More attacks on polio workers in Pakistan

Armed men have killed three more people working on a polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan, officials said, as the nationwide drive against the crippling disease suffered a third day of bloodshed.

A female health worker and her driver were shot dead in Charsadda, near Peshawar, the main town of northwest Pakistan, police official Wajid Khan told AFP news agency on Wednesday. A second police officer confirmed the incident.

Another worker shot and critically wounded in an earlier attack on the outskirts of Peshawar also died, doctor Ahmad Saqlain of the city's Lady Reading Hospital said.

Pakistan, one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic, launched a UN-backed three-day nationwide vaccination campaign on Monday.On Monday and Tuesday, six female health workers were killed in attacks in the southern port city of Karachi and Peshawar. The youngest was 17-years-old.

Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said the UN has ordered all staff in Pakistan involved in the polio eradication campaign to suspend work and come off the streets.

"More than 200.000 people are said to be involved in this most recent three-day programme, which is part of efforts to immunise more than 30 million children across Pakistan."

UN calls for more Afghan women protection

A new report released by the UN says Afghan women are still victims of abuse despite some success by authorities in prosecuting cases of rape, forced marriages and domestic violence.

The UN collected information from 22 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces over a 12-month period ending in September to find out how existing laws protecting women were being implemented.

The report, released on Tuesday, said that although prosecutors and courts are increasingly applying the law, there is still a long way ahead before it can adequately protect Afghan women and girls from violence.

Pakistan army denies 'abuses' in tribal areas

Amnesty International has accused the Pakistani military of carrying out widespread human rights abuses in the country's northwest tribal region, where the army is fighting domestic Taliban fighters.

The UK-based human rights group also criticised the Taliban for a range of rights abuses, including the killing of captured soldiers and innocent civilians.

In the report, entitled The Hands of Cruelty, Amnesty said the military had regularly held people without charges and tortured, or otherwise mistreated them, in custody.

Female polio workers gunned down in Pakistan

Gunmen in Pakistan have shot dead six health workers associated with an anti-polio campaign in a string of attacks.

It was not clear who was behind the shootings in the southern city of Karachi and northern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, but Taliban fighters have repeatedly denounced the anti-polio campaign as a "Western plot".

The government's immunisation campaign against the crippling disease was suspended in Karachi following the attacks.

Five women were killed and two men wounded in two separate attacks on health workers in Karachi on Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera sources.

The team had received telephone calls warning workers they would regret helping the "infidel" campaign against polio, said Gul Naz, a health official who oversees the project in the area where the women were shot.

Senior police officer Shahid Hayat blamed "militants who issued a fatwa against polio vaccination in the past" for the killings.

Kabul and Islamabad agree to probe spy attack

Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to launch a joint investigation into the attempted assassination of the Afghan spy chief last week.

Kabul and Islamabad's announcement on Wednesday comes on the second day of trilateral talks in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

"A joint working group comprising relevant agencies of Afghanistan and Pakistan will address the recent attack on the

National Security Director of Afghanistan," a statement issued by all three nations read.

Leaders of both countries, accompanied by ministers and their army chiefs, met at the Turkish-hosted trilateral summit only days after the head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency was wounded by a suicide bomber in the Afghan capital.

A suicide bomber, posing as a peace messenger, hid explosives hidden inside his underwear for the attack that wounded Asadullah Khalid, head of the National Directorate of Security, last Thursday.

Shortly after the attack, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, who rushed to the newly-appointed spy chief's bedside following the December 6 attempt on Khalid's life, said he knew "for a fact" the bomber came from the Pakistani city Quetta.

Karzai said Kabul would seek "clarification" from Islamabad during the meetings in Turkey.

Pakistan Blast: Market Bomb 'Kills 17' in Khyber

At least 17 people have been killed and more than 70 hurt in a car bomb attack on a market in the Khyber tribal area in north-west Pakistan, officials say.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool: "Those who
carry out these attacks are not punished"

Women and children were among those killed in the blast at the market in Jamrud, the main town in Khyber.

The explosion took place close to the offices of the tribal administration. The injured have been taken to hospital in the nearby city of Peshawar.

