Word: talibans
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...wanted to hear the journalists' perspectives on the U.S. and Pakistan. The response was caustic. Correspondents and editors belonging to Pakistan's top local print and TV outlets let loose with accusations and complaints, particularly about American concerns that Pakistan was failing as a state. "There is no Taliban threat," said one Pakistani journalist. "Do you really think a bunch of hillbillies from the tribal areas can take on our military?" sneered another. "It's all propaganda," said a third, designed "to weaken us, so the U.S. can fulfill its agenda to break Pakistan into pieces...
...course of my reporting on Pakistan, I hear conspiracy theories all the time: that the Pakistani Taliban fighting in Swat are funded by Indian intelligence; that the Americans are assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan to justify and secure a Central Asian foothold against China; and the old chestnut that Israel's Mossad and the CIA were behind the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. While no press in any country is without flaw or bias, I count on fellow journalists everywhere to be more enlightened and sensible than average folk. But in Pakistan's case, sections of the media are reinforcing...
...need to end production of the F-22 aircraft; the commandant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who presided over disgraceful conditions; even a well-respected general like David McKiernan, a conventional-warfare specialist unsuited for the asymmetrical struggle in Afghanistan. (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban...
...Fears have also been growing over the fate of up to 20,000 civilians trapped in Mingora, Swat's main town, as the army and the Taliban continue to battle each other street by street. In recent days, the army has claimed a flurry of successes: recapturing key intersections in Mingora, retaking Pakistan's only ski resort at Malam Jabba (which was being used by the Taliban as a training camp and logistics base) and clearing the former militant stronghold of Matta. Militants are now reportedly retreating from Mingora to Kabal. The army has made a push toward Kabal...
...girls' school built by the Tarakais, recently arrived refugees from Swat describe the Taliban's preparations for the military offensive. (Schools across the North-West Frontier Province have closed for six months; their buildings are being used to house refugees.) "The Taliban took over the food shops and changed the locks," says Mohammad Ali, 30, who used to sell clothes in Mingora's main bazaar. "They occupied a high school to make their base there. In the town there was a stock of wheat flour that had arrived for us from the government of Punjab. The Taliban took that over...