to its inspectors.
- On January 20, 2004, seven members of the US Congress planned to visit Libya to talk with Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, and possibly visit facilities producing weapons of mass destruction. Rep.Curt Weldon, Republican, Pennsylvania, will lead the team that will proceed to Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the American delegation their meeting with Colonel Moammar Gadhafi and their visit of a nuclear reactor went quite well.
- On February 24, 2004, the White House suspended its plans to lift the travel restrictions to Libya after the Libyan Prime Minister, Shokri Ghanem, refused to accept full responsibility for the Lockerbie plane bomb crash and the murder of British police officer, Yvonne Fletcher. The prime minister said that Libya agreed to pay £2,2m to each of the 270 victims' families of the Lockerbie explosion to end the sanctions against his country, not because they are guilty for these two incidents.
- On March 7, 2004, a ship removed about 500 tons of Libya's hardware linked to its nuclear weapons programmes and long-range missiles. The ship is bound for the USA where the material will be destroyed; it carries centrifuge parts used to enrich uranium and components from its uranium conversion facilities. Libya will sign an agreement accepting weapons inspections by the IAEA. Libya admitted that they have 20 tons of mustard gas and precursors for nerve gas. In exchange President Bush will waive restrictions on US citizens wanting to visit Libya and allowed US oil companies to invest there.
- On March 15, 2004, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the US authorities showed the Libyan equipment meant for making nuclear weapons. They were proud to point out that the decision by Libya to stop its military nuclear programmes was a big success for the USA and Britain.
- On March 25, 2004, Tony Blair went to Tripoli in Libya to meet Colonel Muammar Gadafy, Libya's ruler. They met in a tent. Officially, Blair went to Libya to say thank you to Gadafy to renounce to Libya's weapons of mass destruction. However, the main reason was to promote the British industry -especially oil and gas- and services. It was also agree that MI6 and Tripoli would share information on al-Qaida suspects and about the war against terrorism that Libya has now decided to join after being a terrorist state. The main aim is to eliminate the al-Qaida networks from North Africa.
- Moreover at the same meeting it was agreed that Libya would collaborate in the search for the identification of the Libyan who shot dead the policewoman Yvonne Fletcher during a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy in London on August 17, 1984. Metropolitan police officers will fly to Libya on April 3. The Conservative party and "Old England" were against Blair's visit to Libya arguing that it would upset the Lockerbie victims' families. Well the majority of them approved the visit. And on March 28, a poll made for The Observer showed that 60% of the British people approve Blair decision to go and talk to Gadaffi even if it meant shaking hands with him.
- On April 23, 2004, the USA removed most of its economic sanctions against Libya. This will allow US oil companies to do business there. However the Libyan assets held in the USA and by American banks will remain frozen for the moment, and Libya will still be on the US list of countries said to sponsor terrorism.
- On May 23, 2004, The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna made it clear that North Korea supplied uranium for Libya's secret military nuclear programme. The IAEA's inspectors found 1.7 tons of slightly enriched uranium hexafluoride of North Korean origin sent to Libya by the Pakistani Abdul Qadeer Khan network. Apparently the American and British inspectors did not discover the origin of the uranium. This confirms that North Korea mines and refines uranium to sell to foreign countries.
- On June 28, 2004, the US renewed diplomatic links with Libya after 24 years.
- On September 21, 2004, Libya business leaders welcomed the US decision to end trade sanctions. However, the US is keeping several terrorism-related sanctions on aviation and communication materials and this has disappointed the businessmen.

- On May 16, 2006, the US is to renew full diplomatic relations with Libya after deciding to remove it from its list of countries that support terrorism. The US has not had normal relations with Libya since 1980, and blamed it for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. It lifted many economic sanctions and restored some ties in 2004 after Libya renounced weapons of mass destruction. The US secretary of state said Libya had since shown a "continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism".

- Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on March 3, 2007, his country has not been given adequate compensation for its decision to renounce nuclear weapons in 2003. Colonel Gaddafi said the failure by the West to reward Libya meant Iran and North Korea were reluctant to follow Tripoli's lead.

- The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said on May 14, 2007, he will sue a Palestinian news agency for making false claims about his health. The news report quoted an unnamed European source, saying that Col Gaddafi was in a coma in a hospital in the coastal town of Benghazi. Speaking to journalists in Tripoli, he appeared well and blamed members of the Arab world for the error. The news agency has apologised for the mistake, blaming an unreliable source.

- On Wednesday July 11, 2007, Libya's Supreme Court has upheld death sentences imposed in 2004 on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor for infecting children with HIV. A mediating body is now said to have agreed a financial settlement with the children's families. The High Judiciary Council, which can overrule the Supreme Court, is to meet on Monday to confirm, annul or amend the death penalty verdicts.

- Libya signed contracts with France on August 3, 2007, to buy anti-tank missiles and radio communications equipment worth $405m. The arms agreement is Libya's first with a Western country since a European Union embargo was lifted in 2004. France has confirmed the missile deal.

- The son of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, announced on August 21, 2007, reform plans, including an independent central bank and free media. Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi also called for a national dialogue on a new constitution to strengthen Libya's political system. But he said Islamic Sharia law, security issues, Libya's territorial unity and his father's leadership would be kept out of any political debate. Sayf al-Islam holds no government post, but is his father's most trusted envoy.

