Word: taliban
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...knacker's yard: Musharraf's popularity at home has plummeted since March, when he suspended the independent-minded Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. That sparked massive protests by moderate Pakistanis, the people who had once backed the general against al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban militants. With a general election looming in Pakistan, the Bush Administration began to write a new cover story, giving its hero an unlikely sidekick: exiled opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whom Musharraf had long accused of corruption and misrule. The new script called for Musharraf to step down...
...attacks on New York City and Washington in September 2001, Bush gave Musharraf a stark choice: he was either with the U.S. or against it. Musharraf chose to help, and Pakistan played an important part in tracking down key terrorist leaders as well as fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the rugged mountains and lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. But whether through lack of will or lack of ability, Pakistan's army has struggled to keep up the fight--despite massive injections of cash and weapons from...
...motives. "If he wants to stamp out terrorism in Pakistan, why is he arresting civil society leaders and lawyers instead of militants and religious fanatics? Why didn't he arrest Fazlullah when he first started preaching jihad? Today he has arrested hundreds of lawyers, but not a single militant, Taliban, al-Qaeda or religious fanatic. It doesn't make any sense. If you want to take the country away from the extremists, you don't do it by arresting the moderates...
...officers, ascending to ever more senior ranks, who soon could be overseeing various elements of the Pakistani military, including the security of the several dozen atomic weapons Pakistan is believed to have in its arsenal. Their provincialism, U.S. officials fear, could make them sympathetic to the al-Qaeda and Taliban elements now roiling the country...
...promised and hold elections before January 15. But it is still unclear what happens if Musharraf doesn't do any of these things. Bush's pro-democracy goals for the country seem as much in conflict as ever with the U.S.'s other goal - to stamp out the Taliban in Afghanistan and dismantle terrorist networks operating inside Pakistan...