Pakistan

US President Donald Trump suggested on Friday it would be premature to give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying as he hosted Volodymyr Zelensky that he hoped to secure peace with Russia first. “Hopefully, they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump told journalists, including an AFP reporter, as the two leaders met at the White House. Trump added that he was confident of getting Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion he launched in 2022, following a phone call with the Kremlin chief a day earlier. The US and Russian presidents agreed on Thursday to a new summit in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, which would be their first since an August meeting in Alaska that failed to produce any kind of peace deal. “I think that President Putin wants to end the war,” Trump said. But Zelensky, who wore a dark suit for his third meeting with Trump in Washington since the US president’s return to power, demurred, saying that Putin was “not ready...

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said on Friday that terrorists would pay a “heavy price,” regardless of “wherever the source of terrorism lies”, adding that the relationship with Kabul would no longer be like it was in the past. “There will no longer be protest notes or appeals for peace; no delegations will go to Kabul. Wherever the source of terrorism lies, it will have to pay a heavy price,” said the defence minister in a post on X. On the night of October 11, Afghanistan launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistani border posts, triggering a series of skirmishes that carried on until Wednesday, leaving 23 troops martyred and over 200 Taliban fighters dead. The Pakistan armed forces conducted “precision strikes” in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province and the capital Kabul. A temporary ceasefire was then agreed at Afghanistan’s request for 48 hours. Asif added that Afghanistan was “sitting in India’s lap and plotting conspiracies against Pakistan” and that Islamabad “can no longer afford to have relations with Kabu...

ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench on Friday adjourned the hearing of the super tax case till Monday, October 20, after the counsel representing tobacco companies con-cluded his arguments.

ISLAMABAD - Chief Justice of Pakistan/Chairman Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) Justice Yahya Afridi Friday chaired the 46th meeting of the Commission at the Supreme Court.

ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar on Friday said that the protest calls from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) for today were inconclusive and had ended up in a no-show.

ISLAMABAD - Four newly designated envoys presented their credentials to President Asif Ali Zardari at a ceremony held at Aiwan-e-Sadr, on Friday.

ISLAMABAD - Dr Afzaal Bashir showcased two groundbreaking research projects at the Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), held in Chicago on October 5–6, 2025.

RAWALPINDI - An anti-terrorism court (ATC) here on Friday issued fresh non-bail warrants for arrest of Aleema Khan, sister of Imran Khan, founder of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), in a case related to protests held on November 26, 2024 after she did not appear in the court.

MUZAFFARABAD - Three more ministers from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) cabinet announced their resignation yesterday, with two of them calling upon Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq to step down for his alleged failure to safeguard the constitutional rights of Kashmiri refugees.

Foreign Office says strikes in Afghanistan undertaken in self-defence Media reports claim Pak, Afghan talks set to start in Doha Defence Minister says no delegations will go to Kabul Wherever the source of terrorism lies, it will have to pay heavy price: Kh Asif.

Federal govt orders repatriation of illegal Afghan nationals without any further extension ISLAMABAD - The federal government on Friday decided to ensure expedited and dignified repatriation of Afghan nationals without further extension.

Three more ministers from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) cabinet on Friday announced their resignation, with two of them calling upon Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq to step down for what they described as his “failure to safeguard the constitutional rights of Kashmiri refugees”. Earlier this week, AJK Information Minister Pir Mazhar Saeed announced that he had resigned from his position, citing “some unavoidable reasons”. However, a senior official at the AJK prime minister’s office told Dawn.com that the resignation had been “received but not yet accepted”. AJK Finance Minister Abdul Majid Khan and Food Minister Chaudhry Akbar Ibrahim announced today they would step down at a joint press conference at the Muzaffarabad Press Club, while Sports, Youth and Culture Minister Asim Sharif Butt sent his resignation directly to the prime minister, opting to stay away from media interaction. All three were elected on PTI tickets in the 2021 general elections from LA-45 (Valley-VI), LA-38 (Jammu-V) and LA-42 (Va...

Posts from multiple Afghan and Indian accounts on social media platform X on October 16, 2025, shared visuals claiming to show the Afghanistan defence forces successfully testing a missile with a 400-kilometre range amid the recent fighting with Pakistan. However, the visuals do not show any Afghan missile test. On Sunday, fierce border clashes between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban resulted in the martyrdom of 23 troops and left over 200 Taliban fighters dead, including a number of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan terrorists. Both nations claimed to have destroyed the border posts of the other side. On Tuesday, fighting flared up again between the neighbours in the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The next day, the third major skirmish also took place, with the Pakistani security forces saying an attack by the Afghan Taliban was repulsed in Spin Boldak, killing about 15-20 Taliban fighters. Meanwhile, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said in a social media post that the Afghan forces were “forc...

US President Donald Trump said he expected an expansion of the Abraham Accords soon and hopes Saudi Arabia will join the pact that normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and some Arab states. “I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in,” Trump said in an interview broadcast on Friday on Fox Business Network. Trump said he had “some very good conversations” as recently as Wednesday with states that have indicated their willingness to join the accords. “I think that they’re going to all go in very soon,” Trump said in the interview, which was recorded on Thursday. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the accords in 2020 during Trump’s first term in the White House, breaking a longstanding taboo to become the first Arab states to recognise Israel in a quarter century. Morocco and Sudan followed suit. Trump, who convened Muslim and European leaders in Egypt to discuss the future of the Gaza Strip on Monday, has presented hi...

The temporary ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been extended, a senior diplomatic source confirmed to Dawn.com on Friday. The Pakistani delegation is still in Pakistan and is scheduled to depart for Doha tomorrow morning, said security sources. On the night of October 11, Afghanistan launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistani border posts, triggering a series of skirmishes that carried on until Wednesday, leaving 23 troops martyred and over 200 Taliban fighters dead. The Pakistan armed forces conducted “precision strikes” in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province and the capital Kabul. A temporary ceasefire was agreed at Afghanistan’s request for 48 hours, which expired at 6pm today. “The temporary ceasefire was extended at the request of the Afghan Taliban government,” the source said. “High-level talks are expected to begin on Saturday.” Islamabad Kabul working to resolve ‘complex but solvable’ issue Earlier today, the Foreign Office (FO) stated that Pakistan and Afghanistan are sincerely working tow...

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