- On April 4, 2008, we were told that eight German police commandos are under investigation for allegedly having trained Libyan police for profit in their spare time. The commandos allegedly worked for a private firm and flew to Libya in 2006 to train police. Libya's leader Col Muammar Gaddafi rejected terrorism in 2003.

- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Libya on September 5, 2008, to meet its leader Muammar Gaddafi in a visit US officials are hailing as "historic". She is the first US secretary of state to visit Libya since 1953. Before arriving, she pointed out the "suffering" caused by Libya's long stand-off with the West. The visit could be overshadowed by Libya's failure so far to honour a deal offering compensation to families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

- On September 6, 2008, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Libya's Muammar Gaddafi on a visit to the North African country US officials are hailing as "historic". The pair met at Mr Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, which was hit in US bombing raids ordered by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

- On February 26, 2010, a top UN official has condemned as "inadmissible" Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's call for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland. Colonel Gaddafi also criticised a Swiss vote against the building of minarets and urged Muslims to boycott the country. Libya and Switzerland are embroiled in a long-running diplomatic row. The dispute dates back to 2008, when one of Mr Gaddafi's sons was arrested in Geneva, accused of assaulting two servants.

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Libyan civil war

The Libyan civil war (also referred to as the Libyan revolution), was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on Tuesday, 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security forces that fired on the crowd. The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing an interim governing body, the National Transitional Council.

The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February 2011, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and his inner circle and restricting their travel, and referred the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation. In early March, Gaddafi's forces rallied, pushed eastwards and re-took several coastal cities before attacking Benghazi. A further U.N. resolution authorised member states to establish and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, and to use "all necessary measures" to prevent attacks on civilians. The Gaddafi government then announced a ceasefire, but failed to uphold it. Throughout the conflict, rebels rejected government offers of a ceasefire and efforts by the African Union to end the fighting because the plans set forth did not include the removal of Gaddafi.

In August, rebel forces began a coastal offensive, taking back territory lost weeks before and ultimately capturing the capital city of Tripoli, while Gaddafi evaded capture and loyalists engaged in a rearguard campaign. On 16 September 2011, the National Transitional Council was recognised by the United Nations as the legal representative of Libya, replacing the Gaddafi government. Muammar Gaddafi remained at large until 20 October 2011, when he was captured and killed attempting to escape from Sirte. The National Transitional Council "declared the liberation of Libya" and the official end of the war on 23 October 2011.

Amidst the aftermath of the civil war, a low-level insurgency by former Gaddafi loyalists still continued. In addition, there have been various disagreements and strife between local militia and tribes. The most serious clashes erupted in late January 2012. On 23 January, the former Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid was captured by local fighters, who subsequently established a non-NTC town council due to the NTC's refusal to cooperate with tribal leaders.

Leadership

Muammar Gaddafi became the de-facto ruler of Libya after he led a military coup that overthrew King Idris I in 1969. He abolished the Libyan Constitution of 1951, and adopted laws based on his own ideology outlined in his manifesto "The Green Book". He officially stepped down from power in 1977, and subsequently claimed to be merely a "symbolic figurehead".

Under Gaddafi, Libya was theoretically a decentralized, direct democracy state run according to the philosophy of Gaddafi's "The Green Book. Libya was officially run by a system of people's committees which served as local governments for the country's subdivisions, an indirectly elected General People's Congress as the legislature, and the General People's Committee, led by a Secretary-General, as the executive branch. According to Freedom House, however, these structures were often manipulated to ensure the dominance of Gaddafi, who reportedly continued to dominate all aspects of government.

While placing relatives and loyal members of his tribe in central military and government positions, he skilfully marginalized supporters and rivals, thus maintaining a delicate balance of powers, stability and economic developments. This extended even to his own sons, as he repeatedly changed affections to avoid the rise of a clear successor and rival.

According to several Western media sources, Gaddafi feared a military coup against his government and deliberately kept Libya's military relatively weak. The Libyan Army consisted of about 50,000 personnel. Its most powerful units were four crack brigades of highly equipped and trained soldiers, composed of members of Gaddafi's tribe or members of other tribes loyal to him. One, the Khamis Brigade, was led by his son Khamis. Local militias and Revolutionary Committees across the country were also kept well-armed.

Development and corruption

Much of the state's income came from its oil production, which soared in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a large portion of it was spent on arms purchases, and on sponsoring militant groups and independence movements around the world.

Petroleum revenues contributed up to 58% of Libya's GDP. To calm opposition, the government can use the income from natural resources to offer services to the population, or to specific government supporters. Libya's oil wealth being spread over a relatively small population gave it a higher GDP per capita than in neighbouring states. Libya's GDP per capita (PPP), human development index, and literacy rate were better than in Egypt and Tunisia. Libya's corruption perception index in 2010 was 2.2, ranking 146th out of 178 countries, worse than that of Egypt (ranked 98th) and Tunisia (ranked 59th). One paper speculated that such a situation created a broader contrast between good education, high demand for democracy, and the government's practices (perceived corruption, political system, supply of democracy).

