Pakistan’s navy says it has test-fired missiles and torpedoes from ships, submarines and aircraft in the Arabian Sea in a move it has called ‘a message of deterrence’.

“Pakistan’s navy today tested its fire power in the north Arabian Sea to assess the lethality, precision and efficacy of its weapons system,” it said in a statement released Friday.

The naval maneuver included anti-surface and air-to-surface missiles, as well as missiles fired from a submarine.

The navy did not announce any technical details about the missiles, only saying that “this included the successful firing of a variety of missiles and torpedoes from the ships.”

Pakistan says the launches are a show of force to the country’s enemies in the Arabian Sea, sending a message to “anyone harboring nefarious designs” against it.

“While reassuring the Pakistani navy’s commitment of defending the motherland, this strike capability would also send a message of deterrence to anyone harboring nefarious designs against Pakistan,” the statement said.

South Asian rivals India and Pakistan have been routinely carrying out missile tests since 1998, when the two neighbors demonstrated nuclear weapons capabilities.

Pakistan’s arsenal includes short-range, medium and long-range nuclear capable missiles.

Days after the Iranian president’s visit to Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki explains whether the trip has had an influence on the Afghan president’s trip made immediately afterwards to Pakistan.

Speaking to Press TV on Friday, the Iranian foreign minister said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Kabul had been scheduled only days after the presidential elections in Afghanistan.

Mottaki said the visit was aimed at “congratulating Mr.[Hamid] Karzai,” “reviewing relations between Tehran and Kabul, reviewing the latest situation in Afghanistan,” and “holding talks on security measures.”

The Iranian minister went on to explain about the trip made by President Karzai to Pakistan immediately after the departure of the Iranian delegation, saying “it is the nature of relations between countries.”

Mottaki said while the visit was “not directly linked” to President Ahmadinejad’s trip, it was related to a decision made during talks with the Iranian delegation about holding a trilateral summit in Islamabad.

“I think based on the negotiation between Ahmadinejad and Karzai, he will also be in contact with President Zardari,” the Iranian foreign minister said.

Two bombers have blown themselves up near a military convey, killing at least 45 people and injuring scores of others in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

According to Pakistani officials, the bombers detonated their explosives within a few seconds near a military base on Friday.

Sources say six of the dead were army personnel.

About 100 people were wounded in the lethal attack that undermined the already deteriorating security of the militancy-hit country.

The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.

No person or group has yet claimed responsibility for the blasts.

The blasts are the second attack in Lahore this week. On Monday, a bomb explosion ripped through an intelligence headquarters in the city, killing over a dozen people.

Taliban-linked militants claimed responsibility for the Monday attack.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his government is ready to hold talks with Taliban leaders, including Mullah Mohammad Omar.

“We have contacts [with the Taliban] as high as you wish to go,” Karzai told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday.

Karzai is currently on a tour of neighboring Pakistan in an effort to gain Islamabad’s support for his reconciliation plan.

Reports say Britain wants Pakistan to moderate talks between senior Taliban members and the Afghan government.

Karzai says this would be allowed under the Afghan constitution.

He has criticized the Western countries for what he calls uncoordinated approach to his government’s plan to engage with Taliban.

Two US drone attacks on Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region have killed at least 16 people and injured a number of others.

Ten people were killed when a drone fired five missiles at a vehicle in Mizar Madakhel village, Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed on Wednesday.

The second drone fired three missiles at villagers, who were recovering bodies from the site of the first attack, killing six others, Press TV correspondent reported. Several Pakistanis were also wounded in the strikes.

The US carried out numerous such attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas last year, killing hundreds of people — mostly civilians.

Washington claims the strikes target pro-Taliban militants. Islamabad has repeatedly condemned the attacks, saying they violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Earlier in March, a Washington-based think-tank reported that US drone attacks have killed over 1200 people in Pakistan over the past six years.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has arrived in Pakistan to discuss the extradition of recently captured militant leaders.

Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday evening and will stay through Thursday. It is the Afghan leader’s first trip to Pakistan since he was re-elected in a disputed presidential election in August.