No group has said it carried out the attack as yet.

Afghan Landmine Blast Kills Girls in Nangarhar

At least nine young girls have been killed and three more injured in a landmine explosion in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

The BBC's Orla Guerin said: "It's unclear if the Taliban
planted the mine of it it dated back to the Soviet occupation"

The girls were collecting firewood when one of them hit the mine with an axe, a provincial official said. Earlier reports said 10 girls were killed.

It is unclear if the mine was recent or one left over from a previous conflict.

Meanwhile at least one person has been killed in an explosion on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul.

Bangladesh Opposition Protests Turn Violent

Opposition protesters, fearing election rigging, demand restoration of caretaker government before polls.

In recent days, the opposition has stepped up a
campaign of strikes to press its demands [Reuters]

Explosions and clashes have marked an opposition protest in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, where demonstrators are calling for an election-time caretaker administration to be restored.

Schools and businesses were closed in Dhaka and other major cities on Thursday, during an eight-hour general strike.

Nationwide transportation was largely disrupted during the second opposition strike this week.

Karzai Sees Pakistan Link in Spy Chief Attack

Pakistan wants evidence to be shared with it after Afghan president says bid on spy chief's life originated in Quetta.

Khalid's appointment to head of the nation's spy
agency came amid allegations of tortue [Al Jazeera]

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said an assassination attempt against Afghanistan's spy chief "came from Pakistan".

Speaking in the Afghan capital on Saturday, Karzai said though the Taliban claimed responsibility for Thursday's attempt on the life os Asadullah Khalid, head of the National Directorate of Security, the attack originated in Quetta.

"Of course we will be seeking clarification from Pakistan because we know this man who came in the name of a guest to meet Asadullah Khalid came from Pakistan. We know that for a fact," he said.

Two Officials Assassinated in Afghanistan

Gunmen shoot dead women's affairs official in Laghman, while Nimroz province police chief dies in roadside bombing.

Najia Siddiqi was assassinated just months after her
predecessor was blown up by a bomb [AFP]

An Afghan woman's affairs official has been assassinated in Laghman province, just months after her predecessor was blown up by a bomb,  while a police chief was killed in a roadside bombing in Herat province.

Najia Siddiqi, the acting director of women's affairs department in the eastern province of Laghman, was shot dead by two unidentified men while commuting in a motormen rickshaw on Monday.

Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik hails India ties

Mr Malik and his Indian counterpart Sushil Kumar Shinde (left) both welcomed the visa agreement

'Militants' threaten Pakistan church school for Malala support

The threatened church has appealed for more security in the run-up to Christmas

Authorities in Pakistan have held three people over a threat to bomb a church school in Islamabad unless it paid them $51,000 (£38,000), officials say.

A letter sent to the school, apparently by a little-known militant group, demanded cash for not bombing it.

Four dead in Pakistan after Peshawar airport shoot-out

Pakistani troops destroyed unexploded munitions after the airport attack

Three suspected Taliban insurgents and a policeman have been killed in a shoot-out near the north-western city of Peshawar, officials say.

The clash came a day after an attack on the city's airport, in which four civilians and five militants died.

Officials say five insurgents hid in a house outside the city following the airport attack.

Nepal Girls in Mass Hindu Kanya Puja Prayer Ceremony

Organizers say that the aim of the ceremony was to bring
about social revolution by ensuring a more inclusive society.

More than 11,000 girls have taken part in a mass Hindu prayer ceremony in western Nepal, which organizers say is one of the biggest of its kind ever to be held in the country.

India Vote Paves Way For Foreign Supermarkets

Government wins key vote that clears way for overseas firms to enter country's lucrative $450bn retail sector.

Afghan spy chief wounded in Kabul blast

Afghanistan's intelligence chief has been wounded in an assassination attempt in Kabul, the capital.

Asadullah Khalid, who heads the National Directorate of Security (NDS), was badly wounded when a suicide bomber posing as a peace messenget set off explosives at aNDS guest house, police said on Thursday.

The intelligence agency has confirmed the attack.

