Karachi, Jan 19 : Pakistan Information Minister Sherry Rehman has said the government will use all its powers to ensure that the girls' schools affected by the Taliban in Swat are reopened by March 1.

The militants' efforts to deter girls from attending school in Pakistan are darkly reminiscent of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which banned education for girls and forced most working women to return to their homes, the Dawn reported.

Islamabad, Jan 19: The banned terror outfit, Laskhar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), has announced that it would support a peaceful and democratic struggle to liberate Kashmir.

In a statement issued in Srinagar, LeT spokesman Dr Abdullah Gaznavi said his group took up arms when the world did not respond to the Kashmiris' peaceful struggle for more than four decades, the Daily Times reported.

Peshawar, Jan 19 : At least 15 Taliban militants, a local commander among them, and a soldier were killed in a clash with Pakistani security forces in the Kandaro tehsil in Mohmand tribal region.

Helicopter gunships shelled suspected Taliban hideouts in Sandukhel and Mullahkhel areas of Kandaro tehsil on Saturday night, killing a number of militants, including their local commander Yaqub. Some militants were killed when a helicopter attacked their vehicle.

Islamabad, Jan. 18 : The increasing influence of the Taliban, and other extremists groups in the tribal region, and especially in the Swat valley in Pakistan, reaffirms the Taliban ambitions of running a parallel government in the country.

According to a Daily Times editorial, the territory controlled by the terrorists has increased from 25 to 75 percent.

Karachi, Jan. 18 : Once the sacked judiciary is restored in Pakistan then a legal proceeding will be initiated against the Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani for failing to take action against those who had sacked the judges illegally, the ousted chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has said.

Chaudhry said sacking of the judges was very unfortunate and was initiated in an illegal way.

Islamabad  - Paramilitary troops killed at least 15 Islamist militants in the troubled north-western tribal region close to the Afghan border, the military and officials said on Sunday.

Fifteen rebels were killed in a raid by the Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers on a militant stronghold in Darwazgai area of Mohmand tribal district, according to an FC statement.

One security official had died in the operation, the statement said.

The intense gunfights took place on Saturday as the security forces moved to take out militant positions in the area, a local intelligence official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on phone.

The official said the fighting stopped shortly after the nightfall.