Word: pakistanis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...army would both be observing a four-day truce in Bajaur, the tribal area along the Afghan border that has seen the fiercest fighting in Pakistan's domestic campaign against extremists. And on a more ominous note, last weekend at an undisclosed location deep in Waziristan's mountains, Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud forged a new alliance with two rival commanders who had been fighting him with backing by the government...
...Pakistan's domestic militants have faced a four-pronged assault since last summer, with counterinsurgency campaigns by Pakistani troops in Swat, Bajaur and the town of Dara Adam Khel - home to a notorious militant arms industry - along with stepped-up CIA-directed missile strikes from pilotless drone aircraft. The seriousness of the Pakistani effort was underlined by the scores of casualties suffered by the military, particularly in Bajaur. The military believes it has the Taliban on the ropes in Bajaur and says the truce there is simply to give Taliban members an opportunity to surrender their weapons. The cease-fire...
...Pakistan cease-fires are cause for concern in the Obama Administration, not least because they apply only to Taliban actions against the Pakistani state. In declaring its cease-fire, the Bajaur-based Taliban said it had been mistaken in targeting the Pakistani army and promised instead to concentrate its fire on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan...
...Pakistan's priority has been to restore its own security. And Islamabad's domestic-pacification effort has not been helped by U.S. tactics, particularly the militant-targeted missile strikes from pilotless drones, which have inflicted civilian casualties and fanned local anger. Amid last year's fighting in Bajaur, the Pakistani army protested a flurry of drone strikes against the compounds of veteran militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani in North Waziristan, arguing that such actions would open up another front at a time when Pakistan's resources were already stretched...
...interviews with TIME, a former Cabinet minister in the government of President Pervez Musharraf and a current senior government official have confirmed that the previous government agreed to allow the CIA to target militants operating on Pakistani soil. Both sources refused to be named because of the sensitivity of the information. "Musharraf gave them the base in Shamsi [in a remote part of Baluchistan] to use for drones, logistics, everything," says the current government official, who insists that the air strikes are "counterproductive" because they inflame public opinion against Islamabad's alliance with Washington. "We have inherited all these problems...