By Sajjad Shaukat In the past era, the two warring parties used to follow the rules of the game and Geneva Conventions, while knowing each other’s target. Contrarily, war against terrorism is quite different, as it is against an invisible, mysterious and merciless enemy which does not respect any rule.  It is a war in which offence knows its target, but defence does not know. In this regard, during the last ...

Asif Haroon Raja Terrorism in Pakistan is the outcome of backup support provided by USA, India and Afghanistan to TTP and its affiliated groups in the northwest and to BLA, BRA and BLF in the southwest. While foreign agencies fund, equip and provoke the terrorists to strike civil and military targets in Pakistan so as to create bedlam, the liberals and section of media on the payroll of outside powers keep ...

By Sajjad Shaukat Yellow journalism which accelerated in the1890s in the west is described as the employment of tactics by newspapers such as sensationalism, exaggeration, distortion of facts etc. to attract readers in order to increase circulation in era of competition. With the advent of many television channels in the modern age, the era ended shortly after the turn of the century, as the world gradually ...

World View: Everyone knows where al-Qa'ida gets its money, but while the violence is sectarian, the West does nothing By Patrick Cockburn Donors in Saudi Arabia have notoriously played a pivotal role in creating and maintaining Sunni jihadist groups over the past 30 years. But, for all the supposed determination of the United States and its allies since 9/11 to fight "the war on terror", they have showed as ...

Asif Haroon Raja During the Reza Shah Pahlavi era in Iran from 1953 to March 1979, Iran-Pakistan relations were extraordinarily warm. Iran supported Kashmir cause, extended military support during 1965 Indo-Pak war and full diplomatic support in the 1971 war with India. Iran helped in quashing 1973 insurgency in Balochistan. After Shah’s departure, certain events like Islamic revolution in Iran, Jihad again ...

Asif Haroon Raja Once Bajaur came into the loop of terrorism in 2006, it became the exclusive domain of Maulvi Faqir Muhammad because of easy inflow of arms, equipment and funds from Kunar. This route of supply was also used for Swat via Dir. Srarogha within Mehsuds inhabited South Waziristan (SW) became the command centre of TTP under Baitullah Mehsud, where Qari Hussain trained small boys aged between 11 ...

By Asif Haroon Raja Nawaz led team is thinking and talking high and has announced highly ambitious mega projects which it intends completing during its mandated five-year tenure expiring in May 2018. Some of the main projects include Pak-China economic corridor linking Kashgar with Gawadar by Highway and rail, converting Gawadar into free port like Hong Kong, bullet train, Lahore-Karachi motorway, metro sys ...

 By Abu Ezaan In the backdrop of impending US-Afghan Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), the debate on the American interests in the region and the necessity of maintaining military bases in Afghanistan is gaining momentum. With Afghan side aspiring maximum through negotiations on BSA, there is an apparent effort from some renowned American analysts to down play the significance of the agreement vis-à-vis U ...