Taliban

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A U.S. drone strike in northwest Pakistan killed a top Taliban commander responsible for engineering attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani military and intelligence sources said Thursday. The death of Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir deals a significant blow to insurgent ranks that use Pakistan's rugged tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan as sanctuary from which to launch assaults on Western troops battling Afghan Taliban fighters.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan has released another batch of Afghan Taliban prisoners, the Foreign Ministry announced Monday, a further sign of the Pakistani government's willingness to facilitate efforts by Washington and Kabul to negotiate a peace agreement with the insurgents. The ministry said eight Afghan Taliban detainees were released, including former Afghan Justice Minister Nooruddin Turabi and Abdul Bari, a former governor of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, which has long been a stronghold for the Taliban insurgency.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Recent pronouncements by the Taliban have raised the possibility that the insurgents may be softening their stance on what a future without U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan might look like. But even among those who are most optimistic about reviving a stalled peace process, there is hesitation about prospects for reaching a political settlement before the bulk of NATO forces pull out in 2014. And others dismiss the Taliban's overtures as propaganda designed to build the group's political profile among Afghans and the international community.

KABUL, Afghanistan - American and Afghan forces rescued an American doctor who had been kidnapped by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, military authorities announced Sunday. Officials in Washington later confirmed that one of the rescuers was killed in the operation. The doctor, identified as Dilip Joseph, a U.S. citizen working for a nonprofit group based in Colorado, was rescued along with two Afghan colleagues and an Afghan driver, according to international forces and local officials.

Kabul - American and Afghan military forces rescued an American doctor early Sunday who had been kidnapped by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, military authorities announced. The doctor, identified as Dilip Joseph, an American citizen working for a nonprofit based in Colorado, was rescued along with two Afghan doctors and an Afghan driver, according to international forces and local Afghan officials. The doctors and driver were abducted by gunmen Wednesday afternoon after they had visited a rural clinic in the village of Jad Dalak in the Sorobi district of Kabul province, east of the capital, said Hazrat Mohammed Haqbin, the district governor.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday the suicide bombing that seriously wounded his nation's spy chief was planned in Pakistan, an accusation that further strained tensions between the neighboring countries. Karzai did not directly accuse the Pakistani government. He told reporters at the presidential palace that he intended to raise the issue with Pakistan. Afghan officials often accuse Pakistan of meddling in Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban and attempting to undercut the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - It's a world of likes, apps and status updates, so it was bound to happen: The Pakistani Taliban now has its own Facebook page. The Pakistani insurgent group's spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, confirmed that it had put a page called Umar Media TTP on the social media website. TTP is the acronym for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the group's name in Urdu. Formed in 2007, the Pakistani Taliban is an amalgam of factions united by the goal of toppling the current government and imposing sharia, or Islamic law. The Pakistani Taliban maintains links with Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and other Pakistani militant groups entrenched in their country's tribal belt.

KABUL, Afghanistan - In her small village of Kalota, north of Kabul, the young woman named Hanisa was known to be headstrong and independent. At 22, she had persevered in school long enough to reach 12th grade, and she was determined to flout tradition and work outside her home. Hanisa had just left her house Saturday and was on her way to her first day of work as a village vaccination worker when three men on two motorcycles roared up behind her. She was shot at least six times and collapsed, bleeding profusely from abdominal wounds, according to Qais Qadiri, a spokesman for the governor's office in Kapisa province.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban insurgents, including several suicide bombers, attacked a U.S.-Afghan military airfield in the eastern city of Jalalabad early Sunday morning, triggering an hours-long battle that left most of the attackers dead in a failed attempt to breach the base's fortifications. The attackers detonated two suicide vehicles at the gate of the base, followed by three more suicide bombers on foot who detonated explosive vests, according to an account of the attack provided by the Nangahar provincial governor's office late Sunday afternoon.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a failed attempt to bomb the car of television anchor Hamid Mir, whom the militant group had earlier threatened because of his reporting on the shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. A Taliban spokesman told reporters that Mir had been following a secular agenda and warned the group would target others like him. Police had defused a bomb found under Mir's car Monday in Islamabad after a neighbor reportedly spotted the device.