An estimated 13% of Libyan citizens were unemployed. More than 16% of families had none of its members earning a stable income, while 43.3% had just one. Despite one of the highest unemployment rates in the region, there was a consistent labour shortage with over a million migrant workers present on the market. These migrant workers formed the bulk of the refugees leaving Libya after the beginning of hostilities. Despite this, Libya's Human Development Index in 2010 was the highest in Africa and greater than that of Saudi Arabia. Libya had welfare systems allowing access to free education, free healthcare, and financial assistance for housing, while the Great Manmade River was built to allow free access to fresh water across large parts of the country.

Some of the worst economic conditions were in the eastern parts of the state, once a breadbasket of the ancient world, where Gaddafi extracted oil. Despite improvements in housing and the Great Manmade River allowing access to free fresh water, not much infrastructure beyond this was developed in the region for many years.

Several foreign governments and analysts have claimed that a large share of the business enterprise was controlled by Gaddafi, his family, and the government. According to US officials, Gaddafi amassed a vast personal fortune during his 42-year leadership.

Gaddafi claimed he was planning to combat corruption in the state by proposing reforms where oil profits are handed out directly to the country's five million people rather than to government bodies. Gaddafi urged a sweeping reform of the government bureaucracy. In March 2008, Gaddafi proposed plans to dissolve the country's existing administrative structure and disburse oil revenue directly to the people. The plan included abolishing all ministries except those of defence, internal security, and foreign affairs, and departments implementing strategic projects.

A national vote on Gaddafi's plan to disband the government and give oil money directly to the people was held in 2009. The Libya's people's congresses, the country's highest authority, voted to delay implementation. This plan led to dissent from top government officials, who claimed it would "wreak havoc" in the economy by "fanning inflation and spurring capital flight." Gaddafi acknowledged that the scheme, which promised up to 30,000 Libyan dinars ($23,000) annually to about a million of Libya's poorest, may "cause chaos before it brought about prosperity."

Human rights in Libya

In 2009 and 2011, the Freedom of the Press Index rated Libya the most-censored state in the Middle East and North Africa. In contrast, a January 2011 report of the United Nations Human Rights Council released a month before protests began, praised certain aspects of the country's human rights record, including its treatment of women and improvements in other areas.

The Revolutionary Committees kept tight control over internal dissent. It was estimated that ten to twenty percent of Libyans worked as informants for these committees, with surveillance taking place in the government, in factories, and in the education sector. The government sometimes executed dissidents through public hangings and mutilations and re-broadcast them on public television channels. Up to the mid-1980s, Libya's intelligence service conducted assassinations of Libyan dissidents around the world.

In December 2009, Gaddafi reportedly told government officials that Libya would soon experience a "new political period" and would have elections for important positions such as minister-level roles and the National Security Advisor position (a Prime Minister equivalent). He also promised that international monitors would be included to ensure fair elections. These elections were planned to coincide with the Jamahiriya's usual periodic elections for the Popular Committees, Basic People's Committees, Basic People's Congresses, and General People's Congresses, in 2010.

Dissent was illegal under Law 75 of 1973, and in 1974, Gaddafi asserted that anyone guilty of founding a political party would be executed. With the establishment of the Jamahiriya ("state of the masses") system in 1977, he established the Revolutionary Committees as conduits for raising political consciousness, with the aim of direct political participation by all Libyans rather than a traditional party-based representative system. In 1979, some of the Revolutionary Committees had eventually evolved into self-appointed, sometimes zealous, enforcers of revolutionary orthodoxy. During the early 1980s, the Revolutionary Committees had considerable power and became a growing source of tension within the Jamihiriya. The power of the Revolutionary Committees were eventually restricted in the late 1980s.

In 1988, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya issued the "Great Green Document" on Human Rights, in which Article 5 established laws that allowed greater freedom of expression. Article 8 of The Code on the Promotion of Freedom stated that "each citizen has the right to express his opinions and ideas openly in People's Congresses and in all mass media." A number of restrictions were also allegedly placed on the power of the Revolutionary Committees by the Gaddafi government, leading to a resurgence in the Libyan state's popularity by the early 1990s.

Beginnings of protests

Between 13 and 16 January 2011, upset at delays in the building of housing units and over political corruption, protesters in Bayda, Derna, Benghazi and other cities broke into, and occupied, housing that the government had been building. Protesters also clashed with police in Bayda and attacked government offices. By 27 January, the government had responded to the housing unrest with a €20 billion investment fund to provide housing and development.

Uprising and civil war

The protests, unrest and confrontations began in earnest on 15 February 2011. On the evening of 15 February, between 500 and 600 demonstrators protested in front of Benghazi's police headquarters after the arrest of human rights lawyer Fathi Terbil. Crowds were armed with petrol bombs and threw stones. Marchers hurled Molotov cocktails in a downtown square in Benghazi, damaging cars, blocking roads, and hurling rocks. Police responded to crowds with tear gas, water cannon, and rubber bullets. 38 people were injured, among them ten security personnel.

In Bayda and Zintan, hundreds of protesters in each town called for an end to the Gaddafi government and set fire to police and security buildings. In Zintan, the protesters set up tents in the town centre. The armed protests continued the following day in Benghazi, Derna and Bayda. Libyan security forces allegedly responded with lethal force. Hundreds gathered at Maydan al-Shajara in Benghazi, and authorities tried to disperse protesters with water cannons.

