By David Ignatius Let’s assume the signals from the White House and Tehran are reliable, and that Iran is serious about an agreement to remove its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium from the country and stop producing more. What happens then? This question of “next steps” in the Iran nuclear talks is important, because neither side is likely to commit to the first set of “confidence-building measures” ...

By Rama Lakshmi An Indian police team will visit Tehran this month as part of an investigation into the role of three Iranians suspected of carrying out a bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat’s car in New Delhi in February, a police official said Thursday. The three-man team will seek information on the suspects’ movements, “when they left the country, when they returned, where they went, their phone records ...

By Joby Warrick and Steven Mufson Increasingly hard-pressed to find buyers for its petroleum, Iran has been routinely switching off satellite tracking systems on its sea-bound oil tankers for more than a month, in what U.S. officials and industry analysts describe as a cat-and-mouse game with Western governments seeking to enforce sanctions on Iranian exports. The unusual tactic was begun in early April and ...

Khalid Khokhar While a flurry of senior US officials started visiting Pakistan in an attempt to reduce the tension between the two countries that have been created after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in a covert US operation in Pakistan, Washington is making new demands to prosecute the founder of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed by announcing a $10 million reward for information on him. ...

Prof Ali Sukhanver "Zawahiri is in Pakistan", assured the gracious lady Hillary Clinton talking to media in Kolkata, a few days back. She further said in the same interview: "You have to go over those who are trying to kill you. You have to be focused on that." Hillary is no doubt very much true in her concept of pursuing those who are trying to kill you. Her approach in this regard must be sincerely follow ...

Bassam Javed It took one US Congressman to jolt Pakistan on the urgent need to address Balochistan issue. Whatever malicious designs he had on an integral part of a sovereign nation that too a consistent ally in US regional endeavours, speak of US thinking on this strategically located part of Pakistan. The crude way however with which he took upon himself to speak for Balochistan on the floor of US Congres ...

By Sajjad Shaukat On April 12, this year, Pakistan’s parliament unanimously approved recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) in connection with the re-engagement with the United States. Besides other matters, the recommendations include an immediate cessation of drone attacks and infiltration into Pakistani territory, entailing some conditions regarding supply to NATO forc ...

by Asif Haroon Raja As long as Mullah Omar was in power in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden (OBL) enjoyed his patronage and protection. Once his regime was uprooted from power in November 2001 and the Taliban rendered homeless and fugitives, al-Qaeda as an entity also got displaced from Afghanistan to South Waziristan (SW). Ahmadzai Wazirs who had fought alongside Afghan and Arab Mujahideen in th ...