On this day November 12, 1893

Afghanistan before the Durand agreement of 1893

Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, signed the Durand Line Agreement, establishing what is now the international border between Afghanistan and modern-day Pakistan.

Wave of attacks rock Pakistan

Pakistani officials have said that five attacks on government sites across the country have killed at least forty people. The latest attack occurred late on Thursday at a government residential area in Peshawar. Officials said they suspect Taliban militants for being responsible for the attacks.

Authorities said that the situation in the eastern city of Lahore was under control, following separate attacks on the country’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and two police training centers.

Gunmen with at least one suicide jacket stormed the FIA building at mid-morning. The FIA is an agency responsible for investigating matters relating to terrorism and immigration. Early last year, the building was the target of a suicide truck bomb that killed more than 20 people.

Obama signs massive aid bill to Pakistan

US president Barack Obama signed a bill that will give Pakistan US$7.5 billion worth of nonmilitary aid into law on Thursday.

The bill was signed by the president at the White House. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said that the law demonstrated the “tangible manifestation of broad support for Pakistan in the US.”

The plan will provide money for projects to help fund energy generation, roads, schools, and water resource management in Pakistan, among other things. Congress, however, will still need to allot the money indicated in the bill, and the bill will need to be renewed annually.

Suicide blast hits northwest Pakistan

Pakistani police have said that a suicide bombing near the Swat Valley killed 41 people on Monday. Monday’s attack is Pakistan’s fourth act of terrorism in eight days, killing a total of more than 100 people.

It also came as the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday’s assault on the country’s heavily guarded army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

“Forty-one people were killed and 45 were injured in the suicide blast,” provincial information minister Mian Iftekhar said.

Suspected US drone kills top militant in Pakistan

Pakistani authorities have said that a suspected US drone attack along the Afghan border is believed to have killed an Uzbek militant leader with links to al-Qaida.

MQ-9 Reaper drone

Pakistani intelligence officials say a US missile strike in South Waziristan in late August wounded Tahir Yuldashev and that he reportedly died a few days later.

Yuldashev was the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). He began fighting in the 1990s to topple Uzbekistan’s government.

A Taliban spokesman has denied the report of Yuldashev’s death. The Taliban gave him refuge in northern Afghanistan, but after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, analysts believe Yuldashev and his fighters fled east into Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Twin suicide bombings in Northwest Pakistan

Two powerful suicide attacks struck different areas of northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, apparently targeting the country’s security forces. In the first attack, a bomber killed at least six people and wounded more than 60 others outside a police station in Bannu.

Shortly thereafter, in Peshawar’s commercial district, another attacker blew himself up outside a bank affiliated with the Pakistani army, killing ten people and wounding more than 70 others.

Authorities in Bannu said the suicide bomber exploded a small truck full of explosives, destroying the police station and surrounding buildings.

Taliban and girls’ education on Pakistan

Police in northwestern Pakistan said that suspected Taliban militants have blown up a primary school that educated girls on Tuesday. Officials say there were no casualties in the blast, which occurred on the outskirts the city of Peshawar, because the school was closed for the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“The school building, was destroyed in the blast,” said a local police official. by a timed explosive device. Al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants who oppose the education of women have destroyed hundreds of girls’ schools across the country. Almost 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley after a two-year campaign to enforce sharia law was made by Maulana Fazaullah, a radical Islam cleric.

Deadly blast in Pakistan

A suicide bomber in a village in northwestern Pakistan has killed at least thirty people on Friday, according to a police official. Fifteen other people were wounded.

The explosion occurred in Usterzai, near the town of Kohat. A two-storey hotel and some vehicles near it were destroyed, and a nearby bazaar was also damaged. According to police, the bomb consisted of over three hundred pounds of explosive material. “A suicide bomber blew up a car filled with explosives in the market,” said policeman Ali Hasan.

A police car that was dispatched after the explosion was attacked by Usterzai’s residents, who were upset that the police did not provide sufficient security for the neighbourhood.