
Three soldiers martyred in Mastung terrorist attack: ISPR
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the attack occurred during the night between August 5 and 6. The martyred personnel were identified as Major Muhammad Rizwan Tahir (31), a resident of Narowal District; Naik Ibni Amin (37), hailing from Swabi District; and Lance Naik Muhammad Younas (33), from Karak District.
'Major Rizwan was a valiant officer who had participated in numerous counter-terrorism operations and always led from the front,' the ISPR said, lauding the fallen officer's bravery.
257 killed in 501 terror attacks in Balochistan in six months: Home Dept
Following the attack, security forces swiftly launched a sanitization operation in the area. Four terrorists linked to the attack were neutralized during the operation. The ISPR reiterated that such operations would continue until the area was completely cleared of hostile elements.
'Security forces of Pakistan are determined to wipe out the menace of Indian-sponsored terrorism from the country, and such sacrifices of our brave men further strengthen our resolve,' the statement added.
PM condemns attack
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow over the martyrdom of the soldiers.
'The entire nation salutes our martyrs,' he said in a statement issued by the PM Office. He offered prayers for the elevation of ranks of the martyrs and extended condolences to the bereaved families.
The premier also praised the swift response by security forces that led to the killing of four terrorists, describing the troops as a 'steel wall' protecting the nation.
He reaffirmed the government's commitment to eradicating all forms of terrorism and paid tribute to the security forces' unmatched sacrifices in the fight against militancy.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Express Tribune
an hour ago
- Express Tribune
India in wrong boat — again
Listen to article In 1991, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, initiating economic liberalisation in India, geared the country away from decades-long socialist ideals to the capitalist embrace. Interestingly, this was exactly the time when the USSR had been disintegrated in the wake of its failed war in Afghanistan. Now, around 35 years later, India stands on another verge — will it keep snuggled in the US/capitalist embrace or is it time for another goodbye? When in the socialist camp, India made good benefit of the Soviet-Afghan war. It got a presence in Afghanistan under the Soviet umbrella, wherefrom it provided training, funding and in-out passage to Baloch separatist groups, with the aim of destabilising Pakistan and weakening its position in the region. The second time, when the US invaded Afghanistan, India was there again, with dozens of consulates at the Pak-Afghan border regions, again backing terror outfits that kept wreaking havoc in the country for over a decade. In both cases, India thought it was on the winning side, but twice it was proven wrong. The constant guerilla warfare of the ragtag mujahideen and Pakistan's support for them forced the global powers to shamefully retreat, and every time India, losing the plot, had to flee too. India wished to partake in the spoils of war, entrench itself in the Afghan future, get an inroad to Central Asia, and via this long cut, get a shortcut to regional hegemony. But unfortunately for India, it was in the wrong boat, each time. Both times it should have learnt the lesson that sheer hegemony and imperial lust cannot secure one a victory over a human population, but it did not. Anyways, even after India left the socialist camp, Russia always wanted to woo it back into its sphere. In the late 1990s, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov presented a doctrine referred to as the Russia-India-China (RIC) doctrine, advocating closer cooperation between the three countries to foster a multipolar world order. But India was too haute to lend an ear to such regional integration. What India had in mind was not integration but to become the next China, the next regional power, getting ahead of all other regional entities. So, India went on closer to the US, signing strategic pacts for bases-sharing, communication and info sharing, weapons deals and more. India even joined QUAD in 2007 — a partnership specifically made to counter China. In all this wooing with the US, India got more of a narrative, and less of anything substantial. The US did not shift its industries from China to India; reportedly, manufactured goods currently account for a mere 2% of India's exports. Regarding its defence architecture, reputed Indian analyst Pravin Sawhney has stated in recent days that India has focused on building it army for conventional war, which may not occur in future conflict scenarios. On the other hand, India lacks true innovation and R&D and has no real cyber or space preparedness. The Indian side lacks 'jointness' and 'interoperability', he says. And this jointness