Guerrillas Pakistan

Muslim guerrillas fired a rocket into the crowded business district of the Afghan capital of Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 17 people and injuring 120, Kabul Radio said. The radio, monitored in Islamabad, said the surface-to-surface rocket slammed into the Kabul money market. It said the victims included two Hindu money-changers. Eighteen of the injured were in critical condition, according to the broadcast. "Many people were cut to pieces in the blast.

Hundreds of insurgents in a convoy of trucks attacked a police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan, triggering a gun battle that killed 22 people, officials said Sunday. The fierce fighting in Paktika province was the latest incident in a wave of violence that has underscored how unstable Afghanistan remains after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

President Clinton said Tuesday that his administration has no evidence implicating the Pakistani government in last month's hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet despite the role apparently played by a notorious Kashmiri guerrilla group that has received backing from Islamabad. "We do not have evidence that the Pakistani government was in any way involved in that hijacking," Clinton told a White House news conference.

Abu Samara was a gangling lad of 14 when he joined the jihad. He was still too much of a boy to grow the beard required of holy warriors. But he wasn't too young to master the weapons of war. Within weeks, his long, thin fingers were proficient with assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket launchers and the militants' deadliest device: remote-controlled explosives. Then he volunteered to die. Over the next decade, Abu Samara learned advanced weaponry in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.

Abu Samara was a gangling lad of 14 when he joined the jihad. He was still too much of a boy to grow the beard required of holy warriors. But he wasn't too young to master the weapons of war. Within weeks, his long, thin fingers were proficient with assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket launchers and the militants' deadliest device: remote-controlled explosives. Then he volunteered to die. Over the next decade, Abu Samara learned advanced weaponry in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.

Hundreds of insurgents in a convoy of trucks attacked a police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan, triggering a gun battle that killed 22 people, officials said Sunday. The fierce fighting in Paktika province was the latest incident in a wave of violence that has underscored how unstable Afghanistan remains after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

After years of providing the basic necessities of life for up to 2 1/2 million Afghan refugees, aid officials in Pakistan say it is time to count heads to see who is left to collect the mountain of relief goods. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees and other U.N. agencies fear that the total number of refugees is much lower than earlier estimates, although the agencies were never informed of the population decline in the camps.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars against each other since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Now they are battling again, but with a quantum difference this time: Each has nuclear weapons. That makes a compelling case for a cease-fire, now. Pakistan bears the onus in the fighting. An invasion by Pakistani-supported "freedom fighters" into a section of Kashmir claimed by India has won no international support since it began two months ago.

Afghan guerrilla leaders agreed Monday on a joint response to the Communist government's offer of a cease-fire and national reconciliation, but they declined to reveal their decision until later this week. Leaders of the seven groups of Muslim guerrillas that make up the Alliance of Afghan Moujahedeen met for three hours in this city near the Afghan border to discuss the Soviet-backed Kabul government's call for a six-month cease-fire beginning Thursday. The alliance said it has made a decision.

The United States is supplying about $250 million in aid this year to the Afghan guerrillas. That is 10 times the amount of U.S. aid that was going to the anti-Sandinista contras in Nicaragua before Congress cut off funds. Unlike the Nicaragua funds, extra money for covert aid to Afghanistan's freedom fighters was virtually forced on an initially dubious Central Intelligence Agency by Congress. The time has come to take a very serious look at whether large-scale U.S.

President Clinton said Tuesday that his administration has no evidence implicating the Pakistani government in last month's hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet despite the role apparently played by a notorious Kashmiri guerrilla group that has received backing from Islamabad. "We do not have evidence that the Pakistani government was in any way involved in that hijacking," Clinton told a White House news conference.

Muslim guerrillas fired a rocket into the crowded business district of the Afghan capital of Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 17 people and injuring 120, Kabul Radio said. The radio, monitored in Islamabad, said the surface-to-surface rocket slammed into the Kabul money market. It said the victims included two Hindu money-changers. Eighteen of the injured were in critical condition, according to the broadcast. "Many people were cut to pieces in the blast.

When President Obama came to office in 2009, it didn't take his new administration long to settle on a favorite anti-terrorist tactic: drone strikes. In his first three years in office, the number of drone strikes against targets in Pakistan and Yemen increased dramatically, from 35 in 2008 to 121 in 2010, before dropping back to 79 so far this year, according to the Long War Journal , a website that has attempted to keep track of reported strikes. The number of people killed by the strikes - Al Qaeda terrorists but also local militants and, inevitably, some civilians - escalated too; estimates vary widely, but at least 3,000 have died in both countries combined.

Sitting on the lawn of a restored maharajah's palace amid the reddening leaves of massive maples, sipping saffron tea laced with cinnamon, one gets lost in the meditative meandering of gondolas on the lake. The shops of Srinagar are filled with the sweet smell of almond cookies and ripe red apples. Thousands of copper pots hang in the windows, and cheerful gap-toothed men hawk the soft pashmina shawls now de rigueur among Western women.