Word: talibans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...First, the Taliban in the Swat Valley announced an indefinite cease-fire, but only after the army had agreed to halt its counterinsurgency operations and the government caved in to the militants' demand for the imposition of Islamic law. Then it emerged that the Taliban and the army would both be observing a four-day truce in Bajaur, the tribal area along the Afghan border that has seen the fiercest fighting in Pakistan's domestic campaign against extremists. And on a more ominous note, last weekend at an undisclosed location deep in Waziristan's mountains, Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud...
...Obama Administration may be pressing Pakistan to intensify its efforts against Islamic militants on its soil, but Islamabad has its own ways of tackling the issue - most recently in the form of truces with local Taliban forces, a development that has raised eyebrows in Washington. Pity the intelligence analyst tasked with interpreting the rapidly changing political landscape of Pakistan's wild North-West and tribal areas over the past week. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province...
...Dara Adam Khel - home to a notorious militant arms industry - along with stepped-up CIA-directed missile strikes from pilotless drone aircraft. The seriousness of the Pakistani effort was underlined by the scores of casualties suffered by the military, particularly in Bajaur. The military believes it has the Taliban on the ropes in Bajaur and says the truce there is simply to give Taliban members an opportunity to surrender their weapons. The cease-fire in Swat, however, comes at a moment when four-fifths of the area is under the control of the forces of local jihadist Maulana Fazlullah, which...
...Pakistan cease-fires are cause for concern in the Obama Administration, not least because they apply only to Taliban actions against the Pakistani state. In declaring its cease-fire, the Bajaur-based Taliban said it had been mistaken in targeting the Pakistani army and promised instead to concentrate its fire on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan...
...Pakistani military, have now formed an alliance with ambitions on both sides of the border. The Shura Ittehad Mujahedin, or Council of United Jihadists, has declared war on the governments of the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan and proclaimed its fealty to Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban. (The Pakistani Taliban has, until now, been a separate if like-minded group.) In this instance, the drone war may actually have strengthened one of the most intractable militants operating in Pakistan...