Iran, US trade fire as war enters deadlier phase; Pakistan clings to fading hope for peace
ISLAMABAD: A missile strike that Iranian officials say tore through a wedding celebration in a small coastal town, killing four people and wounding dozens more, thrust the six-month-old war between the United States and Iran into a bloodier and more volatile phase this week, as retaliatory fire from Tehran reached military installations in four separate countries.
Pakistan says 48 militants killed in Balochistan crackdown as violence surges
ISLAMABAD: Security forces had killed 48 militants over the previous three days in a series of raids across Balochistan province, the latest and largest tally in a counterterrorism campaign that has intensified as the country’s southwest sinks deeper into violence.
ISI’s No. 2 officer takes reins of sidelined counterterrorism Nacta
ISLAMABAD: The government on Friday abruptly moved one of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency’s most senior officers, Major General Faisal Naseer, out of his post overseeing the spy service’s internal wing and into the top civilian job at the National Counter-Terrorism Authority, a body that has spent more than a decade struggling to fulfill the mandate lawmakers gave it after some of the country’s darkest days of militant violence.
BITES
- Mobile broadband services restored
- LPG prices rise by 29.2pc for February
- Cabinet swells to 75 members
- Govt allows TCP to import wheat via all ports
- World Bank approves $200 million in loan for Punjab’s farm development project
- PM Sharif’s party decides to get tough on hecklers
- Apex court overturns PHC ban on poultry exports
- Shahbaz Gill declined bail
- IHC disposes of PTI employees petition against FIA notices
- Rupee plumbs new lows against dollar
- Punjab gets new policy chief
- Loans under Mera Ghar scheme to continue
- Senior army official shot dead in Balochistan rescue operation
- Bani Gala Firing: Man shot, wounded by PTI leader’s gunman
- Turkish commander calls on CJCSC
- Inquiry commission to probe reasons of energy crisis
- ANP set to fly Sharif’s coop
- Member Communist Party of China calls on COAS
- CHE to be renamed, HQ shifted to Karachi
- Pakistan to import high-quality Afghan coal in rupees
- IHC chucks plea to interfere with legislation
- Saudi Arabia confers King Abdulaziz medal on General Bajwa
- Interior Minister no-show at drugs case hearing
- Pakistan hopes early, successful visit by FATF team
- Pakistan commiserates with Afghanistan over quake, flood destruction
Dirty money goes digital as hawala networks turn to apps and crypto
KARACHI: Criminal networks moved more than €500 million through underground banking channels in just a few months in some cases documented by global financial watchdogs — a sign of how far hawala operators have evolved from informal, trust-based money changers into commercial laundering operations rivaling legitimate fintech firms.
Govt, Islamist party agree to negotiate fuel tax as strikes shutter markets
LAHORE: Facing 19 straight days of street protests and a nationwide strike that emptied marketplaces from Karachi to Peshawar, the government agreed on Thursday to form a joint committee with the country’s largest religious political party to study whether the fuel taxes squeezing ordinary drivers can be rolled back.
