Lahore, Oct 16 : Official sources in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) have revealed that the Pakistan unit of the Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) has an annual budget of around Rs four billion, giving hefty salaries to its cadres.

The officials told a Pakistan-based TV channel that while a government security force soldier is paid a monthly salary of Rs 3000, the Taliban mercenary gets Rs 6000 a month.

And, the Local Taliban commanders receive as much as Rs 20,000 a month, the Daily Times quoted the TV channel as saying.

The officials further said that the Taliban fighters had almost taken over Bajaur Agency before the government launched a security operation there.

Lahore, Oct 16 : In such second decision over the past couple of days, another body of Muslim clerics in Pakistan declared suicide attacks as “illegal” in Islam, and condemned the countrywide acts of terrorism against innocent people.

The Muttahida Ulema Board of Punjab (MUBP) announced its decision after a meeting here last evening.

Lahore, Oct 15 : A conference of Muslim clerics from across Pakistan has declared that only the state had the authority to call for jihad, and that individuals or groups were not authorised to do that.

The body of clerics later issued a fatwa in this regard.

The fatwa, issued unanimously by the Muttahida Ulema Council (MUC), during the conference at the Jamia Naeemia comes in the wake of devastating suicide bomb attacks in the country that have claimed hundreds of lives.

Declaring suicide bombings as “un-Islamic”, the fatwa said that the government should stop military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and conduct negotiations with the people there to end militancy.

Lahore, Oct.

Lahore, Oct 11 : Pakistani-Americans have reportedly urged upon Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to tone down his “bombing Pakistan” rhetoric.

During his presidential debate with Republican rival John McCain, Obama had last week said that if he won the poll, he would launch strikes on Pakistan’s territory in search for Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, and also vowed to crush the international terrorist organization.

A group of Pakistani-Americans and anti-war activists delivered a letter to Obama’s Chicago office, calling on him to “cool political rhetoric about bombing targets in Pakistan”, the Daily Times quoted a report in the Chicago Tribune, as saying.

The group also has plans to send a similar letter to McCain.