Word: soils
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pakistan's military and the U.S. forces operating across the country's mountainous border with Afghanistan have become locked into a confusing and potentially dangerous game of brinkmanship over how to fight the al-Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering on Pakistani soil. U.S. military strikes on Pakistani soil are provoking increasingly strident warnings from Pakistan's military and political leadership, and they are continuing despite Washington's reassurances about respecting Pakistani sovereignty. Still, many believe the Pakistanis are engaged in ritual denunciation of U.S. actions primarily for domestic political consumption...
...Exasperated by Pakistan's failure to wipe out the militant sanctuaries on its soil, Washington decided earlier this month to take matters into its own hands. The first known ground assault of the campaign, staged by U.S. Special Operations troops in Angoor Adda, a village in South Waziristan, was followed by stepped up air strikes on suspected militants by pilotless drones. Pentagon officials had suggested in recent weeks that the U.S. would be "testing" the new Pakistani government by stepping up its attacks in western Pakistan to gauge Islamabad's reaction. Previously, U.S. actions had been been limited to launching...
...Speaking to reporters after a lengthy meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he said: "I don't think there will be any more [air strikes]." In his meeting with Brown, Zardari had urged the British prime minister to persuade the Americans to refrain from further attacks on Pakistani soil. "The U.K. agrees with us that such moves are counterproductive," says the Zardari aide, who had been present at the meeting...
...could be measured. Unless an appeals court steps in as Bensenville's 11th-hour savior, the path is clear for the bulldozers to start rolling. And while 14 million cubic yd. (11 million cubic m) of dirt have already been moved in the reclamation, a small plot of sacred soil continues to stoke debate: the project's footprint covers the 1,300 graves in St. Johannes Cemetery, which the city says it will be forced to unearth. The forecast for the 159-year-old site darkened in May when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case...
...determination to pursue militants into their sanctuaries will not be limited to air strikes. The Sept. 3 commando raid was the first publicly acknowledged ground operation conducted by U.S. special-operation forces on Pakistani soil (even though U.S. officials refuse to comment on it). Clearly, a new, more intensive campaign has begun. The mounting Pakistani resentment over the civilian casualties inflicted in the U.S. raids - and Pakistani political leaders' ritual denunciation of those actions - are unlikely to change American plans. "They've gotten used to attacks being launched from drones," says a Pentagon official. "They might get used to this...