The Afghan president is to meet with top Pakistani officials including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Karzai’s visit comes after Pakistani’s Inter-Services Intelligence reportedly arrested several Taliban leaders, including second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

However, a Pakistani court has restrained the government from extraditing militant leaders to any other country, raising the prospects of a new row between Kabul and Islamabad.

A bomb has exploded in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore during the morning rush hour, killing at least 11 people and wounding 61 others.

The blast took place in Model Town area near the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) building on Monday.

“We are trying to ascertain the nature of the blast,” police official Mohammad Riaz told AFP.

The death toll is expected to rise further as most of the injured are said to be in critical condition.

The incident has also destroyed the building of the FIA entirely and damaged adjacent buildings.

The FIA is a civilian law enforcement agency that had been targeted by militant attacks before, though today’s bombing appeared to be the first time this particular building was hit.

The explosion seemed to be the strongest to strike Pakistan in the past several weeks.

The US Air Force plans to deliver 1,000 sophisticated laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan in an effort to encourage the country to take a tougher stand against the pro-Taliban militants.

Lt. Col. Jeffry Glenn, an Air Force spokesman, said Tuesday that the US also plans to provide Pakistan with 18 new F-16 fighter jets by next June, the Associated Press reported.

US officials claim that this month’s shipment of the kits would enable Islamabad to use sophisticated laser technology to guide the bombs to specific targets.

The Pakistani air force has been playing a crucial role in the major military offensive against the militants on the Afghan border.

The US military contribution underscores Washington’s interest in gaining further influence in the only nuclear-armed Muslim nation in the world under the pretext of fighting terrorism and militancy in the region.

Observers in the region, however, argue that since the US military engagement began in Afghanistan in 2001, terrorism and militancy in the region have increased drastically, leading to thousands of civilian casualties.

Tehran and Islamabad are to finalize a major gas deal on March 9-10 to prepare the way for the export of Iranian natural gas to Pakistan through the “Peace Pipeline.”

“The relevant text on the execution of the defined measures within the peace pipeline project will be signed on March 9-10,” Hojatollah Ghanimifard, vice-president for investment affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said.

Ghanimifard expressed hope that the project is scheduled to go on stream by 2014.

The initial agreement of the pipeline, known as the Peace Pipeline, was signed in Tehran in May 2009 between Iran and Pakistan.

Around 1,100 kilometers of the pipeline would be built in Iran, while the remaining 1,000 kilometers would be installed in Pakistan.

Pakistan will receive 750 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from Iran through the pipeline, as part of a 25-year deal.

A Washington-based think tank says that US drone attacks have killed over 1200 people in Pakistan over the past six years.

In a report issued on Tuesday, the New American Foundation said that the US military has launched 114 airstrikes in Pakistan since 2004 and stated that one third of the people who have been killed were Pakistani civilians.

However, the US military claims that the airstrikes target militants.

The attacks have been roundly condemned by both Pakistani citizens and the national government.

The ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, has confessed to having closely cooperated with the security services of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Iranian security forces arrested Rigi on February 23 while he was aboard a Kyrgyz airliner on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan.

In his 20 hours of confessions, Rigi has revealed intelligence of high importance, including details about his ties with some intelligence agencies such as the CIA, according to the Basirat website, which is run by the Political Department of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

He has said that he closely cooperated with the security services of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The website quoted a security official as saying that on several occasions Iranian intelligence officials had the opportunity to kill Rigi but senior officials of the Islamic Republic had insisted that Rigi should be captured alive.

“When the Kyrgyz pilot refused to land, two Iranian fighter jets forced the plane to land at an airport in Bandar Abbas. In order to prevent harm to the passengers, they were told to evacuate the airplane due to suspected terrorist activity on the plane,” added the official, who was not named.

During the evacuation process, Rigi and his deputy, Molla Mohammad Jan, also known as Hamzeh, were arrested by Iranian security forces.