A "Day of Rage" in Libya and by Libyans in exile was planned for 17 February by The National Conference for the Libyan Opposition. Protests took place in Benghazi, Ajdabiya, Derna, Zintan, and Bayda. Libyan security forces fired live ammunition into the armed protests. Protesters torched a number of government buildings, including a police station. In Tripoli, television and public radio stations had been sacked, and protesters set fire to security buildings, Revolutionary Committee offices, the interior ministry building, and the People's Hall.

On 18 February, police and army personnel later withdrew from Benghazi after being overwhelmed by protesters. Some army personnel also joined the protesters; they then seized the local radio station. In Bayda, unconfirmed reports indicated that the local police force and riot-control units had joined the protesters. On 19 February, witnesses in Libya reported helicopters firing into crowds of anti-government protesters. The army withdrew from the city of Bayda.

Organisation

Many opposition participants have called for a return to the 1952 constitution and a transition to multi-party democracy. Military units who have joined the rebellion and many volunteers have formed an army to defend against Jamahiriya attacks and to work to bring Tripoli under the influence of Jalil. Volunteers reportedly guarded the port, local banks and oil terminals to keep the oil flowing.

The National Transitional Council was established on 27 February in an effort to consolidate efforts for change in the rule of Libya. The main objectives of the group did not include forming an interim government, but instead to co-ordinate resistance efforts between the different towns held in rebel control, and to give a political "face" to the opposition to present to the world. The Benghazi-based opposition government had called for a no-fly zone and airstrikes against the Jamahiriya. The council refers to the Libyan state as the Libyan Republic. Former Jamahiriya Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil said in February that the new government would prepare for elections and they could be held in three months.

Some of the rebels oppose tribalism and wear vests bearing slogans such as "No to tribalism, no to factionalism". Libyans have said that they have found abandoned torture chambers and devices that have been used in the past.

Composition of rebel forces

The rebels are composed primarily of civilians and a contingent of professional soldiers that defected from the Libyan Army and joined the rebels. The Islamist group Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is considered part of the rebel movement, as is the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade which has been held responsible for the assassination of top rebel commander General Abdul Fatah Younis.

Gaddafi's administration had repeatedly asserted that the rebels included al-Qaeda fighters. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander James G. Stavridis stated that intelligence reports suggested "flickers" of al-Qaeda activity were present among the rebels, but there is not sufficient information to confirm there is any significant al-Qaeda or terrorist presence. Denials of al-Qaeda membership were issued by the rebels.

State response

In the days leading up to the conflict, Gaddafi called for a rally against the government that was to be held on 17 February. The International Crisis Group believes this to have been a political manoeuvre to divert attention away from himself and the Jamahiriya political system towards government officials currently in power.

Later in February, Gaddafi claimed that the rebels were influenced by Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and hallucinogenic drugs put in drinks and pills. He referred to the rebels as "cockroaches" and "rats", and vowed not to step down and to cleanse Libya house by house until the insurrection was crushed. He said that if the rebels laid down their arms, they would not be harmed. He also said that he had been receiving "thousands" of phone calls from Benghazi, from residents who were being held hostage and who wanted to be rescued. Those who surrender their weapons and would come without their arms, we would forgive them, and would have amnesty for those who put down their weapons. Anyone who throws his arms away and stays at home would be protected.

Libya's ambassador in Malta explained that "many people instigating unrest were arrested. Libya will show that these belonged to Al Qaeda. The government is ready to dialogue with them." He cited reports from the Libyan Foreign Ministry that up to 2,500 al-Qaeda foreign operatives have been working in eastern Libya and were mostly responsible for "stirring up trouble."

Gaddafi claimed that he had not yet ordered the use of force, and threatened that "everything will burn" when he did. Responding to demands that he step down, he claimed that he could not step down, as he held a purely symbolic position like Queen Elizabeth, and that the people were in power.

Violence

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, in an interview with ABC on 17 March, stated that the rebels in Benghazi engaged in terror against the population. Everybody is terrified because of the armed militia.

The Libyan government were reported to have employed snipers, artillery, helicopter gunships, warplanes, anti-aircraft weaponry, and warships against demonstrations and funeral processions. It was also reported that security forces and foreign mercenaries repeatedly used firearms, including assault rifles and machine guns, as well as knives against protesters. Amnesty International initially reported that writers, intellectuals and other prominent opposition sympathizers disappeared during the early days of the conflict in Gaddafi-controlled cities, and that they may have been subjected to torture or execution.

In a 17 March 2011 interview, shortly before the military intervention, Muammar Gaddafi's son and heir apparent Saif al-Islam Gaddafi claimed "armed militia" fighters in Benghazi were killing children and terrorizing the population.

Amnesty International reported that security forces targeted paramedics helping injured protesters. Injured demonstrators were sometimes denied access to hospitals and ambulance transport. The government also banned giving blood transfusions to people who had taken part in the demonstrations. Security forces, including members of Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees, stormed hospitals and removed the dead. Injured protesters were either summarily executed or had their oxygen masks, IV drips, and wires connected to the monitors removed. The dead and injured were piled into vehicles and taken away, possibly for cremation. Doctors were prevented from documenting the numbers of dead and wounded, but an orderly in a Tripoli hospital morgue estimated to the BBC that 600-700 protesters were killed in Green Square in Tripoli on 20 February.

In the eastern city of Bayda, anti-government forces hung two policemen who were involved in trying to disperse demonstrations. In downtown Benghazi, anti-government forces killed the managing director of al-Galaa hospital. The victim's body showed signs of torture.

