Word: afghanistan
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...Pakistani army has won itself some ground, scattering Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan and Swat, but the real challenge lies ahead: how to rebuild a fiercely independent tribal society that has been shredding apart since the 1980s, when the Soviet war in Afghanistan brought in legions of revolutionary preachers and militants - armed with guns, money and the austere Salafist doctrine of Islam - who never departed...
...stop them." His former colleague, Brigadier Mahmoud Shah, formerly in charge of security for the Northwest Frontier Province, concurs. "It's a twilight zone up there," he says, even in the areas recently cleared of militants. (See TIME's cover story on taking the fight to the Taliban in Afghanistan...
...Administration and the Iraqi government, all U.S. combat forces will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of July, and the remaining support troops and training personnel will leave by the end of 2011. The Obama White House, which needs extra soldiers for its expansion of the war in Afghanistan, is committed to that timetable and optimistic about the country that they will leave behind. But on the streets of Baquba, it seems that the goal of a stable, independent and somewhat democratic Iraq has yet to be achieved...
...Britain, Canada, Denmark, Estonia and the Netherlands have done the most fighting and dying on a per capita basis, others such as France and Germany have used caveats for what their forces can do to maximize their safety. Some troops are deployed only in the less violent areas of Afghanistan, while others are restricted to less dangerous peacekeeping or training missions...
...Gates also criticized NATO for buying the wrong weapons for the wrong war - a criticism he has consistently directed at the U.S. military as well during his three-year tenure, chiding it for buying wonder weapons for hypothetical wars while soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq lack armor and spy drones. "Despite the need to spend more on vital equipment for ongoing missions, the alliance has been unwilling to fundamentally change how it sets priorities and allocates resources," Gates said. He praised Denmark for giving up its submarine fleet - who knew? - in order to double the size of its expeditionary...