Word: talibanization
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...greatest threat to U.S. security may be neither of those where American boots are on the ground. Beset by feckless leadership, preoccupied with its rivalry with India and infested with militant groups, Pakistan in 2009 became a viper pit of terrorist plots and political malaise. The death of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in an August drone strike ratcheted up the stakes. After months of planning, Pakistan's Operation Path to Deliverance sent 28,000 troops to root out insurgents in South Waziristan in October. As threatened, extremists responded by unleashing attacks throughout the country...
...July 2009, over the past few years, young Nigerian Muslim activists, most of them educated and from the middle class, have aggressively embraced a stricter version of Islam, rejecting anything Western and Christian. In the middle of 2009, the government cracked down hard on one group nicknamed the Nigerian Taliban - officially called Boko Haram - killing its leader and scores of his followers. Boko Haram had begun life in 2001 as a peaceful group focused on the study of the Koran, according to Abdulmumin Sa'ad, a Muslim scholar and professor of sociology at the University of Maiduguri. "The idea...
...anxiety is palpable. In the last five days alone, Taliban militants have killed more than 100 people in near-daily bombings across the country in Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore and now Multan. Foreign archaeological teams are being told not to come, warnings issued by their own governments or their institutions because of fear for safety. Local diggers can't get out to crumbling sites for security reasons as well...
...Hindu site, not Buddhist, and thus unusual for the area. "But there's no preservation, no one to look after the site," says Dr. Nasim Khan, professor of archaeology at the University of Peshawar. "The local people are damaging the site because of illegal diggings." In Swat, the Taliban have long attempted to destroy the Buddhist heritage of the region. In October 2007, as militants cemented their hold on the former tourist area, the Taliban dynamited the face of the Jehanabad Buddha into oblivion. The 23-foot-high carving of the seated Buddha, dating from the 7th century, is regarded...
...Fazal Dad Kakar, the director general of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, played down the damage done to the carving as the work of local villagers, not Taliban. Regardless, it shows that even without a direct threat from Islamic militants, the lack of security means important sites are unprotected and ill-preserved and can fall prey to vandalism and looting...