On 19 February, several days after the conflict began, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi announced the creation of a commission of inquiry into the violence, chaired by a Libyan judge, as reported on state television. Later in the month, he went on state television to deny allegations that the government had launched airstrikes against Libyan cities and stated that the number of protesters killed had been exaggerated.

Later in February, it was reported that the Gaddafi government had suppressed protests in Tripoli by distributing automobiles, money and weapons for hired followers to drive around Tripoli and attack people showing signs of dissent. In Tripoli, "death squads" of mercenaries and Revolutionary Committees members reportedly patrolled the streets and shot people who tried to take the dead off the streets or gather in groups.

In March 2011, the International Federation for Human Rights concluded that Gaddafi was implementing a scorched earth strategy. These acts can be characterized as crimes against humanity, as defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court."

In May 2011, International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo estimated that 500-700 people were killed by security forces in February 2011, before the rebels took up arms. According to Moreno-Ocampo, "shooting at protesters was systematic".

During the siege of Misrata in May 2011, Amnesty International reported "horrifying" tactics such as "indiscriminate attacks that have led to massive civilian casualties, including use of heavy artillery, rockets and cluster bombs in civilian areas and sniper fire against residents." Gaddafi's military commanders also reportedly executed soldiers who refused to fire on protesters. The International Federation for Human Rights reported a case where 130 soldiers were executed. Some of the soldiers executed by their commanders were reportedly burned alive.

In July 2011, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had an interview with Russia Today in which he denied the ICC's allegations that he or his father Muammar Gaddafi ordered the killing of civilian protesters. He also claimed his father made recorded calls to General Abdul Fatah Younis, who later defected to the rebel forces, in order to request not to use force against protesters, to which he said Fatah Younis responded that protesters were attacking a military site and soldiers were acting in self-defence.

Prison sites and torture

Gaddafi reportedly imprisoned thousands or tens of thousands residents in Tripoli, with Red Cross denied access to these hidden prisons.
In late April, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice alleged that soldiers loyal to Gaddafi were given Viagra and encouraged to commit rapes in rebel-held or disputed areas. The allegations surfaced in an Al Jazeera report the previous month from Libya-based doctors, who claimed to have found Viagra in the pockets of government soldiers. Human rights groups and aid workers had previously documented rapes by loyalist fighters during the war.

In Misrata, a rebel spokesman claimed that government soldiers had committed a string of sexual assaults in Benghazi Street before being pushed out by rebels. A doctor claimed that two young sisters were raped by five Black African mercenaries after their brothers joined the rebels. According to aid workers, four young girls were abducted and held for four days, and were possibly sexually assaulted. In a questionnaire 259 refugee women reported that they had been raped by Gaddafi's soldiers.

Mercenaries

The Libyan government alleged that the armed rebellion was composed of "criminal gangs and mercenaries." A Libyan official reported to Libyan television that security forces arrested Tunisians and Egyptians that were "trained to sow chaos." According to the Libyan Government authorities, mercenaries from Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia allegedly entered Libya to fight on the side of the rebels. Dozens of them were arrested. Military advisors from Qatar participated on the side of the rebels, and were sometimes labelled as "mercenaries" by the media.

After clashes between Government and anti-government forces, allegations arose of the Libyan Gaddafi using foreign mercenaries. Gaddafi's former Chief of Protocol Nouri Al Misrahi claimed in an interview with the Al Jazeera that Nigerien, Malian, Chadian and Kenyan mercenaries are among foreign soldiers helping fight the uprising on behalf of Gaddafi.

According to African Union chairman Jean Ping, the "NTC seems to confuse black people with mercenaries,". For the rebels, "All blacks are mercenaries. If you do that, it means one-third of the population of Libya, which is black, is also mercenaries.

In Mali, members of the Tuareg tribe confirmed that a large number of men, about 5,000, from the tribe went to Libya in late February. They were promised €7,500 ($10,000) upfront payment and compensation up to €750 ($1,000) per day. Gaddafi has used Malian Tuaregs in his political projects before, sending them to fight in places like Chad, Sudan and Lebanon and recently they have fought against Niger government. Malian government officials told BBC that it's hard to stop the flow of fighters from Mali to Libya. A recruitment centre for Malian soldiers leaving to Libya was found in a Bamako hotel.

Reports from Ghana state that the men who went to Libya were offered as much as €1950 ($2,500) per day. Advertisements seeking mercenaries were seen in Nigeria. One group of mercenaries from Niger, who had been allegedly recruited from the streets with promises of money, included a soldier of just 13 years of age.

Reports by EU experts stated that Gaddafi's government hired between 300 and 500 European soldiers, including some from EU countries, at high wages. The Serbian newspaper Alo! stated that Serbs were hired to help Gaddafi in the early days of the conflict. Rumors of Serbian pilots participating on the side of Gaddafi appeared early in the conflict. A witness claimed that mercenaries were more willing to kill demonstrators than Libyan forces were, and earned a reputation as among the most brutal forces employed by the government.

In June 2011, Amnesty International said it found no evidence of foreign mercenaries being used, saying the black Africans claimed to be "mercenaries" were in fact "sub-Saharan migrants working in Libya," and described the use of mercenaries as a "myth" that "inflamed public opinion" and led to lynchings and executions of black Africans by rebel forces.

