Word: afghanistans
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...Little more than 60 miles (100 km) from Thailand's fabled beaches lies another land that has far more in common with the barbed-wire disquiet of Iraq or Afghanistan than the sunny image projected in tourist brochures. Nearly every day, violence - motorcycle bombs, shootings, arson attacks, beheadings - claims another life in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, which, unlike the rest of the Buddhist-majority country, are 80% Muslim. The region was a Malay sultanate until the early 20th century when Thailand annexed it. While members of both faiths have been killed by Muslim militants...
...Pakistan's generals are concerned by what they perceive as growing Indian influence in Afghanistan, through the Karzai government and massive development projects. They also accuse India of using Afghanistan as a base from which to wage a proxy war on Pakistan. Its priorities make the Pakistan army unlikely to turn its fire on the Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur networks, as Obama is demanding. Instead, the army has revived a nonaggression pact with Bahadur and with Maulvi Nazir - both of which use Pakistani soil as a base from which to wage war on NATO forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan...
...guard against upsurges of militancy in other parts of Pakistan. And, of course, the army's priority remains guarding the eastern border with India. Indeed, the fact that India continues to be viewed as the principal security challenge by the Pakistani military establishment also dictates a policy toward Afghanistan that does little to help the U.S. there...
...leadership of the Afghan Taliban continues to operate out of the southwestern city of Quetta - a claim furiously denied by Pakistan's military. Many suspect that the reason that the Afghan Taliban manages to operate unmolested on Pakistani soil is Pakistan's need to maintain leverage in Afghanistan, where the U.S. presence is viewed as temporary. Indeed, some Pakistani observers suggest that even if a U.S. surge is successful, it will at best lead to a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, in which Pakistan would play broker...
...need an increased U.S. troop strength to countervail the Taliban in the south and the east, so that you can bring them to the negotiating table," says retired general Talat Masood. "The Pakistani military also thinks that if they succeed in Afghanistan, the Taliban will be less powerful in Pakistan. The Americans should see Pakistan as an interlocutor for trying to handle these groups politically...