Word: tribalized
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...traveling in vehicles bearing military number plates. Though no group has claimed responsibility for the recent attacks, police officials have attributed them - and the attack on Bhutto's motorcade that left 141 dead - to al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists and the Pakistani Taliban currently gaining strength in the lawless tribal areas spanning the border with Afghanistan...
...tribal areas, meanwhile, are in the grip of an escalating war of insurgency and counterinsurgency, with recent clashes between militants and government forces leaving more than 100 dead. The army had been sent in to contend with the supporters of a charismatic pro-Taliban cleric bent on establishing Islamic law in the former tourist enclave of Swat, better known for its Buddha sculptures and ancient monasteries than for any kind of religious fundamentalism...
...While such a move would keep Musharraf in charge, it would effectively derail plans to create a more popular, civilian-based government in Pakistan to fight extremism. And so acute has opposition to Musharraf's rule become that declaring martial law raises the danger that the combination of the tribal insurgency and related militancy in the cities, as well as anti-Musharraf agitation by the middle class (such as the recent lawyers' protests that forced Musharraf to back down from firing chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry), will become a perfect storm of opposition that could further weaken the regime. "Martial...
...Musharraf's declining popularity has even begun to impinge on his ability to play the war-on-terror role for which Washington is depending on him. A new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org shows that just 44% of Pakistanis are in favor of sending troops in to the tribal areas to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "The Pakistani people are not enthusiastic about Musharraf," says Steven Kull, director of the polling organization. "[They] do not support his recent crackdown on fundamentalists, and are lukewarm at best about going after al-Qaeda or the Taliban in western Pakistan. It appears that...
...against U.S. forces has fallen dramatically across the country. There have been days, in recent weeks, when even Baghdad approached a tolerable level of urban violence and criminality. "And the Ramadi meeting wasn't at all unique," a senior U.S. diplomat told me. "You've had mass meetings of tribal leaders from Anbar and Karbala provinces," which are the Sunni and Shi'ite heartlands, respectively. "The governors of those provinces were literally building trenches on their border, and they are now meeting regularly. You had the highest-ranking Sunni politician in the country, Tariq al-Hashemi, go to Najaf...