Word: afghanization
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...uniform experience with Pakistan's generals over the years. Washington's Cold War entanglements with the top brass in Islamabad eventually spawned, with disastrous consequences, the Afghan Taliban. In the war against terrorism, the Pakistan military - with its historic ties to the region's jihadis - has been at once the U.S.'s most essential ally and its most troublesome obstacle. Enter General Ashfaq Kayani, the current army chief. His presence in talks between a Pakistani delegation and top officials in the U.S. capital overshadowed that of his country's civilian Foreign Minister - a sign of who still calls the shots...
...Back in Germany, the attack served as a stark reminder of the dangers facing German troops in Afghanistan. The latest deaths bring the number of German soldiers killed in the NATO-led mission to 39 since the Afghan invasion of 2001. For Germany's new Defense Minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who cut short a holiday in South Africa to fly home following the attack, it marked the first time he had to offer condolences to the relatives of fallen soldiers - a grim task for a young, up-and-coming minister. While expressing his deep regret for the deaths...
...Until now, Chancellor Angela Merkel's new center-right government has steered clear of calling the Afghan mission a "war," given the German public's deep loathing of the concept. But this started to change in February when the government came up with a new way of describing its mission, saying German troops were now engaged in a "non-international armed conflict." Then came zu Guttenberg's admission that the 4,300 German soldiers currently on the ground are actually engaged in what the rest of the world generally considers a war. "In the past, the Afghan mission was sold...
According to several Pakistani security and defense analysts, one factor that may have instigated Monday's attack was the U.S.-led coalition forces' imminent plan to push into the Afghan Taliban's stronghold of Kandahar. The message: If the Americans and NATO create problems for the Taliban in Afghanistan, then Taliban militants have the option to target American sites anywhere. And in that case, "Peshawar is the easiest target," says Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a defense analyst and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Punjab in Lahore...
...Strategic Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University. "This is a payback attack for what the Pakistan army has tried to do to them in the tribal areas, and the Americans as well, in addition to the anticipated Kandahar attack." Cross-border infiltration - and coordination - between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban remains a key obstacle. Rizvi says the threat posed by the linkage will take ?several years of earnest effort? by coalition and Pakistani forces to contain...