Bassam Javed Pakistan’s problematic relationship with US has sailed into a fresh controversy after a tribal court gave 33 years long prison term to Pakistani doctor, Shakeel Afridi. He was convicted for his terrorism based linkages with Mangal Bagh led Lashkar e Islam besides his treasonous act of covertly facilitating CIA fake vaccination campaign designed to collect DNA sample of Osama Bin Laden and his f ...

   By Sajjad Shaukat A renowned political thinker Morgenthau opines that foreign policy of a country should be moulded in accordance with the circumstances of time and place. But it is most surprising that while serving at a key post of the sole superpower, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has always reflected confused policy, shown through his illogical and contradictory statements. [caption id="attachmen ...

  Asif Haroon Raja Notwithstanding Gen Muharraf’s weaknesses and several blunders he committed during his nine years rule, one has to admit that his governance and management of state affairs were relatively much better than what we have seen in the last four and a half years. Law and order as well as overall security were not as bad during his time. Between 2004 and 2007, only10 drone [caption id="att ...

Asif Haroon Raja A recent revelation of a course arranged at Joint Forces College in the US Defence Department has brought to fore the hidden intent of neo-cons in USA. It preached that it would be necessary to consider using lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in this war against Islam to protect USA. Although the course has been cancelled by Pentagon, its planner Lt Col Michael A. Dolley who teaches at Norf ...

Asif Haroon Raja North Waziristan (NW) has remained in focus of the US since 2010. No sooner our security forces were trying to regain their breaths after extremely arduous battles in Bajaur, Buner, Dir, Swat and South Waziristan and were trying to consolidate their gains, the US started pressurizing Pakistan that another major operation should be launched in NW. From early 2010 till April 2011, the crying ...

Asif Haroon Raja Currently North Waziristan (NW) is the major battleground for the US where Haqqani Network (HN) is based and has sanctuaries wherefrom it supposedly conducts cross border attacks on ISAF. For Pakistan, NW is not the only battleground to contend with, but there are several other regions more hotter than NW. Of all the battlegrounds, South Waziristan (SW) followed by Swat were the toughest si ...

Asif Haroon Raja Strangely enough, some are of the view that al-Qaeda is a fantasy created by the US and is not inexistence. This is simply outlandish. Al-Qaeda was founded by Palestinian revolutionary Abdullah Azzam in 1980s and Saudi national Osama bin Laden (OBL) became one of its members. This outfit took active part in Afghan Jihad against the Soviet forces. OBL came in the good books of CIA during the ...

Mohammad Jamil Dr. Shakil Afiridi was convicted on charges of treason for having accepted to work as a secret agent of CIA and for conducting an unauthorized fake polio vaccination campaign with a view to collecting DNA sample in a house in Abbottabad where CIA suspected Osama bin Laden (OBL) was living. He was awarded 33 years' imprisonment, which further exacerbated already strained Pak-US relations. US p ...