"The Afghan intelligence chief has survived a cowardly terrorist attack in the city of Kabul," said the NDS in a statement. "The case is under investigation."

Khalid was rushed into surgery but his life was not in danger, said presidency spokesman Aimal Faizi.

President Hamid Karzai visited the hospital where surgeons "assured the president that he is stable and his injury is not life threatening", the spokesman said.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said that the Taliban are claiming to have penetrated Khalid's security.

"He was at one of their [the NDS] guest houses at Kabul this afternoon when there was an explosion that left him injured and needing hospital treatment, needing a blood transfusion," said Smith.

There were few details on the nature of the attack. Witnesses heard an explosion. Police said Khalid was wounded by a grenade, but unconfirmed reports by senior government officials said it had been a suicide attack.

Neither was his condition immediately clear, and there was no immediate word on what had happened to the attacker.

Pakistan Deaths in 'US Drone Strike'

At least three suspected Taliban fighters killed in a missle attack on a village in the North Waziristan tribal area.

Tehran claims capture of US spy drone in Iranian airspace

Tehran has claimed it captured an American spy drone after the aircraft entered its aispace, Iran's Press TV reports. The US Navy and the White House denied the claim, saying that none of Washington's drones in the Gulf region were lost.

In response to a journalist's question about the allegations, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "We have no evidence that the Iranian claims you cite are true."

"All our active unmanned aerial vehicles working here have been accounted for," US 5th Fleet spokesperson Commander Jason Salata said earlier.

Violence flares in Bangladesh strike

Violence has flared in Bangladesh as the country's largest Islamist party enforces a general strike to demand the release of its leaders from prison.

One protester was killed last night in the northern town of Chirirbandar in protests ahead of Tuesday's shutdown.

A special court is trying senior leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami for allegedly carrying out atrocities during the 1971 independence war.

The party says the charges are politically motivated.

Escalation

Links between violent sectarian groups and the Pakistani Taliban are growing

THE bomb was hidden on a motorcycle parked outside a milk shop in the narrow lanes of Abbas Town, a middle-class, mainly Shia district of Karachi. Ali Mudassar remembers sitting across the road from the milk-seller on the evening of November 18th, chatting to friends. The force of the explosion hurled him backwards into the steel shutters of the shops behind. Three died and at least 15 were injured. “This is a game to break Pakistan,” says 25-year-old Mr Mudassar, whose body is pitted with the tiny metal ball-bearings that were packed around the explosives.

UK to halve its troop presence in Afghanistan

India hangs sole surviving Mumbai attacks gunman

 

The sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of 166 people, was executed at a jail in India on Wednesday. Pakistan-born Mohammed Kasab was hanged after his pleas for mercy were rejected last month.

Garment factory fire kills scores in Bangladesh

At least 112 workers of a garment factory near the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka died on Sunday when a blaze spread through their building. A separate fire broke out in a garment manufacturer outside Dhaka on Monday. 

Pakistani Taliban promise more blasts

Just hours after a roadside bomb killed at least seven people near a Shia procession in Pakistan, the Taliban have claimed responsibility and vowed that more attacks will come.
Security forces were on high alert over fears of large-scale attacks on the minority sect across the country after an attack occurred on Saturday in the city of Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's northwest.
The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks in a telephone call to AFP news agency.

"The government can make whatever security arrangements it wants but it  cannot stop our attacks" - Ehsanullah Ehsan, Pakistan Taliban spokesman

"We carried out the attack against the Shia community," spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location after the explosion.
He said the group had dispatched more than 20 suicide bombers across the country for attacks against the minority community.
"We have 20-25 fidayeen [suicide bombers] in the country to launch bomb blasts and suicide attacks," Ehsan said.

"The government can make whatever security arrangements it wants but it  cannot stop our attacks."
The area is a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked extreme Sunni groups who regard Shias as non-Muslims and have stepped up sectarian attacks in a bid to destabilise Pakistan.
The bomb on Saturday morning was planted in a dustbin, the blast was powerful and heard several kilometres away," said police official Siddiq Khan said.
City police chief Khalid Suhail said the dead were all children aged between six and 11 years.
"They were young boys."
At least 18 people were wounded, including two police officials, he said adding that five of them were in serious condition.
The 10kg remote controlled device carrying ball bearings was planted  on the route of a religious procession of the minority Shia community, police officer Ghulam Ahmed told the AFP news agency.

