Word: islamabad
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...were driven from the area and his compound was blown up - the militant leader was back on his pirate radio station a few hours later, vowing to continue his fight for an Islamic state. In Swat, once a tourist haven 100 miles (160 km) from the national capital Islamabad, militants burned down the country's only ski resort and torched 21 girls' schools. A spokesman for Mullah Fazlullah, the local Taliban leader who used to work the resort's chairlift, said their group was forced to act because government security forces were using some of the schools as bunkers...
...Failing State The most immediate casualty of the political shenanigans in Islamabad is the global war on terror. According to a report released by the Pentagon on June 27, Taliban militants in Afghanistan have regrouped after their fall from power and "coalesced into a resilient insurgency." That resilience, say Western military officials in Afghanistan, has a lot to do with their ability to find sanctuary in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas along the border. The day before the report's release, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a press briefing that he had "real concern" that Pakistan was contributing...
...least 18 people are feared dead in an explosion that rocked the Pakistani capital of Islamabad Sunday. The target appears to have been policemen who had been deployed to guard a ceremony and conference marking the first anniversary of a government raid on an extremist mosque and seminary complex. The explosion, which took place at a popular food market adjacent to the rally, rattled windows across the capital. Police, who have cordoned off the area for fears of a secondary explosion, suspect that it may have been detonated by a suicide bomber on foot...
...Administration limited cross-border operations when General Pervez Musharraf was in charge in Islamabad, on the grounds that they might undermine the authority of a key ally in the war on terrorism. Musharraf's troops were meant to track down al-Qaeda commanders on the Pakistani side of the border, a task they performed fitfully. When a coalition of democratic parties came to power after elections in February, the Administration braced itself for even less help hunting terrorists. Sure enough, the new government scaled back antiterrorism operations and promised to find a political solution to the growing pro--al-Qaeda...
Pakistan is straining under the burden of hosting more refugees than any other country last year, but Guterres says the UNHCR has secured a promise from Islamabad not to force any back to Afghanistan. Of the 130,000 so-called voluntary returns so far this year, he said, 10% have been unable to get any foothold at all in Afghanistan: "Ten percent of 130,000 is a lot of people," he says. "This is not the moment to push people back...