Word: swatted
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...took just a few months for the Pakistani military to clear the Swat Valley's lush, mountainous tribal terrain of its Taliban usurpers last summer, using some 30,000 troops to dislodge the guerrillas from the once-bustling tourist haven, 80 miles northwest of the capital Islamabad. Now, however, almost a year after winning the war, the same number of troops are still in place in order to hold Swat, rebuild it and prevent a Taliban resurgence - and that may keep Islamabad from going after the extremists in other parts of Pakistan's unruly frontier with Afghanistan...
...often appealed to Pakistan to do just that, specifically against elements in North Waziristan. More than 200 miles south of Swat, the tribal territory is a base for militants targeting U.S. troops just across the border in Afghanistan; it is also believed to be a refuge for senior al-Qaeda leaders. Yet the Pakistani military has refused to go into North Waziristan because it says its forces are already stretched thin (the bulk of the country's troops are stationed along the eastern border with India, the nation Islamabad still considers its primary foe). (See pictures of refugees fleeing...
Opening up a new front in North Waziristan now, Pakistani military officials say, could undo the gains achieved in areas like Swat by diverting troops from areas they must continue to control. As one officer said, "To hold the ground, you have to be on the ground." The heavy security footprint, the Pakistanis argue, is aimed at avoiding the U.S. military's experience in Iraq, where some areas like Mosul north of Baghdad, once cleared, saw troops draw down only to have militants return and necessitate the re-insertion of American forces to clear them out again. (Will Pakistan...
...critics. "I think often our conversations about animals tend to go to these weird extremes and act to conceal what we are doing to them every day," says Jonathan Safran Foer, whose new book, Eating Animals, relates his attempt to understand how animals become food. "Should we swat flies, is it possible that plants like it when we play classical music, can dogs commit suicide - all of these things may be interesting, but they have nothing to do with how we regularly interact with animals...
...Pakistani army has won itself some ground, scattering Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan and Swat, but the real challenge lies ahead: how to rebuild a fiercely independent tribal society that has been shredding apart since the 1980s, when the Soviet war in Afghanistan brought in legions of revolutionary preachers and militants - armed with guns, money and the austere Salafist doctrine of Islam - who never departed...