Word: quetta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...help the U.S. has scared off its Afghan sources. The Taliban pressed Islamabad to call its diplomatic officials home for "safety" reasons, and other Pakistani informants are no longer allowed to move freely around Afghanistan. The Taliban destroyed satellite phones, and the Afghan ambassador in Pakistan moved down to Quetta for more secure contact with Taliban leaders in Kandahar. Taliban police are checking beneath women's body-length veils for disguised spies and keeping an eye on any tribal elder receiving guests or a sudden flow of money...
This is a rift that Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials are eager to widen. In the border cities of Quetta and Peshawar, Pakistani military intelligence agents are dusting off Afghan war veterans and putting them to work sending out feelers to fellow ex-commanders who are serving the Taliban. Those commanders are being urged to defect in exchange for bribes and the guarantee of a job in the next Afghan government. First indications are promising, according to anti-Taliban sources in both cities. When he asked about arms, one commander from Afghanistan's Nangarhar province was assured that anti-Taliban...
Meanwhile, tribal chieftains such as Achakzai have their own game plan against the Taliban. In Quetta, the elders of the 23 million-strong Pashtun tribe, which is spread across western Pakistan and most of Afghanistan, are moving to bring back Mohammed Zahir Shah, the deposed Afghan King who is living in Rome. In high-walled and guarded villas, these elders receive a stream of whispering chieftains, Afghan ex-army generals, mujahedin commanders and Pakistani officials--all eager recruits for an uprising against the Taliban. "It's happening so fast," says Hamad Karzai, an influential Afghan Pashtun elder who is backing...
...against the Taliban commanders. Otherwise, a major U.S.-led assault could have disastrous effects inside Afghanistan--and in neighboring Pakistan too. "We have a saying: 'To kill a louse, you needn't set fire to your jacket,'" explains Mohammed Sarwar Khan Kakar, an influential tribal leader and politician in Quetta. "In other words, to catch Osama bin Laden, you don't have to burn all Afghanistan." Despite their grievances against the Taliban's brutish rule, Pashtuns would close ranks and rally to their fellow tribesmen against the U.S. In all likelihood, their forces would swell with zealots crossing over from...
...manager, Syed Aamir, said he liked Americans. He served us tea and lunch, and then drove us into Quetta in his own jeep, even though the police were scared to let us go. On the road into town, we crashed through barricades of smoldering tires, and swerved around boulders the rioters had dragged onto the road. It looked as if stones had rained down from heaven. Syed liked the rush; he was take-charge kind of guy and kept yelling at our police escort for slowing down in a panic every time we came upon a group of protesters straggling...