It’s about time that Pakistan is finally acting against the Taliban. It took the new Pakistani government several months, but it finally seems to realize that you can’t talk to the Taliban forever. Sometimes reality is truly quite simple; the Taliban are extremists, bend on taking over entire countries, not just Afghanistan. The pose a threat to the Afghani and the Pakistani governments. (more…)

Days after the government of Afghanistan criticized Pakistan for being too soft on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the Pakistani government ordered a military offensive against ‘Taliban fighters near the northwestern city of Peshawar.’ In reaction, Taliban leaders suspended peace talks and threatened with retaliation. (more…)

In what can be considered a clear sign that Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, is becoming increasingly more confident in the strength of his country’s military, he has now threatened to send Afghan troops into Pakistan if that country continues to let Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to hide and unite there. (more…)

‘Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen Wednesday discussed with Pakistan’s military leadership wide range of issues, including strategic relations between the two counties, war on terror, cross-border movements and peace deals with tribal militants,’ the Pakistani newspaper the Nation reports. (more…)

It seems that Turkey’s Chief of Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt has caused a minor international controversy. He said, in his opening speech at the second Conference on Global Terrorism and International Cooperation Monday, “that full support must be extended to Pakistan to get the country back on its feet, and warned that a Taliban-type regime may grab power otherwise.” (more…)

The New York Times reports that “[t]he leaders of the two major political parties, in an unexpectedly strong show of unity against President Pervez Musharraf, agreed Sunday that they would reinstate judges fired by the president and would seek to strip him of crucial powers.” In other words: his political opponents have declared (political) war on Musharraf. (more…)

Bad news from Pakistan: a suicide bomber has killed the country’s surgeon general. There were two suicide bombings yesterday, eleven people in total were killed. One of the victims was a high ranking military officer, Lt. Gen. Mushtaq Ahmad Baig, who was Pakistan’s surgeon general. (more…)

Good news from Pakistan (from a stability perspective): “Pakistan’s two main opposition parties announced Thursday that they would work together to form a coalition government. The apparent breakthrough came after the leaders of the two parties, the victors in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections, held make-or-break talks in Islamabad, the capital.” (more…)

Well, one gets the impression that the parties that won the elections in Pakistan this week do indeed represent change. Not the kind of change foreign policy haws were looking forward to though: “The winners of Pakistan’s parliamentary elections said Tuesday that they would take a new approach to fighting Islamic militants by pursuing more dialogue than military confrontation” with them. (more…)

Captain Ed highlights an additional positive outcome from the Pakistani elections — by accepting an unpleasant electoral outcome, Musharraf marginalizes the radical Islamists. There is also a corollary effect in western politics.  By accepting the negative result, Musharraf has definitely refuted the claims of many critics who cast him as a hopelessly corrupt despot. (more…)

Failing to act decisively - or at all - when in possession of intelligence about Osama bin Laden is perhaps Bill Clinton’s biggest failure as president and his longest-lasting legacy. 

Now, writing about the U.S. missiles that killed Abu Laith al-Libi, an al Qaeda commander, MSNBC says:

Having requested the Pakistani government’s official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval. The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was notified only as the operation was underway

(more…)

Even though Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf’s cronies have tried to rig the Pakistani elections to a degree, his party - the PML-Q - has lost the Parliamentary elections bigtime. Early results indicate that Benazir Bhutto’s party (the PPP) and Nawaz Sharif’s party (the PML-N) have won far more seats than expected: (more…)

The New York Times reports that “Pakistanis began voting Monday morning in parliamentary elections that are expected to diminish President Pervez Musharraf further and present Washington with a challenging new political lineup here as it pursues its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the region.” (more…)

The Spiegel reports that “[a] new generation of Taliban fighters has taken over in Pakistan’s tribal regions near the Afghan border. Their ruthless leader is believed to have been involved in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.” (more…)

From ABC: On Monday, the police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said police had not turned up any new information about the kidnapping.

“All of our security forces and intelligence agents are trying to find them,” he said… (more…)

Gunmen have stormed an elementary school near Peshawar, in Pakistan, taking children and teachers hostage. There are conflicting accounts as to how many children are being held, with police reporting around 25, but others raising that number to 250. Apparently, the militants originally planned to kidnap a local health official, but were thwarted and in the process of escaping, went into the school and took the children.

Here’s hoping there isn’t a repeat of the Beslan tragedy, and all the children, and their teachers are safely released.

Update: The gunmen have released the children (final number around 200) and surrendered to tribal authorities. A happy ending, thank goodness.

A fascinating article about the political system in Pakistan can be read at the website of the Washington Post. It seems that it’s all in the hands of dynasties - of families and tribes - and that these dynasties care less about Pakistan as a whole, and more about their own family and / or tribe. “They don’t have democracy within themselves, and they have poor leadership. The ruling class in Pakistan has lost its sense of humanity and balance. They are not givers, they are takers”

A teenager has been arrested in Pakistan in relation to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. According to the Pakistani government, the teen has confessed that he was sent to join a team that had to assassinate the former Prime-Minister. (more…)

The New York Times reports that, according to two former senior intelligence officials, “Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy.” (more…)

I apologize for not posting much on the investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s death lately: I think that most of us - myself included - have been overly focused on the US elections. If one doesn’t search for other news purposefully, one has the tendency to believe that the only relevant thing happening right now is that the Obama camp accused Clinton of downplaying MLK’s significance and that Michigan is the center of the world… for now. (more…)

Although I, like Jim Henley, believe that it was unwise for Benazir Bhutto to stick her head out of the car during a huge really (which made it a bit difficult to protect her), I don’t quite see how one can pretend that only she is to blame for her horrible death.

Pakistan’s President Pervez Mursharraf, however, disagrees: (more…)

Mark Bandeich reports for Reuters that Benazir Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party, will “call on the United Nations for an inquiry into her assassination if it forms a government after elections next month.”

The reason is that they don’t trust the Musharraf government any longer since “[t]he government’s position on the assassination has been shifting from day to day,” as Farhatullah Babar, a senior official in Bhutto’s party said. (more…)

A day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf denied that his government had anything to do with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a team of British officers arrived in Pakistan to help with the investigation of the politician’s horrific and violent death.

“The Scotland Yard team, who refused to talk to reporters after arriving at Islamabad Airport, is stepping into the cauldron of Pakistani politics,” the Spiegel reports. (more…)