Daily News Channel
Thursday is "Chinese night" at the Hotel Silk Road in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province. (CNN) — Thursday is “Chinese night” at the Hotel Silk Road in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province. Hungry guests sip cans of Coke and nonalcoholic beer and pick at a buffet that includes General Tsao’s chicken, egg drop soup and slices of sweet green melon grown in nearby fields.
Despite strenuous entreaties by top U.S. officials, Pakistan has abandoned plans to mount a military offensive against the terrorist group responsible for a two-year campaign of suicide bombings across the country. Although the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan , has been in disarray since an Aug.
When David Whitney traveled to Pakistan to shoot his film about a man forced to flee Afghanistan after falling foul of the Taliban he didn’t expect fiction to turn into reality. But that’s exactly what happened three weeks into shooting political thriller “Kandahar Break” in late 2008
The Taliban has ravaged Pakistan, but its leadership is in tatters. After weeks of denials, two Pakistani Taliban commanders admitted on Aug
Al Qaeda’s second-in-command called on Pakistanis to back Islamic militants in the country’s tribal areas against what he called an ongoing assault by American "crusaders" and the Pakistani army. Punishment from God was promised for Muslims who did not follow the words of Ayman al-Zawahiri in a video that appeared on radical Islamist Web sites Thursday
In Pakistan’s combustible Swat Valley, some girls refuse to wear uniforms so they can make it to school without being harmed. Other girls hide textbooks in their shawls to escape harassment
UK officials have sought to play down low voter turnout in Afghanistan’s elections amid reports just 150 people cast their ballots in an area where four British troops died securing it from the Taliban. British media claimed that early estimates of ballots in the former Taliban stronghold of Babaji in Helmand province indicated few exercised their voting rights, despite the efforts of Operation Panther’s Claw, a five-week offensive against militants in the region. The claims have fueled debate in Britain over the country’s continued military role in Afghanistan as the country’s death toll since operations began in 2001 pushes past the 200 mark.
America’s top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan says the deadly Taliban insurgency in those countries relies heavily on funding from the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Such money even outpaces the cash gathered from Afghanistan’s multibillion-dollar exports of opium and heroin, said Richard Holbrooke, the United States’ special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an interview Tuesday with CNN.
Taliban official Hakeemullah Mehsud has been selected the new head of the Pakistani Taliban, a local Taliban commander in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas told CNN Saturday. Mehsud was selected Friday by a 42-member Taliban council, or shura, according to Taliban commander Qari Haris. Another Taliban official — Maulvi Faqir Mohammad — had been tapped as Mehsud’s deputy, Haris said.
Making good on a threat of election day violence, the Taliban sliced off the index fingers of at least two people in Kandahar province, according to a vote monitoring group.