Word: pakistans
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...With a long fight ahead of it, the Pakistan army won't welcome demands that it expand its range of operations. "They will view this letter with some displeasure," says Hasan Askari-Rizvi, an independent military analyst. "Pakistan army is not going to go to North Waziristan before it completes its operation in South Waziristan." Two of the militant groups that Washington would like to see Islamabad target are based in North Waziristan: the Haqqani network and the one led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, both of whom mount cross-border attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan...
...scarcely seen in public and now the object of growing vilification at home, Zardari is in no position to lead a popular movement against militancy, much less to redirect his army's focus. As ever, it is the all-powerful military establishment that will make the key decisions in Pakistan...
...Pakistan's military has certainly moved decisively against those militants that pose a direct challenge to its authority on home soil. Buoyed by its successes in last May's campaign to drive the Taliban out of the Swat Valley, it has for the past month deployed some 30,000 troops to confront the militants in their main stronghold of South Waziristan, along the Afghan border. The army has steadily cleared territory eastward, seizing some of the Pakistani Taliban's most prized bases, but also sparking a vicious wave of terrorist attacks that continues to claim innocent lives on a near...
...areas beyond the scope of the current offensive, waiting to stage a return. "We have not been defeated," Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told reporters at a secret location on Wednesday, dismissing the army's claims. "We have voluntarily withdrawn into the mountains under a strategy that will trap the Pakistan army in the area...
...think that the Pakistan army will target Haqqani," adds Askari-Rizvi. "The reason being that they don't want to open a front with every militant group." The army has long insisted that it does not have the resources to counter the full range of militants based in the tribal areas. Already, military officials argue, heavy numbers are committed all along the tribal areas and in the Swat Valley. It is also forced to commit forces to guard against upsurges of militancy in other parts of Pakistan. And, of course, the army's priority remains guarding the eastern border with...