Pakistani forces battled militants in South Waziristan on the Afghan border on Sunday as a government official said an offensive in the Swat valley could be over in two or three days.
Pakistani forces have undertaken their most concerted offensive against an expanding Taliban insurgency that has raised fears for the nuclear-armed U.S. ally’s stability and the safety of its nuclear arsenal.
The focus of the fighting has been the former tourist destination of Swat, 120 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, which the Taliban virtually took as the government alternated …

Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility on Thursday for a suicide gun and bomb attack in the city of Lahore the previous day that killed 24 people and wounded nearly 300.
The government said the attack in a high-security area where a police headquarters, emergency services building and a military intelligence office are located, was revenge for an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad.

Taleban insurgents in the troubled north-western Swat valley of Pakistan have announced an indefinite ceasefire.
The announcement follows a deal struck last week between a radical cleric and authorities that brings Sharia law in return for an end to the insurgency.
The Taleban have been assessing that deal and Tuesday’s move followed a meeting under the group’s leader in the region, Maulana Fazlullah.
The scenic valley of Swat has long been blighted by militant violence.

India’s foreign minister, keeping up pressure on Pakistan to act against militants blamed for the Mumbai attacks, said Monday countries failing to clamp down on terrorism would pay a heavy price.
Tension has run high between the nuclear-armed rivals since the November attacks which killed 179 people. India has blamed them on the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The group denies involvement.
“Countries found wanting in their commitment to zero tolerance of terrorism will be made to pay a heavy price by the international community,” Pranab Mukherjee told a conference in India’s …

Islamabad: Acknowledging that the dossier on Mumbai attacks given by India contained “leads and good clues,” Pakistan on Saturday promised a fair investigation and said its results will be shared with New Delhi first.
Pakistan said it wanted to have an approach of “cooperative engagement” with India as war was no solution to the problem of terrorism which was a global phenomenon. “Quite a lot of material” was provided by India and the Pakistani investigators would work to convert this into “evidence that could stand up to judicial scrutiny,” Interior Ministry …

Pakistan has arrested more than 100 people in a crackdown on groups allegedly linked to the Mumbai attacks, a top official said Thursday, adding that the information India has handed over still needs work before it can be used as evidence in court.
Despite the announcement, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik dodged a question on whether he was conceding the plot _ which killed 164 people in India’s commercial capital and raised tension between the nuclear-armed rivals _ was hatched on Pakistani soil.

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – India said on Wednesday it would keep all options open to dismantle “terror outfits” after the Mumbai attacks and Pakistan finally confirmed the lone surviving gunman was Pakistani.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister dismissed his national security adviser shortly afterwards. India had been saying for weeks that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, who was captured after the November attacks, was from Pakistan.
The prime minister’s office said Mehmood Ali Durrani had been sacked “for his irresponsible behavior for not taking the prime minister and other stakeholders into confidence, and a lack of …

NEW DELHI (AP) — Pakistani authorities “must have had” a hand in the deadly Mumbai siege, India’s prime minister said Tuesday, stopping just short of directly accusing Islamabad of aiding the gunmen.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh repeated India’s allegations that the attack was carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. But in his most forceful speech since the November attacks, he also said “there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack, it must have had the support of some official agencies in …

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani investigators have unearthed substantive links between the gunmen who attacked Mumbai in November and a banned Pakistani Islamist militant group, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Ten gunmen killed 179 people in the attack on India’s financial hub that India has blamed on the Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group.
The group was set up by Pakistani security agencies in the late 1980s to fight Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region but was banned in 2002, after Pakistan had signed up to the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

(AP) Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan’s picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region far from the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive.
The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies outside the areas where al Qaeda and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive.
“You can’t …