Pakistan

Archaeologists warn that the Taliban are destroying Pakistan's ancient Gandhara heritage and rich Buddhist legacy as pilgrimage and foreign research dries up in the country's northwest. "Militants are the enemies of culture," said Abdul Nasir Khan, curator of Taxila Museum, one of the premier archaeological collections in Pakistan. "It is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will destroy our culture and will destroy our cultural heritage," he told AFP. Taxila, a small town around 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Islamabad, is one of Pakistan's foremost archaeological attractions given its history as a centre of Buddhist learning from the ... Read Full Story

Pakistan on Saturday published the names of thousands of people, including President Asif Zardari, who are protected from old corruption charges by an amnesty which could formally expire next week. Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf promulgated a National Reconciliation Ordinance, commonly known as NRO, in October 2007. Musharraf's decree quashed corruption charges against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated two months later, her husband Zardari and other politicians in an apparent gesture of reconciliation to prolong his rule. "A total of 8,041 people benefitted from NRO, including President Zardari," minister of state for law, Afzal Sindhu, told a news conference. The list ... Read Full Story

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three suspected Taliban militants blew themselves up on Saturday as police chased them in Pakistani Kashmir, police said. Militants have carried out a series of bomb attacks across Pakistan in recent weeks in retaliation for a military offensive in the northwest, but there have been no attacks in Pakistan's part of the disputed Kashmir region. The Saturday incident will revive concern that the militants are trying to expand their campaign of violence to distract the military as it makes progress in an offensive in South Waziristan on the Afghan border. Police said they launched a hunt in Muzaffarabad, the capital ... Read Full Story

A suspected US missile attack targeting Al-Qaeda-linked militants killed eight people in Pakistan's mountains on the Afghan border as CIA chief Leon Panetta held talks in Islamabad on Friday. The attack, the presumed work of CIA drones, was the second in two days in North Waziristan, part of the belt which US officials have called the most dangerous place on Earth and where Al-Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West. Two missiles slammed into a compound used by Taliban militants in Palooseen village in the district of Mir Ali, Pakistani officials said. "At least eight people were killed in the drone attack. A compound ... Read Full Story

CIA chief Leon Panetta on Friday held talks in Pakistan and found agreement on intelligence cooperation as President Barack Obama nears a decision on troop deployments to Afghanistan, Islamabad said. Panetta held talks with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Washington's policy review in Afghanistan, said the premier's office in a brief statement. It was his second visit since taking office this year and comes a week after US National Security Adviser James Jones held similar talks in Pakistan. Panetta and Gilani agreed on "operational functioning between the two militaries and intelligence agencies" to eliminate the terror threat, it said. The US embassy was ... Read Full Story

A suspected US missile attack targeting Al-Qaeda-linked militants killed eight people in Pakistan's mountains on the Afghan border as CIA chief Leon Panetta held talks in Islamabad Friday. The attack, the presumed work of CIA drones, was the second in two days in North Waziristan, part of the belt which US officials have called the most dangerous place on Earth and where Al-Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West. Two missiles slammed into a compound used by Taliban militants in Palooseen village in the district of Mir Ali, Pakistani officials said. "At least eight people were killed in the drone attack. A compound used ... Read Full Story

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Eight Islamist militants were killed in a U.S. missile strike in northwest Pakistan on Friday, officials said, after three policemen were killed in a bomb blast. The United States has carried out 45 attacks with its pilotless, missile-firing aircraft in northwest Pakistan this year as its forces in neighboring Afghanistan have faced an intensifying Taliban insurgency. The latest strike, the second this week, targeted a fortified militant compound and a vehicle near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a lawless ethnic Pashtun region on the Afghan border and a major al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary. "Eight people have ... Read Full Story