After Rigi ordered the assassination of IRGC Brig. Gen. Nour-Ali Shoushtari, Islamabad limited his activities and advised him to leave Quetta and hide in the mountains of the region, but after a while, Rigi made the necessary coordination and returned to the city, the official said.

A container carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan has been destroyed in a powerful explosion that ripped through a convoy of trucks in northwest Pakistan.

Initial investigations indicated that a bomb was planted in one of the containers carrying supplies for the US-led NATO forces before it exploded in the Torkham pass in Khyber tribal region of northwest Pakistan, a Press TV correspondent reported quoting a Pakistani police officer probing the incident.

“The container was completely destroyed by the explosion, but the driver and other vehicles remained safe,” the officer said.

Convoys carrying food supplies for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan face frequent threats by Taliban militants.

NATO and the US forces are greatly dependent on Pakistan for supplies as about 80 percent of such cargo pass through the country.

The bulk of the equipment required by foreign troops is shipped through the troubled Khyber tribal region in northwest Pakistan and southwestern Balochistan province.

US officials say northwest Pakistan has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and have regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops across the border.

Pakistani National Assembly Speaker Fahmida Mirza has returned to Islamabad after a six-day visit to Iran.

During her stay, Mirza met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Before her departure on Monday, Mirza and Larijani issued a joint statement calling for the expansion of ties between Pakistan and Iran in the political, economic, and cultural spheres.

Iran and Pakistan also agreed to increase their parliamentary cooperation on global issues at international bodies.

In addition, the two countries underlined the necessity to adopt a comprehensive political approach in the campaigns against terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime.

Iran and Pakistan plan to step up their activities and increase their consultations in order to help establish peace and security in the region, the statement added.

The Americans killed in last week’s bomb attack in Pakistan were US agents that had been working closely with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), an official says.

Dozens of teenage girls were caught up in the blast, outside their secondary school last week. The incident left eight people, including three American soldiers dead.

A British newspaper, quoting an unnamed official, claims that the three US soldiers killed in the attack near a girls’ school in Dir, northwest Pakistan, were “trainers” cooperating with the CIA.

According to The Times Online the Americans, pretending to train paramilitary officers, were involved in gathering intelligence information from the tribal areas of Pakistan for the CIA-operated drone attacks in the region.

The source claims that the CIA does not trust Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agents (ISI), and is using American “trainers” to gather information because it believes ISI agents close to the pro-Taliban militants.

Pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan have recently stepped up their attacks on schools. Over the pat two months 10 attack on schools have been reported.

Pakistani security forces have reportedly arrested the suspects behind the recent twin bombings in Karachi that left more than 30 people dead and scores injured.

The Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary group, said in a statement that the security forces had placed 95 people in custody after raids on Karachi-based residences, hotels and guesthouses, a Press TV correspondent reported late Monday.

The forces also seized ammunitions belonging to those arrested, the statement added.

On Friday, an explosion in the Pakistani commercial hub ripped through a bus carrying a group of Shia pilgrims. The incident occurred as the victims were heading for a religious ceremony marking the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (PBUH).

Another blast hit a hospital in the city that was receiving the casualties from the explosion.

More than 10,000 Pakistanis gathered the following day in the city to commemorate the dead.

During the two incidents, 34 people died and at least 170 suffered injuries.

Over the past two years, some 3,000 people have died in bomb attacks and other militant operations throughout Pakistan.

Pakistani security forces have captured several members of the Jundallah terrorist group and handed them over to Iranian authorities.

During a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Sunday, visiting Pakistani National Assembly Speaker Fahmida Mirza said that a number of Jundallah militants have been arrested and extradited to Iran.

She went on to say that Pakistani security personnel are making serious efforts to apprehend the Jundallah members still at large.

Jundallah is a Pakistan-based terrorist group comprised of members of the Baluchi ethnic group.

It has been reported that Jundallah is closely affiliated with the al-Qaeda network.

Since 2003, Jundallah members have carried out over 50 terrorist operations in Iran.

The government of Iran has accused them of mass murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, carrying out bombings targeting civilians and government officials, and acts of sabotage.