In October 2011 it was reported that the South African government was investigating the possibility that South African mercenaries were hired by Gaddafi to help him in his failed attempt to escape the besieged city of Sirte.

Censorship of events

Gaddafi shut down all Internet communications in Libya, and arrested Libyans who had given phone interviews to the media. International journalists were banned by the Libyan authorities from reporting from Libya except by invitation of the Gaddafi government. Several residents reported that cell phone service was down, and even landline phone service was sporadic. However, every day new footage made with cell phone cameras finds its way to YouTube and the international media. Journalists and human rights researchers make daily phone calls to hundreds of civilians in government held territory.

The rebels abducted five journalists from Russia in April 2011 in Ajdabiya. They took away the journalists' documents and equipment. In the city of Misrata, rebel leaders imposed restrictions on the foreign media. Journalists were prevented from travelling to the village of Dafniya and were turned back at rebel-held checkpoints. Journalists were only able to use officially approved translators.

International journalists who have attempted to cover the events were attacked by Gaddafi's forces. A journalist working for The Guardian and another Brazilian journalist have been detained. An Al-Jazeera journalist Ali Hassan al-Jaber was murdered. Gaddafi's soldiers held four New York Times journalists in captivity for a week. Libyan citizen journalist Mohammed Nabbous was shot in the head by Gaddafi's soldiers soon after exposing the Gaddafi government's false reports related to the cease-fire declaration.

International media

After the uprising began, Libyan students studying in the United States received phone calls from the Libyan embassy, instructing them to participate in pro-Gaddafi rallies. They were threatened with losing their government-funded scholarships if they refused. Gaddafi's ambassador denied the reports. A campaign in Serbia has organized people to spread pro-Gaddafi messages on the Internet.

Gaddafi's men organized tours for foreign journalists in Tripoli but the picture presented by the regime often falls apart, fast. Coffins at funerals have sometimes turned out to be empty. Bombing sites are recycled. Journalist were not allowed to go anywhere, or talk to anyone, without authorization from Gaddafi's officials who always followed them. Journalists who didn't report events the way Gaddafi's officials instructed faced problems and sudden deportations.

Human shields

Gaddafi forces reportedly surrounded themselves with civilians to protect themselves and key military sites like the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli from air strikes. Amnesty International cited claims that Gaddafi had placed his tanks next to civilian facilities, using them as shields.

According to Libyan state television, the rebels used human shields in Misrata. Gaddafi claimed that the rebels "used children and women as human shields.

Course of the war - First weeks

By 23 February, Gaddafi was suffering from the resignations and defections of close allies, from the loss of Benghazi, the fall of Tobruk, Misrata, Bayda, Zawiya, Zuwara, Sabratha, Sorman, and mounting international isolation and pressure. By the end of February, Gaddafi's government had lost control of a significant part of Libya, including the major cities of Misrata and Benghazi, and the important harbours at Ra's Lanuf and Brega. But in March, Gaddafi's forces pushed the rebels back and eventually reached Benghazi and Misrata.

Foreign military intervention

The Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Charlottetown was deployed on 2 March 2011 to the Mediterranean, off the coast of Libya, but did not take immediate action once arrived. Seventeen days later, a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to events during the Libyan civil war. That same day, military operations began, with US forces and one British submarine firing cruise missiles, the French Air Force, United States Air Force and British Royal Air Force undertaking sorties across Libya and a naval blockade by the Royal Navy.

Since the beginning of the intervention, the initial coalition of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, UK and US has expanded to seventeen states, with newer states mostly enforcing the no-fly zone and naval blockade or providing military logistical assistance. NATO took control of the arms embargo on 23 March. On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone, while command of targeting ground units remains with coalition forces.

In June 2011, Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam announced that they were willing to hold elections and that Gaddafi would step aside if he lost. Saif al-Islam stated that the elections could be held within three months and transparency would be guaranteed through international observers. NATO and the rebels rejected the offer, and NATO soon resumed their bombardment of Tripoli.

In July 2011, Saif al-Islam condemned NATO for bombing Libyan civilians, including his family members and their children, under the false pretence that their homes were military bases.

August rebel offensive

The heads of the rebellion said on 21 August that Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, was under arrest and that they had encircled the leader's compound. By 22 August, rebel fighters had gained entrance into Tripoli and occupied Green Square, which was promptly renamed Martyrs' Square in memory of those who had died fighting in the civil war. Early on 23 August, Saif al-Islam appeared at the Gaddafi-controlled Rixos Hotel in central Tripoli and boasted his father was still in control. Later the same day, rebels blasted open the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli through its north gates and stormed inside. No members of the Gaddafi family were found.

On 24 August, Gaddafi broadcasted an address from a Tripoli local radio station saying the withdrawal from Bab al-Azizia had been a "tactical" move. Rebel leaders said the only areas still under Gaddafi's control, other than the immediate neighbourhood of Bab al-Azizia, were al-Hadhba and Abu Salim, the latter including the Rixos Hotel where a group of foreign journalists had been trapped for days. The rebels, however, still lacked a unified command and Gaddafi loyalists and snipers remained at large in many areas of Tripoli. Local hospitals and clinics, even in areas considered under rebel control, were reporting hundreds of cases of gunshot wounds and the death toll was impossible to estimate. By late afternoon the journalists trapped at the Rixos Hotel had been released while heavy fighting continued in the Abu Salim region close to Bab al-Azizia and elsewhere. The rebels were reported as estimating 400 people had been killed and a further 2,000 injured in the battle thus far.

