Word: waziristan
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...attack, in an area believed to have been cleared of militants, comes at a particularly sensitive moment for Washington-Islamabad relations. In recent weeks, the CIA has dramatically escalated its covert drone-launched missile strikes on suspected militants in the tribal wilds of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. Pakistani military officials are still trying to confirm whether a Jan. 17 attack fatally wounded Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud...
Lately Gates has been pressing Pakistani generals to go after the jihadis they helped create - men like Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose son now wields the deadliest force in North Waziristan, from which he launches attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. To Afghan and Pakistani audiences, Gates likes to reiterate that the U.S. made a big mistake when it abandoned the region after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. This time is different, he says. But the Pakistanis are not convinced. They still count the Taliban as a bulwark against Indian influence in Afghanistan and an ally in the civil war that...
...This emerging consensus stems in part from the realization of what Pakistan can do and is willing to do in the fight. The Pakistani military reiterated during Gates' visit last week that it has no intention of going after the Afghan insurgent sanctuaries in North Waziristan. The Pakistanis claimed that their forces were overstretched by their offensives against the Pakistan Taliban in Swat and South Waziristan and that a new offensive is beyond their capability. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
Under the 28-year-old's watch, militant attacks in Pakistan have soared since October, even as the army has waged an offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan tribal region. Mehsud also appeared on a recent video with the Jordanian militant who killed seven CIA employees in a December suicide attack in Afghanistan...
Mehsud's predecessor, fellow tribesman Baitullah Mehsud, died in a missile strike last August in South Waziristan. For nearly three weeks, militants denied his death even as U.S. and Pakistani officials said they were increasingly confident...