Taliban attack NATO base in Afghanistan

The Taliban have launched a major suicide attack against a NATO base at an Afghan city airport, killing six people, including three Afghan soldiers, and wounding four civilians, officials said.

"After the attack other [suicide bombers] entered the base... and started attacking the invading forces in the base" - Taliban

The nine Taliban suicide bombers who entered the airport in Jalalabad, near the eastern border with Pakistan early on Sunday, were killed in a gunbattle that lasted for at least two hours.
Along with the attackers, three members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and three civilians were killed in the Nangarhar province attack.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed to Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith in Kabul that "multiple explosions" had occurred outside the Jalalabad airbase, and that "at least three large explosions were heard".

"Two of the attackers drove explosive-laden vehicles at a gate, detonating those vehicles, trying to make a hole for the remaining seven Taliban fighters all wearing suicide vests, to try to penetrate further into the air base," Smith said.

A spokesperson for ISAF told Al Jazeera that "none of the attackers succeeded breaching the perimetre".

The attackers reportedly used suicide car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms fire in their assault.

"There were 14 Afghan security forces injured in this assault, and an undisclosed number of NATO forces injured," according to our correspondent. Another four Afghan civilians were also wounded in the attack.

'Invading forces'

The airport complex has multiple layers of security, with the NATO base set well back from the first entrance, which an Afghan official said had been breached.

From the perspective of one neighbourhood in Herat

An Afghan security official told the AFP he had seen five dead men in Afghan army uniform, but it was unclear whether they were soldiers or Taliban attackers.

The Taliban said their suicide bombers had entered the airport, and an Afghan government official confirmed that clashes had taken place within the airport complex.

"First a fedayee [suicide bomber] mujahid... detonated a car bomb causing the enemy heavy casualties and losses and removed all the barriers," the Taliban said on their website.

"After the attack other fedayee mujahids entered the base... and started attacking the invading forces in the base."

The Taliban have waged an 11-year uprising against the Afghan government, which is backed by 100,000 NATO troops, since being overthrown in a US-led invasion for harbouring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The airport has come under attack on two previous occasions this year.

On February 27, six civilians, an Afghan soldier and two local guards were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on the military base, but NATO troops escaped unhurt.

The airport also came under attack on April 15, when the Taliban launched their spring offensive with a series of commando-style assaults across Afghanistan.

Deaths in blast as Pakistan Shia mark Ashoura

A bomb attack on a Shia Muslim procession has killed five people and wounded scores more in northwest Pakistan as the group marked Ashoura, a day of religious significance for Shia and some Sunni Muslims.
The bomb exploded on Sunday in the city of Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where another blast on Saturday killed eight people near a Shia Muslim procession.
"Five people were killed and 83 injured in the bomb blast," Shafeerulla Khan, a senior government official in regional capital Peshawar told AFP news agency.
Khan said preliminary investigations indicated the device was planted inside a shop but police were probing whether a suicide bomber was involved.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said the armed group claimed responsibility for the bombing and threatened more attacks.
"It was a suicide attack and we claim responsibility for it," Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
He repeated his threat made on Saturday that the Taliban had dispatched more suicide bombers across the country for attacks against the minority community.
The group claimed Saturday's bombing, and a suicide attack that killed 23 people on Thursday at a Shia procession in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Anwar Khan Akbar, a police official confirmed the death toll and said the target of the attack was the Ashoura procession.
Khalid Aziz, a doctor in the city's main hospital, told Pakistan's private ARY TV channel some of the injured were in critical condition.

