Word: gul
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...sought to crush the Taliban in several fierce offensives in South Waziristan and Orakzai. But the militants have proved resilient, and their ability to stage massive attacks appears intact. The combined offensives against them meant the Taliban "simply spread out wherever they could to other areas," says Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. "I was under no illusion that this phenomenon is gone, that they would not be able to bounce back...
...most fundamental level, the continued Taliban threat represents an intelligence failure, not merely sloppy checkpoint security. Gul says the intelligence capacity of Pakistan's state institutions has yet to match the level of threat that the country faces. "But it's very difficult when you're dealing with people whose only target is [to wreak] destruction," he says. "However you take out the Taliban leaders or their activists and however you dislodge them from their strongholds ... you can't eliminate them altogether...
...Turkey has remained calm this week. Although the army's chief of staff, Ilker Basbug, denounced the allegations, he also held meetings with Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul to discuss the arrests and said coups "are a thing of the past." The country's generals have also all returned to their posts without incident. "If 49 people at the head of Turkey's founding institution can become the object of an investigation, this means Turkey has crossed a historic threshold," says Cengiz Candar, a political commentator for the Radikal newspaper in Istanbul. "This is a catharsis...
...foreign diplomats and ordinary civilians alike. Authorities said several insurgents stormed the Ferushgah shopping center and ordered people to get out before firing shots from the roof and then setting the building ablaze. Other militants reportedly struck a movie theater, a hotel popular with Westerners, the central bank, the Gul Bahar shopping center and the Justice Ministry. According to a Taliban spokesman who spoke to the Associated Press, 20 armed militants carried out the attack, including two suicide bombers who blew themselves up near the palace and in a traffic circle a half mile away. The streets quickly emptied...
...predecessors have been to express harsh criticisms of Israeli actions, in line with Turkish public opinion. But even the usually critical opposition joined hands with the government in denouncing Ayalon's action, which was taken as a humiliation of the Turkish people as a whole. Within hours, President Abdullah Gul had issued a formal ultimatum that unless Israel issued a formal public apology, Turkey - by far Israel's most important ally in the Muslim world - would recall its ambassador. Initially, Ayalon folded his arms and said he had nothing for which to apologize...