More rain soaked flood-ravaged Pakistan today and even heavier downpours were forecast for coming days, deepening a crisis in which hard-line Islamists have rushed to fill gaps in the government’s patchy response.

THE spat between Pakistan and Britain deepened last night after President Asif Ali Zardari warned the war in Afghanistan was being lost.

Two separate bomb attacks killed more than 20 people and injured dozens more in Pakistan today.

BARACK OBAMA has begun one of the toughest sales jobs of his presidency, launching the much-awaited roll-out of his Afghan war strategy by informing top military and civilian advisers in Washington and Kabul and telephoning key allies around the globe.

A suicide bomber disguised as a security officer blew up the UN food agency’s Pakistan headquarters killing five people today.

SUICIDE attackers detonated a truck bomb yesterday outside a luxury hotel in Peshawar that US officials were in negotiations to make into an American consulate, officials said.

Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to contest elections from Lahore after the Supreme Court lifted a ban barring him from electoral politics.

A huge battle between the Taliban and Pakistani troops erupted in the Swat valley today.

PANICKED civilians fled Pakistan’s Swat district yesterday as the government prepared to shelter 500,000 displaced people and clashes with Taliban fighters heightened fears that a peace deal was about to collapse.

Pakistan’s opposition leader predicted President Asif Ali Zardari would not last his full five-year term in office as police today turned away another convoy of protesters trying to reach the capital Islamabad for a major anti-government demonstration.

Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif today warned that the country was moving towards a state of political crisis.

A suspected mastermind behind the Mumbai massacre has been caught in a raid on a militant camp in Pakistani Kashmir.

US President-elect Barack Obama spoke with seven world leaders by phone yesterday, as he continues to prepare for taking office January 20.

Pakistan ordered the deportation of about 50,000 Afghan refugees in an insurgency-wracked tribal region amid a major military offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

President Asif Ali Zardari and prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the deadly bomb attack on an Islamabad hotel today.