Foiled attack In a separate development, police in Pakistan's largest city Karachi said they foiled a major terrorist attack. They said they killed a Taliban member in a gun battle and recovered a 100kg bomb planted in a car. Police arrested another suspected Taliban member and also found two suicide vests, two AK-47 assault rifles and two pistols in the car. "Police intercepted the car and killed a militant in an exchange of gunfire," Aslam Khan, a senior police official, told AFP, saying that the suspects planned to use the car to target an Ashoura procession. In December 2009, a suicide bomber killed 43 people in Karachi at a Shia procession to mark Ashoura. Pakistan has deployed tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces to try to avert sectarian clashes or attacks on Ashoura marches. While both Shia and some Sunni Muslims mark the day of Ashoura, it is a day of commemoration for Shia Muslims who mourn the killing of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussein. Authorities have ordered heightened security, with services for mobile phones, which are often used to trigger bombs, suspended in major cities. More than 300 Shia Pakistani's have been killed this year alone in sectarian related conflict, according to local Pakistani media. 465

Second Pakistan bomb targets Dera Ismail Khan

The bomb went off as Shia Muslims marked their holiest day, Ashura

US President Barack Obama in South East Asia visit

Barack Obama wants to refocus his foreign policy on Asia

Barack Obama has begun a tour of South East Asia, which will include a historic visit to Burma.

Mr Obama landed in Thailand's capital Bangkok on his first foreign trip after his re-election as president.

Afghan leader Karzai calls for more India investment

The two leaders signed a series of agreements

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for greater Indian investment in Afghanistan during talks with PM Manmohan Singh in Delhi.

At a joint press conference, Mr Singh said Afghanistan's economic development would lead to "the overall prosperity and stability in the region".
The countries also signed a series of agreements, including on mining and development projects.
Delhi has already pledged $2bn (£1.3bn) in assistance to Kabul.

Afghan attack kills newborn baby and mother

A mother and her newborn baby were among six people killed when a roadside bomb exploded in eastern Afghanistan, officials have said.

The bomb hit a group returning home from hospital, striking their vehicle as it travelled through Khost province, on the Pakistan border.
Taliban insurgents frequently use roadside bombs to target security forces in Afghanistan.
The same roads are used by civilians who often become the victims.
Two more women and two men were also among those killed in Sunday's attack, AFP reports.
"A pregnant woman was taken by her family to a hospital last night at 10pm, and they were making their way home in the morning with their newly born baby when the bomb hit," Zarmaeed Mokhlis, governor of Khost's Sabari district, told Reuters.
A Taliban spokesman said the group was aware of the Khost incident, the news agency reports, but could not immediately confirm or deny involvement.
According to the United Nations, some 1,145 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the first six months of the year.
It blames 80% of these deaths on insurgents, with more than half caused by roadside bombs.

Pakistan 'to pay cash to poor to send kids to school'

 

Despite footage showing Malala injured, some say the attack was a Western conspiracy

Families of three million of Pakistan's poorest children will get cash sums if their child attends school, in a scheme announced ahead of a day of action for a schoolgirl shot by the Taliban.

Under the scheme, funded by the World Bank and UK, families would reportedly get $2 a month per child in school.
The news came as the UN held "Malala Day", in the name of Malala Yousufzai, 15, a Pakistani education campaigner.
She is recovering in the UK after she and two others were shot in October.
Saturday has been declared a global day of action in Malala's name aimed at getting school places for 32 millions girls around the world who are not attending classes.
Cash payments
The Waseela-e-Taleem programme was announced in Islamabad by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and special UN envoy for global education, Gordon Brown.
"Malala's dreams represent what is best about Pakistan," said Mr Brown, the former UK prime minister.
The initiative aims to enrol three million of the poorest children in education in the next four years and, according to Reuters, will see poor families receive $2 a month per child in primary school.

UK to End Financial Aid to India by 2015

International Development Secretary, Justine Greening:

"India is very successfully developing as an economy"

The UK is to end financial aid to India by 2015, international development secretary Justine Greening has said.

Support worth about £200m ($319m) will be phased out between now and 2015 and the UK's focus will then shift to offering technical assistance.

Ms Greening said the move, which will be popular with Tory MPs, reflected India's economic progress and status.

Giving his reaction, India's foreign minister Salman Khurshid said: "Aid is the past and trade is the future."