Abdolmalek Rigi is the leader of the terrorist group.

In their latest attack, which occurred on October 18, more than 40 Iranians, among them 15 members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), lost their lives when Jundallah terrorists carried out a an operation in the border region of Pishin, which is located in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

Shia and Sunni tribal leaders were also among the victims of the attack.

During his meeting with the Pakistani parliament speaker, the Iranian foreign minister said Tehran and Islamabad play significant roles in regional developments.

The two countries should endeavor to expand their strategic cooperation since there is ample potential to this end, he added.

The Pakistani Federal Minister for Petroleum has declared that Pakistan and Iran will sign a deal in Turkey before February 15 to construct a gas pipeline between the two countries.

Naveed Qamar said that the construction of the pipeline will take between four and five years.

He noted that the natural gas shortage is damaging Pakistan’s economy and Islamabad is determined to start the import of natural gas from Iran as soon as possible, Daily Times reported.

The Pakistani minister’s remarks come as the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke urged Islamabad last month to avoid the deal with Iran.

Holbrooke had said that the US would help Pakistan secure liquefied natural gas supplies should it abandon the planned gas deal with Iran.

More than 10,000 Pakistanis have gathered in Karachi to mourn the death of dozens of people, who lost their lives in Friday’s double bombings.

The mourners beat their chests and cried loudly as the bodies of the victims were brought to a Karachi sports field on Saturday.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi released a statement, condemning the bombings.

The statement quoted the minister as saying that “such acts only strengthen our resolve to fight terrorism.”

The two blasts on Friday killed 33 people and injured at least 170 others.

“According to our preliminary investigation, both of the explosions were triggered by remote control,” a senior police official Mazhar Mishwani told AFP on Saturday. He added that both bombs were planted on motorcycles.

The first blast targeted Shia worshippers on their way to an Arbaeen procession, which marks the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hossein (PBUH), the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.

The second explosion hit relatives and victims of the first blast outside a nearby hospital.

Thirteen people have reportedly been killed in a bomb attack on a Pakistan-based hospital which was receiving the Muslim casualties from an earlier explosion.

The bomb ripped through the Jinnah hospital in the Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi on Friday. “20 were injured in the second bomb blast. This happened in front of the emergency ward of Jinnah hospital,” Spokesman for the Provincial Government Jameel Soomro was quoted by the AFP as saying.

The blast occurred as the hospital was receiving the dead and wounded from an earlier attack in which a bomber had targeted a bus packed with Muslim mourners, Reuters reported.

Twelve people who were among a group of pilgrims marking the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (PBUH) were killed in that attack.

In December 2009, a deadly attack on an Ashura procession claimed the lives of nearly 50 people.

Over the past two years, some 3,000 people have died in bomb attacks and other militant operations throughout Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has welcomed India’s offer to resume bilateral talks, saying a meaningful dialogue could resolve disputes between the two neighbors.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Thursday that the offer was a positive step.

“There are now signals emanating from India that they are willing to talk bilaterally,” Reuters quoted Qureshi as saying.

Qureshi went on to say that Islamabad would welcome the move if it led to the resumption of a “comprehensive dialogue.”

The Foreign Minister did not confirm a date for the resumption of talks, but said he had sought details from New Delhi.

The remarks come after India made a proposal for the resumption of bilateral talks with Pakistan.

A senior official in New Delhi said on Thursday that the talks would be initiated at the level of foreign secretaries.

“We will raise all relevant issues from our side. Counter-terrorism will be raised, as well as other issues that will contribute to creating an atmosphere of peace and stability between the two countries,” AFP quoted the Indian government source as saying.

The Indian government had raised hopes of fresh talks when it announced its Minister of Home Affairs would attend a regional meeting in Islamabad later this month.

In 2004, the two countries began a dialogue over Kashmir and a range of other issues, but it came to an abrupt halt after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which claimed more than 170 lives.

New Delhi blames the attacks on Pakistan-based militant groups.

Better ties between the two neighbors are seen as a vital element in any broader settlement of Kashmir and other regional issues.