and interoperability is something that involves network centricity, information superiority and an integrated command system, in a Sixth Generation Warfare environment. Future 6G wars will have contactless battles, aiming to destroy enemy forces on the enemy territory with precision and firepower. China, due to its R&D, has such superiorities; and Pakistan has it because of its strategic alliance with China, the right boat! In the May 2025 Indo-Pak war, Pakistan had the edge because it was using Chinese origin fighter jets and missiles, integrated with the Chinese XS-3 tactical, high-speed broadband data link, for real-time navigation and precision targeting. Deniability was also practiced by the Pakistani side by jamming India's electromagnetic environment. Pakistan had ensured jointness and interoperability, by conducting the Shaheen series of joint air exercises with the Chinese Air Force in Xinjiang and Gansu. Such effort between India and its defence partners US and Israel seem to be absent. Failure of Operation Sindoor was not only India losing a battle with Pakistan, a battle it initiated itself; rather it proved to be a double jeopardy, as it severely damaged Indo-US relations. The Indo-US partnership that had been the cornerstone of India's foreign policy got a firm blow at the hands of an additive battle, between two haute egos, Trump's and Modi's. Trump repeatedly claimed mediating the Indo-Pak ceasefire, and Modi was too proud to lose his political narrative of having the upper hand. In the frustration, Trump first slammed 25% tariff on India, and more penalties for buying Russian oil, and now he has threatened a gigantic 50% tariffs — a level where business will be impossible at all. Trump now thinks that India is enabling Russia to fight in Ukraine because it buys its oil; he thinks India's BRICS membership is anti-US; he feels India is backing off from promises to purchase billion dollars worth of weapons, including F-35s; he feels like India is not on the path to keeping its promise to increase bilateral trade from $200 billion to $500 billion by 2030. Truth is that India has been the biggest beneficiary of the Ukraine war, getting 3.4 million barrels a day of cheap Russian oil. Previously this requirement of the world's most populous country was fulfilled from Iran — another partner India pushed away to please the US. Saying no to Russia means finding another seller with such a huge capacity — one that would be hard to find at once! It seems like India has utterly failed in its core foreign policy pillar of strong US-India strategic ties. India's heartburn with China and Pakistan has also kept it alienated in the region and in the Global South. India could have been a bridge between the Global North and South, but it seems like the bridge is broke and taken down India with it. And now after Trump's threats, India is again trying to make a balancing act between the North and the South — but this time both poles want India to make one clear choice. Perhaps it was possible to be in one wrong boat at a time, but trying to keep one foot each in both two boats for a giant elephant like India may prove to be a smashing nosedive.


Express Tribune
an hour ago
- Express Tribune
Putin meets India's security chief after US tariff hike over Russian oil
The Kremlin published footage of Putin shaking hands with Ajit Doval. PHOTO:AFP Listen to article Russian President Vladimir Putin met India's national security advisor on Thursday, a day after Washington hiked tariffs on New Dehli over its purchases of Moscow's oil. US President Donald Trump imposed the additional 25-percent tariff on Indian goods, coming into place in three weeks, as part of a campaign to pressure Russia into ending its offensive of Ukraine by affecting its trade partners. India is a major buyer of Russian oil, a key source of revenue for Moscow's state budget. Russia is also one of India's top arms suppliers and the warm ties between the two countries date back to the Soviet era. Read More: Pakistan warns India of deep strikes The Kremlin published footage of Putin shaking hands with Ajit Doval, though provided no details of their discussions. At an earlier meeting in Moscow, Doval said that the dates for a visit to India by Putin were "almost finalized". The Kremlin slammed calls to "force countries to sever trading relations" with Russia as "illegitimate", without directly mentioning Trump. Ukraine's Western allies have sought to cut Russia's export earnings since Moscow launched its military assault in February 2022. Also Read: India feels the pinch as Trump doubles tariffs But Russia has been able to redirect energy sales away from Europe to countries including India and China, ensuring the multi-billion-dollar flow of funds has continued. India has argued it imported oil "from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict".


Express Tribune
2 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Is PTI a movement or an ideology?