After Tripoli and NTC victory

Efforts to mop up pro-Gaddafi forces in northwestern Libya and toward Sirte began even before the rebels fully consolidated control of Tripoli. Rebels took the city of Ghadames near the borders of Tunisia and Algeria on 29 August. Members of the Gaddafi family have taken flight to Algeria. In September, the Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid was besieged by rebels, who reported that Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam was hiding in the city. On 22 September, the NTC captured the southern city of Sabha, and claimed to have found a large cache of chemical weapons.

By mid-October 2011, much of the city of Sirte had been taken by NTC forces. The NTC captured the whole of Sirte on 20 October 2011, and reported that Gaddafi himself had been killed in the city.

Aftermath

Despite the defeat of Gaddafi's loyalists, the capture of last loyalist cities and Gaddafi's death, Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and successor, remained hiding in the southern region of Libya until his capture in mid-November. Some loyalist forces crossed into Niger; Nigerien troops attacked them.

Sporadic clashes between NTC and former loyalists continued across Libya with low intensity. On 23 November, seven people were killed in clashes at Bani Walid, five of them among the revolutionary forces and one Gaddafi loyalist.

Fighting broke out on 3 January 2012, at a building used as intelligence headquarters by the Gaddafi government. Abdul Jalil, the chairman of NTC, warned Libyans that the country could descend into another civil war if they resort to force to settle their differences. It was reported that five people were killed and at least five injured in the events.

Also on 3 January, Libya's government named a retired general from Misrata, Yousel al-Manquosh, as head of the country's armed forces.

Bani Walid was captured by local tribal fighters on 23 January. The local forces were said to have used heavy weapons and numbered 100-150 men. Eight NTC fighters were killed and at least 25 wounded, with the rest fleeing the city. Clashes were also reported in Benghazi and Tripoli.

The NTC has functioned as an interim legislature during the transitional period. In early May 2012, it passed its most sweeping measures to date, granting immunity to former rebel fighters for acts committed during the civil war and ordering that all detainees accused of fighting for Gaddafi should be tried or released by 12 July 2012. It also adopted Law 37, prohibiting the publication of "propaganda" criticising the revolution, questioning the authority of Libya's governing organs, or praising Muammar Gaddafi, his family, his government, or the ideas of the Green Book.

Humanitarian situation

By the end of February 2011, supplies of medicine, fuel and food were dangerously low in Libya's urban centres. On 25 February, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched an emergency appeal for US$6.4 million to meet the emergency needs. In early March, the fighting across Libya meant that more than a million people fleeing or inside the country needed humanitarian aid. The Islamic Relief and the WFP also coordinated a shipment of humanitarian supplies to Misrata. In March, the Swedish government donated medical supplies and other humanitarian aid and the UN World Food Programme provided food. Turkey sent a hospital ship to Misrata and a Turkish cargo ship brought 141 tons of humanitarian aid.

Another humanitarian issue was refugees fleeing the crisis. A humanitarian ship docked in harbour of Misrata in April to begin the evacuation of stranded migrants. By 10 July, over 150,000 migrants were evacuated. Migrants were also stranded elsewhere in Libya, such as in the southern towns of Sebha and Gatroum. Fleeing the violence of Tripoli by road, as many as 4,000 refugees were crossing the Libya-Tunisia border daily during the first days of the uprising. Among those escaping the violence were native Libyans as well as foreign nationals including Egyptians, Tunisians and Turks.

Potential military-humanitarian coordination

While the UN sanctioned military intervention has been implemented on humanitarian grounds, UN agencies seeking to ease the humanitarian crisis repeatedly rejected offers of support from the military to carry out the agencies' humanitarian operations. Despite this, offers continue for the creation of an aid corridor and aid agencies have accepted military logistical support in the past, for instance in the 2010 Pakistan floods response.

Targeting of black Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans

In August 2011, the UNHCR issued a strong call for the rights and lives of sub-Saharan Africans living in Libya to be protected. Other news sources including The Independent and CNN have reported on the targeting of black people in rebel held areas.

An Amnesty International statement, released on 30 August 2011, said that between one third and half of the people detained in Libya were from Sub-Saharan Africa. Hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans worked in Gaddafi's Libya, doing everything from managing hotels to sweeping floors. But some also fought as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries, and many migrant workers fled ahead of the rebels, fearing they would be mistaken for mercenaries." Some African women have claimed rebels are raping them in refugee camps, with additional reports of forced labour. Foreign aid workers are also claiming to be prohibited from officially talking about the allegations.

Libyan refugees

Fleeing the violence of Tripoli by road, as many as 4,000 refugees were crossing the Libya-Tunisia border daily during the first days of the uprising. Among those, escaping the violence, were native Libyans as well as foreign nationals including Egyptians, Tunisians and Turks. By 1 March, officials from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had confirmed allegations of discrimination against sub-Saharan Africans. By 3 March, an estimated 200,000 refugees had fled Libya to either Tunisia or Egypt.

