Word: talibans
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...Hakimullah Mehsud - the ruthless leader of the Pakistani Taliban who has unleashed a wave of suicide bombings around the country in the past year - dead or alive? The mystery deepens. In mid-January, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence reported that Mehsud may have been hit by a U.S. missile strike in the sawtoothed ranges along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, a claim that was at once disputed by the Taliban. Then on Tuesday, Pakistani TV channels, quoting an unnamed Taliban commander, reported that Mehsud had indeed been injured by the missile, and that he lapsed into a coma and died...
...Some Taliban experts in Islamabad believe that doubts about Mehsud's death are greatly exaggerated. They point to the fact that the Taliban commander, whose eyes are rimmed with kohl and who wears shoulder-length locks, loves publicity and would pop up in a minute if he were still alive. Last October, Mehsud posed for visiting journalists like a B-movie action hero with a rocket-propelled grenade on his shoulder, and then again leering behind the wheel of a humvee that his men had looted from a NATO convoy trapped in the canyons of the Khyber Pass. (See pictures...
...there has been no sign of Mehsud since his appearance in October, only a continuing flurry of denials by spokesmen of the Pakistani Taliban - a slightly different breed from the Afghan jihadis - that their commander had died. On Tuesday, following the television broadcasts, a Taliban commander told the Pakistani daily The News that Mehsud had become too high profile, and was instructed to hide from the U.S. Predator drones that were raking the skies over the tribal lands in search of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, thereby escaping another strike. Meanwhile, the Pakistani army admitted to journalists that...
...what follows the fighting that will be the real test. While many in Marja detest the Taliban, they are just as angry at the impotence of the Afghan government to better their lives despite years of promises. U.S. officials say Afghan President Hamid Karzai, some 500 miles from Marja in Kabul, has become a full partner in the planning of the offensive and its follow-up development efforts. Afghan and U.S. experts will flood Marja after the offensive, helping to set up local government and schools, and offering cash to entice poppy growers to shift to wheat. After driving...
...McChrystal prepares to launch the offensive, he's got one eye on Marja and the other on the calendar. If he and his forces prevail, it will serve as the template for the far more challenging battle this summer for the Taliban capital of Kandahar, about 100 miles to the east. Success in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, would mean that McChrystal is on track to achieving Obama's ultimate goal: to start sending U.S. troops back home in July...