But charities described the move as "premature" and warned it would be the poorest who suffered.

US Troop-Pullout Plan Worries Afghanistan

Helmand governor fears his country faces insecurity, saying foreign combat forces plan to withdraw too soon.

(Here is a video that came with the article.)

The war in Afghanistan will be a challenge for whoever the next US president is. Both candidates have promised to bring combat troops home by the end of 2014, but as Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports from Helmand province, the country faces continuing insecurity.

Helmand's governor has told Al Jazeera he believes foreign combat troops are trying to pull out too soon.

His remarks came as Mario Monti, the Italian prime minister, made an unannounced visit to the western province of Herat to see his country's troops and hold talks with President Hamid Karzai.

India Ruling Party Stages Pro-Reforms Rally

Prime Minister Monmohan Singh, left,and Congress
 leader Sonia Gadnhi, right, both spoke at the rally [AFP]

Congress stalwarts, wary of voter backlash, seek to defend moves to liberalize retail, insurance and aviation sectors.

Sonia Gandhi, India's ruling Congress party chief, and Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, have addressed a major rally in New Delhi to gather support for contentious economic measures in the run-up to the 2014 parliamentary elections.

Gandhi, the head of the Congress, will be seeking to drum up support for the party in a bid to win elections for the third straight time.

In her speech at the rally in the Indian capital on Sunday, she vowed that her party was working with the best interests of the country's impoverished at heart.

Pakistan girl shot by Taliban stands up for first time

By blade

Created 19/10/2012 - 18:00Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban, has been able to stand with help for the first time, doctors treating her at a British hospital said Friday.

She is unable to talk because a breathing tube has been inserted into her windpipe but she can communicate by writing, said Dave Rosser, the medical director at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England.

The immorality and illegality of drone warfare

The news that the UK is doubling its drone deployment in Afghanistan (New drones in Afghanistan to be controlled from Britain, 23 October) raises some important questions that the British public needs to have answered. What rules of engagement currently govern the deployment of weaponised UK drones and who determines them? What influence will the US maintain over UK drone missions? Will UK deployment be confined to Afghan territory, or might cross-border strike missions be undertaken? If the MoD "has no idea how many insurgents have died [in UK drone strikes] because of the 'immense difficulty and risks' of verifying who has been hit", how can they state categorically that "only four Afghan civilians have been killed" since 2008?

Pakistan Taliban threaten another child activist after Malala shooting

A young activist from the same area of Pakistan as Malala Yousafzai, the girl shot in the head by a Taliban gunman this month, has been warned in a threatening phone call that she will be next.
Hinna Khan, a 17-year-old from Swat, was named during a call made to her mother's mobile phone two days after Malala, who spoke out against the Taliban, was attacked as she sat in a van with her classmates, in the town of Mingora.
Hinna's father, Reyatullah Khan, said: "The Taliban have kidnapped me and tortured me in the past for promoting women's development, but now they are threatening the entire family."

PTI ISLAMABAD, OCTOBER 23, 2012 | UPDATED 09:21 IST

After Malala, another Pakistani teen activist Hina Khan claims threat from Taliban

Supporters of Malala Yousufzai.

RELATEDS

• Who is Malala Yousafzai?Just days after a d atrocities.

Hina Khan, who was a pioneer in raising her voice publicly against Taliban atrocities in the Malakand Valley, is now claiming to be on the Taliban's hit list, Dawn News reported.

Malala, 15, was shot on a school bus in the former Taliban stronghold of the Swat valley last week as a punishment for campaigning for the right of girls to an education.

What has been further worrisome for her family is that despite repeated requests for security, they claim no steps have been taken to provide protection to them after they fled from Swat and moved to Islamabad, the report said.

Deadly Taliban ambush in western Afghanistan

A district police chief was among the five soldiers and five policemen killed in a late Monday raid on a convoy of security forces in Herat province.
"The enemies of our country ambushed our police convoy by using the dark night which resulted in the martyrdom of five Afghan police including Bismullah Khan - chief of Aubi district", said Bismullah Khan, provincial police spokesman.
A spokesman for Muhiudin Noori, provincial governor, said a group of Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army were searching on Monday for a group of fighters who had earlier set up a roadblock, stopping and seizing passing vehicles, when they were ambushed.
The Herat ambush was the bloodiest single incident for ANSF in western Afghanistan so far this year.

