Word: swats
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...most recent concession came in February, when the Pakistani government accepted a peace agreement with Taliban elements active in its Swat Valley to allow Sharia law in the region. Predictably, the Taliban reneged on the agreement and encroached further on the nation’s capital, Islamabad. Another attempt to open negotiations on new terms earlier this month also failed. With such a record on its hands and the Taliban growing increasingly brazen in its maneuvers, the Pakistani government must reevaluate its policy. With the help of the international community, it can and should use all of its military resources...
...soft on the Taliban - may indeed have more support in Pakistan right now, and also from the likes of Saudi Arabia, but it's hard to imagine him championing Washington's agenda any more effectively than Zardari has done. (See pictures of Pakistani forces battling the Taliban in Swat Valley...
...Pakistani military saw the original Swat agreement and its concessions on Shari'a law as a way to pacify the bulk of the Taliban's popular support base, while isolating the more implacable jihadist element by denying them a key rallying issue. The generals don't share Clinton's view of the Taliban as some sort of external force invading territory the Pakistani military is obliged to protect; on the contrary, odious though it may be to the country's established political class and to the urban population that lives in the 21st century, the movement appears to be rooted...
...Pakistani security forces launched an offensive to "eliminate and expel the militants from Buner," as army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas noted. Two weeks ago, Pakistan's parliament had endorsed a peace agreement that involved the imposition of Islamic Shari'a law in the Malakand Division, which includes Swat and Buner. The Taliban insist that it allowed them to maintain an armed presence; the military rejects that claim and made clear its intention to limit the Taliban from further advances. But the U.S. had deemed even the original Malakand deal, which was announced in mid-February, a dangerous concession...
...product of America's unpopular war in Afghanistan. There's little support in the public - or within the ranks of the military - for deploying the military in a sustained civil war against the militants. Many in Pakistan were convinced that the Taliban had exceeded their bounds in Buner and Swat and needed to be pushed back - but not necessarily crushed. Whereas U.S. officials warn of the Taliban as an "existential" threat to Pakistan, the country's own military continues to reserve that status for India, against which the vast bulk of its armed forces remain arrayed...