Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) seems to have solved most of its major militancy problems when the local Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chapter affirmed that it would agree to a permanent ceasefire based on last week’s promise to implement aspects of Islamic law across Malakand. Yet with the deal in place the province is now [...]
After considerable negotiation the Swat Valley chapter of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) agreed to a permanent ceasefire in the war-torn region. The move seemed to solidify the agreement last week between the government and the powerful cleric Sufi Muhammad, founder of the Tehreek-e Nafaz-e Shariat-e Mohammadi (TNSM) to enforce Islamic law in Malakand, a [...]
President Barack Obama made clear his desire to launch attacks onto Pakistani soil early in the campaign, and in his first month since taking office it has become evident that is escalating the number and severity of the attacks using drone aircraft well beyond what the Bush Administration’s attacks in its final several months in [...]
During an official visit to the Gaza Strip yesterday, Senator John Kerry went out of his way to avoid anyone associated with the Hamas government. Yet through a rather convoluted series of events, the former presidential candidate left the Gaza Strip with a letter that the State Department believes is from Hamas. The letter was [...]
Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged with the task of attempting to form a coalition government, and while he would be able to piece together a coalition simply with the right-wing parties that supported his leadership bid, he is hoping to attract a larger bloc. “I call on members of all the factions [...]
Asked by a Pakistani reporter whether the Swat Valley truce between the Pakistani government and militants could serve as a model for a similar deal in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates replied that “if there is a reconciliation, if insurgents are willing to put down their arms, if the reconciliation is essentially on the [...]
US envoy Richard Holbrooke says that the Obama Administration is “troubled and confused” by the deal earlier this week to end the fighting in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in return for the implementation of aspects of Islamic law in Malakand. “I am concerned, and I know Secretary (Hillary) Clinton is and the President is, that this [...]
Fresh off the charge that Iran had understated the amount of uranium it had enriched, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today that Iran ‘continues to renege’ on its international obligations and called the nation an “urgent problem that has to be addressed.” Other than giving the Obama Administration an opportunity to make bellicose [...]
Israeli President Shimon Peres has tapped Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu to make the first attempt to form a coalition government in the wake of last week’s elections. The announcement was widely expected after Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman endorsed Netanyahu, and the former prime minister will now have 42 days to secure at least 61 [...]
The already simmering tensions in Pakistan’s tribal areas took another hit today, when a suicide bomber attacked the funeral procession of an assassinated Shi’ite leader in Dera Ismail Khan, killing at least 30 and injuring an additional 65. The Pakistani army has been called in in the wake of the attack, a curfew imposed on [...]