Pakistan wants Afghanistan to extradite Malala's attacker Mullah Fazlullah

 PAKISTAN, Updated Oct 23, 2012 at 07:54am IST

Press Trust of India

Islamabad: Pakistan has asked the US to use its influence on Afghanistan to extradite Maulana Fazlullah, a wanted Pakistani Taliban commander whom it says was involved in planning the recent attack on teen rights activist Malala Yousufzai. The diplomatic sources said that the demand was made by Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar during her meeting with US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, The Express Tribune reported.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has asked the US to use its influence on Afghanistan to extradite Maulana Fazlullah, a wanted Pakistani Talibancommander whom it says was involved in planning the recent attack on teen rights activistMalala Yousufzai. The diplomatic sources here said that the demand was made by Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar during her meeting with US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, The Express Tribune reported.

Pakistan's Malala: Global symbol, but still just a kid

CNN) -- Eleven-year-olds sometimes have trouble sleeping through the night, kept awake by monsters they can't see.

But Malala Yousufzai knew exactly what her monsters looked like.

They had long beards and dull-colored robes and had taken over her city in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan.

It was such a beautiful place once, so lush and untouched that tourists flocked there to ski. But that was before 2003, when the Taliban began using it as a base for operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Read more: One girl's courage in the face of Taliban cowardice

The Taliban believe girls should not be educated, or for that matter, even leave the house. In Swat they worked viciously to make sure residents obeyed.

But this was not how Malala decided she would live. With the encouragement of her father, she began believing that she was stronger than the things that scared her.

UK support for US drones in Pakistan may be war crime, court is told

A US Predator drone armed with a missile: lawyers are seeking permission for a full judicial review of the lawfulness of any British assistance for the US drone programme. Photograph: Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images

The British government's support for US drone operations over Pakistan may involve acts of assisting murder or even war crimes, the high court heard on Tuesday.
In the first serious legal challenge in the English courts to the drones campaign, lawyers for a young Pakistani man whose father was killed by a strike from an unmanned aircraft are seeking to have the sharing of UK locational intelligence declared unlawful.

Iran dismisses report of direct nuclear talks with US

Iran echoed the United States on Sunday in denying reports that the two countries had scheduled to hold direct bilateral negotiations over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

 

Iran followed the United States on Sunday in denying that the two countries had scheduled direct bilateral negotiations on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.
The New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. administration officials, had said on Saturday that secret exchanges between U.S. and Iranian officials had yielded agreement “in principle” to hold one-on-one talks.

UK's 'dynamic' Pakistan aid programme faces challenges of scale

Britain's aid programme to Pakistan is "dynamic and innovative" overall, but the implementation of some of its health and humanitarian projects has been found wanting, according to the UK aid watchdog.

Afghan wedding party hit by roadside bomb

An explosion from a roadside bomb tore into a minibus carrying people to a wedding in northern Afghanistan on Friday, leaving 19 dead and 16 wounded, authorities said.

Pakistan court probes bartering of girls

Pakistan's supreme court has ordered authorities to investigate the alleged barter of 13 children - all girls - to settle a blood feud in a remote area of the southwestern Balochistan province.
Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, the country's chief justice, began proceedings on Tuesday, probing the alleged trade in the Dera Bugti district.

 

 

Taliban threaten journalists over Malala Yousafzai coverage

News organisations forced to take extra security precautions after torrent of negative stories put Taliban on defensive

 

Pakistanis attend a rally in Lahore condemning the Taliban's attack on Malala Yousafzai. People have been unusually outspoken in their condemnation of the Taliban over the attempted killing. Photograph: Sajjad/ Sajjad/Xinhua Press/CorbisThe Pakistani Taliban have reacted to the torrent of negative media coverage after their attempt to assassinate a 14-year-old schoolgirl by threatening journalists.

