Islamabad, Mar. 31: Following the intense heat that the Pakistan’s investigative agency, Inter State Services
(ISI) has come under from the US as well as Britain for its alleged links with banned terror outfits, Pak Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is expected to make it clear to the United States that the ISI is a national security agency working to protect country’s national interests when a high-level US delegation arrives here to discuss the revamped US policy for Afghanistan-Pakistan next week.

Islamabad  - Pakistani police have detained around 50 people in connection with the deadly assault on a police training centre which left at least seven recruits and four militants dead, a senior official said Tuesday.

Khalid Farooq, police chief of Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, told reporters at the funeral of the slain law enforcers that officials were interrogating the suspects, but gave no details.

Islamabad, Mar. 31 : Echoing US Special Envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Hoolbroke's fears, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Inspector General (IG) of Police, Malik Navid has said that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are planning to stage terrorist strikes similar to the 9/11 attacks in the US and Europe.

Addressing a briefing on the law and order situation in NWFP, Malik admitted that the Taliban is dangerously inching closer towards Southern Punjab with an aim to take the country's financial city, Karachi, under their grip.

Islamabad  - Pakistan's historic eastern city of Lahore has long been known as the country's cultural capital, with dozens of theatres, film studios, fashion houses, historical sites and exotic food.

But it is now being turned into a new battleground by Islamic militants who have already gained control over large areas in the north-western regions of the nuclear-armed Islamic state.

Islamabad - Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari Monday lifted a more than one-month-long federal rule in eastern province Punjab in a bid to further ease political tensions that threatened the stability of the nuclear-armed country early this month.

The official notification for the undoing of the federal rule, known locally as governor rule, was issued by the government with the approval of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Islamabad  - Pakistani commandos killed four militants and arrested three others Monday, ending an eight-hour standoff at a police-training academy in the eastern province of Punjab that left several police dead and around 100 wounded, officials said.

An armed group carrying assault rifles, grenades and explosives attacked the sprawling police-training school in the Manawan area in the outskirts of the provincial capital of Lahore during the morning drill.