Clinton Backs Pakistan as Bomb Toll Hits 90

President, Clinton cite US arrests, but link to Pakistan appears weak

(NEWSER) - The White House has been overstating the link between recent domestic terrorism arrests and al-Qaeda activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, security experts say. In justifying the Afghanistan troop buildup, President Obama cited recent arrests within the US; Hillary Clinton cited some of the same incidents a few days later. But the connection between al-Qaeda’s nerve center in Pakistan and those arrests is much more nebulous than they’re implying, counterterrorism officials tell the Washington Independent . More»

Terrorism fight a no-brainer, she tells students

(AP) - Hillary Clinton said today that Pakistan had little choice but to take a more aggressive approach, starting last summer, in combating the Taliban and other extremists that threaten to destabilize the country. In a lively give-and-take with students at the Government College of Lahore, Clinton said inaction by the government would have amounted to ceding ground to terrorists. "If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice," she said, adding that she believed it would be a bad choice. More»

More than 100 injured in attack on family market in Peshawar

(NEWSER) - At least 80 people were killed today when a bomb ripped through a busy market in Peshawar, hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the country to show American support for its campaign against Islamist militants. Clinton, on her first official visit to the country as secretary of state, was three hours away in Islamabad at the time of the attack. Many others were injured and the death toll is expected to rise, doctors tell AP . The market is reserved for families, and many of the dead are women. More»

Peshawar explosion rocks beleaguered nation

(NEWSER) - The string of deadly bombings in Pakistan continued today as 11 people died in a blast at a police station in Peshawar, the capital of the dangerous North West Frontier Province near the Afghan border. Two of the victims were children. The Taliban are being blamed for two weeks of unrelenting bloodshed in the northwest and in cities like Lahore which have killed more than 150 people. Today's attack, like previous ones, struck at security forces—a sign of resistance as Pakistan prepares new US-backed military offensives on Taliban strongholds. More»

(NEWSER) - Human rights in Russia are "under siege," and the Chinese government is engaging in "serious human rights abuses," the US State Department says. The finger-pointing, in an annual report released today, comes just a week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited China and downplayed the US focus on rights abuses there in favor of economic and environmental challenges, Reuters reports. More»