Islamabad, Feb 17 : Former President Pervez Musharraf has strongly rejected allegations levelled by the New York Times journalist, David E Sanger, saying such allegations are part of a malicious campaign to defame the Pakistan Army and the country's intelligence agencies.

"I never said to late Benazir Bhutto that her security was dependent upon her relations with me", he said at a press conference at the residence of his friend Brigadier
(retired) Niaz.

Islamabad  - Hard-line Muslim cleric Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who signed a controversial peace deal with the provincial government in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Monday, said he hated democracy and wanted supremacy of Islam over the entire world.

Islamabad  - Pakistan's former military ruler and president Pervez Musharraf on Monday condemned what he called propaganda against Pakistan's army and its prime Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), saying propaganda would harm international efforts against terrorism.

"If Pakistan's army or the ISI were weakened due to certain conspiracies, the international community would lose the war on terror," the former strong man told reporters while holding a cigar in a televised press talk and looking relaxed in his informal outfit.

Islamabad, Feb. 16 : The Balochistan Liberation United Front (BLUF), which claimed the responsibility of kidnapping the head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), John Solecki, has extended the deadline it had set for the authorities to meet its demands.

"We are giving more days for the government to accept our demands," The Dawn quoted a spokesman of the BLUF, Shahiq Baloch, as saying.

Earlier, the extremist group had given a deadline of 72 hours for authorities, and had threatened that they would kill the official if their demands are not met within the stipulated time.

Islamabad, Feb. 16 : The death toll in the US drone strike on Kurram Agency has risen to 30, The News reports.

According to reports from the region, four unmanned US predator aircrafts fired four missiles at a suspected militant hideout in Sarpal area of the Agency killing several persons.

Thirty bodies have been recovered so far from the debris of the house that was attacked. Several persons are still feared trapped inside .

According to sources there was a camp of Afghan Commander Bahram Khan Kochi in the region.

Islamabad - The provincial government in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province said Monday that it would set up Islamic courts in the restive Swat Valley under a peace deal with pro-Taliban militants.

A government security operation in the region would also come to a halt under a five-point accord signed Sunday between the provincial government and a pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, whose son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah is fighting government forces for the enforcement of strict Islamic sharia laws.