A powerful booby trap bomb wounded 22 Philippine soldiers, seven of them critically, as they patrolled a former stronghold of Al-Qaeda-linked militants Tuesday, the military said. The soldiers were patrolling the outskirts of a remote camp captured last month from Abu Sayyaf extremists when the device went off, local army commander Colonel Ricardo Visaya told AFP. The Abu Sayyaf had formerly used the camp on the southern island of Basilan, …

Shortly before the United States ended a two-month pause in missile strikes on militants in Pakistan last month, senior U.S. officials telephoned their Pakistani counterparts and told them Washington would be resuming its covert drone program despite mounting objections in Islamabad. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were among those who spoke with Pakistani officials shortly before the eight-week pause in the drone …

Terrorism can be defeated with the help of strong cultural values, a Pakistani minister has said. “Only those nations, which have strong cultural heritage and norms, can survive (terrorism),” Dawn quoted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information and Culture Iftikhar Hussain as saying. Hussain said that lobbies have worked hard for elimination of their old and sound cultural values. He said due to that “today we are facing hardships and our culture …

The US will join efforts to spur an Afghan-led reconciliation with the Taliban, President Barack Obama said as he announced the initial pullout of 10,000 American forces from Afghanistan. He also warned Pakistan on the terrorist havens in the country, a key concern for New Delhi which resumed the foreign secretary-level dialogue with Islamabad Thursday. “We will work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and …

Most Pakistanis see India as a bigger threat than the Taliban and the Al Qaeda and disapprove of the US military operation that killed Osama bin Laden, according to a new poll. Although Al Qaeda leader bin Laden has not been well-liked in recent years, a majority of Pakistanis describe his death as a bad thing. Only 14 percent say it is a good thing, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre. Moreover, many Pakistanis believe …

At least 16 people were killed and more than 40 injured in a suspected suicide bombing that ripped through a bakery in a cantonment area in Pakistan late Sunday, a media report said. The bakery in Nowshera city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was filled with shoppers at the time of the blast, sources told Geo TV, adding that among those killed also include the wife and two children of a high-ranked security official. Nowshera is known for its colonial …

Relations between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and US spy agency CIA – that were strained after the secret mission in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden – have now improved, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Sunday. Talking to journalists, Gilani said Pakistan has made it clear to US that Abbottabad-like operation was not acceptable to it, The Nation reported. Al Qaeda founder bin Laden was killed in a secret operation …

Putting Islamabad squarely in the dock, Pakistani American terror suspect David Coleman Headley has testified that he dealt with senior government officials and terrorists in Pakistan a month before the November 2008 Mumbai attack, the three-day siege of India’s financial capital he said he was “pleased” with. The revelation by the prosecution’s star witness on the second day of the trial of Headley’s one-time friend Pakistan-born Canadian Tahawwur …

Despite Pakistan’s warnings that it would not tolerate another US raid, the US has made clear that it would go after the Al Qaeda leadership anywhere in the world. “We’ve made it clear to people around the world that if we locate someone who has been part of the Al Qaeda leadership, then you get him or we will get him,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with CBS News Thursday. Asked if after the killing of Al Qaeda leader …

Four men riding two motorcycles Monday shot dead a Saudi consulate officer in Pakistan’s Karachi city, only five days after grenades were hurled at the consulate, police said. Hassan al-Qahtani, who headed the consulate’s security division, died instantly when a bullet tore through his head, media reports quoted police as saying. The man was driving to his office when the assailants struck on the Khayaban-e-Shahbaz road. The gunmen sped away after …