Domestic responses

Resignation of government officials

In response to the use of force against protesters, a number of senior Libyan public officials either denounced the Gaddafi government or resigned from their positions. Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil and Interior Minister Major General Abdul Fatah Younis both defected to the opposition. Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa fled Libya, with the latter defecting to the UK. Libyan Prosecutor General Abdul-Rahman al-Abbar resigned his position and joined the opposition.

The staff of a number of diplomatic missions of Libya have either resigned or condemned the actions of the Gaddafi government. The ambassadors to the Arab League, European Union and United Nations have either resigned or stated that they no longer support the government. The ambassadors to Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Portugal, Sweden, and the US also renounced the Gaddafi government or formally resigned.

Military defections

A number of senior military officials defected to the opposition, including General Abdul Fatah Younis, General al-Barani Ashkal, Major General Suleiman Mahmoud, Brigadier General Musa'ed Ghaidan Al Mansouri, Brigadier General Hassan Ibrahim Al Qarawi and Brigadier General Dawood Issa Al Qafsi. Two Libyan Air Force colonels each flew their Mirage F1 fighter jets to Malta and requested asylum, after being ordered to carry out airstrikes against civilian protesters in Benghazi. Colonel Nuretin Hurala, the commander of the Benghazi Naval Base also defected along with senior naval officials.

Economic, religious and tribal

The Libyan economy is mainly based on its oil production. The Arabian Gulf Oil Company, the second-largest state-owned oil company in Libya, announced plans to use oil funds to support anti-Gaddafi forces. Islamic leaders and clerics in Libya, notably the Network of Free Ulema - Libya urged all Muslims to rebel against Gaddafi. The Tuareg and Magarha tribes announced their support of the protesters. The Zuwayya tribe, based in eastern Libya, threatened to cut off oil exports from fields in its part of Libya if Libyan security forces continued attacking demonstrators.

Libyan royal family

Muhammad as-Senussi, son of the former Crown Prince and grand-nephew of the late King Idris, sent his condolences "for the heroes who have laid down their lives, killed by the brutal forces of Gaddafi" and called on the international community "to halt all support for the dictator with immediate effect."

A rival claimant to the throne, Idris bin Abdullah al-Senussi, announced in an interview with Adnkronos that he was ready to return to Libya and "assume leadership" once change had been initiated.

International reactions

Many states and supranational bodies condemned Gaddafi's government over disputed allegations of air attacks on civilian targets within the country. Virtually all Western countries cut off diplomatic relations with Gaddafi's government over disputed reports of an aerial bombing campaign in February and March 2011, and a number of other countries led by Peru and Botswana did likewise. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 was adopted on 26 February, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and ten members of his inner circle and restricting their travel. The resolution also referred the actions of the government to the International Criminal Court for investigation, and an arrest warrant for Gaddafi was issued on 27 June. This was followed by an arrest warrant issued by Interpol on 8 September.

The disputed allegations about the Libyan government's use of the Libyan Air Force to strike civilians led to the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 to create a Libyan no-fly zone on 17 March, though several countries involved in the resolution's enforcement have also carried out regular strike missions to degrade the offensive capacity of the Libyan Army and destroy the government's command and control capabilities, effectively acting in de facto support of anti-Gaddafi forces on the ground. 100 countries have recognized the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council as Libya's legitimate representative, with many of those countries explicitly describing it as the legal interim government of the country due to the perceived loss of legitimacy on the part of Gaddafi's government.

Many states have also either issued travel advisories or attempted evacuations. Some evacuations were successful in either going to Malta or via land borders to Egypt or Tunisia; other attempts were hindered by tarmac damage at Benghazi's airport or refusals of permission to land in Tripoli. There were also several solidarity protests in other countries that were mostly composed of Libyan expatriates. Financial markets around the world had adverse reactions to the instability with oil prices rising to a two-and-a-half year high. ---

Militants claiming loyalty to Islamic State said they were behind Sunday February 22, 2015's twin bomb attacks on the residence of the Iranian ambassador in the Libyan capital and a rocket strike on the eastern Labraq airport. The attack on the ambassador's residence came two days after the group claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing that killed more than 40 people in the eastern town of Qubbah, one of the worst attacks on civilians since a 2011 uprising toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

A Libyan man has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder PC Yvonne Fletcher three decades ago. PC Fletcher, 25, died after being shot while policing a demonstration outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984. The man was detained on Thursday morning November 19, 2015, in south-east England and is now in custody. He was also held on suspicion of money laundering. Two other Libyan nationals were also arrested on suspicion of money laundering at separate addresses in London and south-east England. ---

On Friday December 23, 2016, the hijacking of a Libyan plane has ended peacefully after armed men who seized control surrendered in Malta. The domestic flight with 118 people on board was hijacked after taking off from Sabha, bound for the Libyan capital Tripoli. Instead, the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A320 was diverted to Malta International Airport. It appears the two hijackers are supporters of Libya's late deposed leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

On Tuesday January 17, 2017, we were told that ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw faces being sued over allegations of abduction and torture brought by a former Libyan dissident. Abdul-Hakim Belhaj claims MI6, which Mr Straw was then responsible for, helped the US kidnap him in Asia in 2004 to return him and his wife to Tripoli. The Supreme Court backed a Court of Appeal ruling allowing his action. Mr Straw -among several parties in the case- rejects claims that he had been aware of the rendition. Lawyers for Mr Belhaj, 50, say he is determined to sue unless he receives an apology and a token £1 in damages.