Several Pakistani and international news organisations have been forced in recent days to take extra security precautions after receiving threats from militants that one news executive described as "specific" and directed against named individuals.

Imran Khan says Taliban's 'holy war' in Afghanistan is justified by Islamic law

Pakistani politician's comments at hospital that treated shooting victim Malala Yousafzai outrage Afghanistan's government

 

Afghan men burn an effigy of Pakistani politician Imran Khan after he said the Taliban were fighting a jihad against US and western forces. Photograph: Jangir/AFP/Getty Images

Afghanistan's government has lashed out at Imran Khan after the former Pakistan cricket star, now a politician, said the Taliban were fighting a "holy war" in the country that wa
s justified by Islamic law.

'Spy of the West': Al-Qaida, Taliban struggle to justify attack on Pakistani teen

AFP / Getty Images

Pakistani students in Lahore, Pakistan hold photographs of child activist Malala Yousufzai during a protest on Tuesday against her attack by the Taliban.

By NBC News staff and Reuters

Updated at 5:40 a.m. ET: The Taliban, al-Qaida and conservative groups in Pakistan have launched an unprecedented effort to justify the attack on teenager Malala Yousufzai and to calm the reaction against her shooting.
Yousufzai, 14, and two other girls were shot Oct. 9 after they left school. The teen, who was shot in the head and neck, on Monday was flown to Britain to receive specialist treatment, where doctors said she has every chance of making a "good recovery."

 

 

The attack drew widespread protest, with tens of thousands rallying in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, on Sunday.

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Pakistani girl, 14, shot by Taliban over activism

Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani girl who rose to prominence after speaking out against Taliban militants who closed down her school in 2009, was in critical condition on Tuesday after Taliban gunmen fired on her school bus in the Swat valley.

 

Taliban gunmen in Pakistan shot and seriously wounded on Tuesday a 14-year-old schoolgirl widely admired for speaking out against religious extremists and in favour of women’s rights.
Malala Yousufzai was flown by helicopter to a military hospital in the frontier city of Peshawar, medical officials confirmed, adding that the young activist was in critical condition.
“She is in the intensive care unit and semi-conscious, although not on the ventilator,” a doctor requesting anonymity told the AFP news agency.


The young activist was shot in the head and neck when gunmen fired on her school bus in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack.
Yousufzai became famous for speaking out against the Pakistani Taliban at a time when even the government seemed to be appeasing the hardline Islamists. After a lightening offensive in the Swat valley in 2009, the Taliban closed many schools for girls in the region, including Yousufzai’s school.
In a diary she kept for the BBC's Urdu service under a pen name, the then 11-year-old schoolgirl exposed the suffering caused by the militants as they ruled.
‘Barbaric and cowardly’
Tuesday’s shooting sparked outrage across the country, with Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf hailing Yousufzai as a daughter of Pakistan.
The United States also denounced a "barbaric" and "cowardly" attack.
"We strongly condemn the shooting of Malala. Directing violence at children is barbaric, it's cowardly, and our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded, as well as their families," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan confirmed his group was behind the shooting.
“She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol,” Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas,” he told Reuters news agency, referring to the main ethnic group in northwest Pakistan. Most members of the Taliban come from conservative Pashtun tribes.
Uncertain future for Swat
Islamabad agreed to a ceasefire with the Taliban in Swat in early 2009, effectively recognising insurgent control of the valley whose lakes and mountains had long been a tourist attraction.
The Taliban set up courts, executed residents and closed girls’ schools.
At that time a documentary team filmed Yousufzai weeping as she explained her ambition to be a doctor.
The army launched an offensive and retook control of Swat later that year, and Yousufzai went on to receive the country’s highest civilian award. She was also nominated for an international children's peace award..
Since then, she has received numerous threats. On Tuesday, gunmen arrived at her school and asked for her by name, witnesses told police. Yousufzai was shot when she came out of class and walked towards a bus.
Tuesday's shooting in broad daylight in Mingora, the main town of the Swat valley, raises serious questions about security more than three years after the army claimed to have crushed the insurgency.
(FRANCE 24 with wires)(Sara Kane)