Listen to article To determine why PTI is not finding success it is important for the PTI to find an honest answer to the above dilemma. It calls itself a 'movement' but acts as a political party like any other. That remains the first dichotomy in how it is structured and how it thinks. A movement can base itself on ideology and at an opportune moment clad itself in the garb of a political entity to succeed if power shall define success. Some political entities will originate as political entities clothed in traditional electoral process and consequences. China's Mao Tse Tung was an ideologue who began a movement to a defined political end. Over a couple of years, he led the movement to victory and replacement of an order that he and his followers fundamentally disagreed with. It seems the PTI fast forwarded to power without internalising the purpose first. Pakistani politics is less of ideology and more of power grab. That much is clear and hence the various mutations of how politics is shaped in this country and what external factors determine how it will play itself out in governance and policy formulation. It is equally true that political parties hardly enthuse or embrace a political philosophy and act more like a tribe which associates with each other for the common purpose of accessing power to deliver tribal or personal interests. Hence there is larger importance and value of enablement by external entities than the political process to find power. The arbiters in the process assume disproportionate weight in an exercise which in essence should reflect a level of acceptance with the people, in whose name power is exercised. But then that is too much of principle and adherence to rules and laws enshrined in the Constitution which are mostly set aside in a political culture based on expedience than purpose. A perfect example of how we might judge a political journey exhibits itself in the neighbouring country. India has three main streams of politics reflected in its three major parties at the national level. Congress, the matriarch of Indian politics carries within it the dynamics of dynasty, and the politics it has practiced through decades. Gandhi may have begun a movement which got converted into a political thought over time to which many Indians gravitated. From Gandhi to Nehru, it may have seemed a generational passing-on of the baton but Nehru's long stint at power after independence and a few hits and misses after it settled in the Nehru family to carry the torch forward. Somewhere along the way a political purpose was defaced by a singular objective of gaining and holding on to power to which all other members of Congress Party submitted and subscribed. Today the party brazenly reflects the attributes of a political tribe where authority resides in the leadership belonging to the Gandhi family to which all others defer. It is equally brazenly claimed across South Asia that the mental make-up of the populace is more inclined to seeking dynastic exclusivity in their political leadership - euphemism for convenience of relevance and acceptability. And then there is the BJP enveloping RSS ideational philosophy based on Hindu exclusivism which then has been used to define nationalist identity through a political process. It has a leadership cadre and its own internal process of enjoining leadership upon whoever they choose to assign the responsibility. Narendra Modi was a tea-seller who rose in the ranks of the RSS to move laterally into first the chief minister-ship of Gujarat and then the prime minister-ship of India. Those invested with the BJP/RSS philosophy generationally transfer the values and beliefs constituting ideology from one to the next. What is left for the world to see for academic reasons is whether governance of a diverse political entity as India has a reverse effect on ideology, or if ideology mutates to deal with the challenges of governance in a diversly constituted polity. Most right-wing parties generally exhibit strict adhesion and submission to ideology. Adolf Hitler perhaps is the most eminent example of an ideologue who mutated to a political system that wreaked havoc in pursuit of an ideology of exclusivism. The third example is that of the Aam Admi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal. The roots of the party lain in an anti-corruption civil society movement of Anna Hazare. A movement gave birth to a political entity around principles of clean governance and eliminating graft from within the system. In the presence of the two major parties, the Congress and the BJP, it could not establish an electoral impact on a nation-wide scale but was the first party to form outside the state system with nation-wide aspirations. It was successful in winning repeated elections in Delhi which has traditionally been a Congress haunt. Allegations against Kejriwal and weak performance in the 2024 elections have lowered the stock of the party and its political prospects. A party formed on high ideology of clean and effective governance has been adversely impacted by challenges of contemporary governance. Ideology stood forsaken for political expedience — the reverse of what it was meant to be. The party is another example of insufficient time to imbibe and internalise the principles to form an abiding creed of sufficient believers. Without the usual cycle of commitment to the intended belief system or embedding its purpose in its structures and processes it turned into a routine political entity, losing both its base and its popularity. Although the PTI had a longer ingestion period, it could not establish a well-founded purpose either in slogan or in ideational expression. It had a weak intellectual definition. In comparison Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did a stellar job in giving a populist slogan as well as in intellectual interpretation of its purpose. In politics all parties descend below their aspirational standards and normalise over time but the PPP in Pakistan was lucky to continue evolving itself in ideational measures to sustain its appeal and romance. The PMLN tried to mimic the process for its own sustenance but succumbed rather quickly to the expedience of power. It has thus become a typical power-centred political entity. The PTI continues to struggle to define itself. It can neither easily find power nor can it underpin its intellectual purpose. Fighting the establishment — read military — cannot fill in for either ideology or an intellectual underpinning. ZAB had martial law to contend against which gave him relevance and longevity. Nawaz Sharif was a product of martial law. Imran Khan's politics is to offer himself as an alternate to either. That is neither power-based electoral politics nor an ideational pursuit especially if you are at loggerheads with the same principles. If PTI appears confused and lost, there is good reason to it.