Word: talibans
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...Rumsfeld and the generals around him puffed with pride when their fairly audacious war plan for Afghanistan succeeded in ousting the Taliban from power before the end of 2001. If anything, that increased the hubris that came to doom the U.S. mission in Iraq. It was that same sense of imperiousness, more than anything else, that toppled G.O.P. control of Congress on Tuesday. On Wednesday, almost as an afterthought, it also brought to an inglorious end to Rumsfeld's Pentagon tenure...
...Pakistani military immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, rumors abound in the region that the U.S. may have had a hand in its planning. The lawless region running along the southeastern border with Afghanistan has long been a haven for Islamist militants. A large number of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters retreated there from Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and the fugitives currently sheltering there are believed to include Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Last January, a botched U.S. air strike in Damadola, two miles from Khar, was meant to take...
...raid comes at a delicate time for President Pervez Musharraf, who has come under mounting pressure from the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to crack down on Taliban infiltration from Pakistani territory, despite the popularity of their cause among the local tribesmen. Just two days earlier, Liaqatullah had spoken at a rally where more than 5,000 armed men chanted anti-American and anti-Musharraf slogans, and pledged to wage jihad until every single foreign soldier had been evicted from Afghan soil...
...activity - in which the Pakistani military lost some 800 men, about the same number of militants it was able to capture during the operation. But few outside of Pakistan have hailed the Waziristan deal as a success. NATO leaders in Afghanistan, for example, have reported a significant uptick in Taliban attacks since it was signed...
...government presence, however, it is nearly impossible to offer a viable alternative to the region's militant traditions. Local leaders are fiercely resistant to any kind of government intervention, and in many areas have set up parallel courts to administer their own brutal form of justice, just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan...