Word: talibanizing
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...general wants to take war to his own people. Kayani was forced to do so by a surge of violence radiating from the South Waziristan headquarters of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group of several militant organizations seething with grievances against the state and influenced in part by al-Qaeda. The 10,000-strong TTP, which was led by Baitullah Mehsud until he was killed by a U.S. drone in August, is largely made up of members of his Mehsud tribe, though an increasing number of militants from the Pakistani heartland of Punjab, along with an estimated...
...first time Kayani has led an operation against militants. This summer he fought an offshoot of the TTP in the Swat Valley, where a failed peace accord had encouraged the local Taliban to attempt a takeover of an entire district. That experience proved the turning point for the army. Intelligence operatives revealed the extensive links between the Swat militants and those fighting for Baitullah Mehsud, fueling fears of a nationwide insurgency. The army "realized that the gains they had made in Swat would not be sustainable unless and until they go after these guys in South Waziristan," says Hussain...
...Pakistani army's relationship with its lesser-evil militants is unlikely to please the U.S. These are groups that have trained their guns principally on U.S. and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan and have assisted Afghan Taliban who have established bases on the Pakistani side of the border. But Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, says the army is not strong enough to take on the Afghan Taliban based in Pakistan and their friends in the tribal regions. The army, he says, doesn't have "the numbers or the equipment to do that...
...office believing that President Hamid Karzai's government was a liability to the pursuit of U.S. goals in Afghanistan. On the campaign trail, Obama had identified corruption and failure to deliver services and security as reasons to doubt Karzai's ability to convince Afghans that the war against the Taliban was worth fighting. Still, Obama declared Afghanistan "the good war" and bet his presidency on winning it. He could soon have regrets about hitching his political fortunes so closely to a country on the brink of failure...
...onset. News from the battlefront is equally grim. October saw the highest monthly death toll of U.S. soldiers since the war began, and on Nov. 3 five British soldiers were killed when fired on by an Afghan policeman - it is still unclear if the shooter was a Taliban plant. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...