Terrorism, Pakistan | featured news

A military offensive to rid Pakistan's northwest of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters has killed more than 1,000 militants since it began in full force earlier this month, the country's interior ministry said Sunday.

Unidentified gunmen have reportedly attacked a British filmmaker and his crew near Balochistan capital Quetta.

Pakistani planes bombed suspected militant positions in a stronghold close to the capital Monday, pressing ahead with a fierce offensive the government claimed had killed 700 insurgents and had the Taliban on the run.

The Pakistani government plans to scrap a tenuous peace deal with Taliban militants and launch an even more aggressive operation against them in northwestern Pakistan, a Pakistani military official said today.

Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure, the top US military chief Adm. Michael Mullen said Monday, ruling out that they could fall into the hands of Taliban militants.

Pakistan pounded Taliban hideouts for a third consecutive day Thursday and said troops killed 14 insurgents in 24 hours as the president urged the nation to unite behind the offensive.

A Pakistani military offensive against insurgent hideouts prompted suspension of controversial peace talks with the Taliban on Monday, and the country's president sought additional foreign aid to ensure that its nuclear arms remain in "safe hands."

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government's use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday that the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden remained a mystery and there was a suspicion that he could be dead.

The Pakistani army says it has launched a new offensive against militants in a northwest district that neighbors the beleaguered Swat Valley and Afghanistan.