By Asif Haroon Raja The US sole worry is to ensure safe and smooth withdrawal of US-NATO troops. At the same time it wishes to ensure peaceful transition of power in Afghanistan and to leave behind stable Afghanistan under a US friendly regime. Another aspect which is yet to be decided is the size of residuary force that will be left behind after 2014. Kabul government has yet not given blanket diplomatic i ...

Syria's main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is losing fighters and capabilities to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist organisation with links to  al-Qaida that is emerging as the best-equipped, financed and motivated force fighting  Bashar al-Assad's regime. Evidence of the growing strength of al-Nusra, gathered from Guardian interviews with FSA commanders across Syria, underlines the dilemma ...

By Asif Haroon Raja None can deny that the US and its allies apparently mandated to eliminate terrorism in Afghanistan had a different agenda. Under the garb of fighting terrorism, Pakistan was to be systematically destabilized, weakened, de-nuked, secularized and turned into a compliant state. The six intelligence units led by CIA based in Kabul since end 2001 were instrumental in diverting flames of terro ...

By Asif Haroon Raja None can deny that the US and its allies apparently mandated to eliminate terrorism in Afghanistan had a different agenda. Under the garb of fighting terrorism, Pakistan was to be systematically destabilized, weakened, de-nuked, secularized and turned into a compliant state. The six intelligence units led by CIA based in Kabul since end 2001 were instrumental in diverting flames of terro ...

Gen Kayani’s unflinching resolve  By F Z Khan The elections this time are being directly attributed to the armed forces’ “major contribution” towards democracy. Tremendous satisfaction has been expressed by the people in general and the general election contestants in particular, both print and electronic media as well as the intelligentsia especially after the Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kay ...

By Zaheerul Hassan and Sajjad Shaukat According to Israeli news agency, on May 7, 2013, Israel’s Ministry of Finance published a new austerity economic plan, with a view to reduce the country’s 11 billion U.S. dollars of budget deficit.  The Israeli cabinet will vote on the new budget, along with the Economic Arrangements Bill, which includes legislative changes as part of the economical policy. But focus o ...

 By Asif Haroon Raja Terrorism is the foremost problem of the world but ironically it is yet to be defined. What is the yardstick for defining a terrorist since ‘one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’ and vice versa? Difference between terrorism and freedom struggle has also not been defined. No explanation has been rendered as to how come religious extremism and terrorism have been exclusivel ...

By Sajjad Shaukat In the past few years, many serious crises erupted in Pakistan when leaders of some political parties and media anchors spread rumours that army will impose martial law in the country. But Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani acted upon the principle of non-interference in politics. While, people witnessed that the coalition government completed its tenure of five years. These int ...