As Pakistan’s new campaign in Waziristan gears up, Mustafa Qadri examines the cost of the war for the increasingly dislocated civilian population
There was a time not so long ago when the violence emanating from Pakistan had a mythical quality. In no region of this troubled country has the hyperbole of terrorism been so thoroughly lathered than South Waziristan, the tribal agency bordering Afghanistan where, since last weekend, Pakistan’s army has been waging a massive campaign against the Taliban’s most robust stronghold.
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Tags: Baitullah Mehsud · FATA · Hakimullah Mehsud · Operation Rah-e-Nijat · Pakistan · Pakistan Taliban · Swat valley · Taliban · United States
The US has promised Pakistan $7.5bn of aid over five years – if it agrees to oversight of its most sensitive security issues
Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 20:00 BST
You would think that the citizens of a developing country promised $7.5bn over five years would be dancing in the streets. Instead, last week’s approval of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, formerly the Kerry-Lugar bill, by Congress met with widespread howls of condemnation in Pakistan.
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Tags: colonialism · democracy · Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act 2009 · FATA · Hillary Clinton · justice · Kerry-Lugar Bill · Pakistan · Pakistan Army · United States · war on terror
The recent upsurge of jihadi violence in Punjab, the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan’s provincial capital, Quetta, demonstrates the threat extremist Sunni-Deobandi groups pose to the Pakistani citizen and state.
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Tags: Deobandi Islam · FATA · International Crisis Group · NWFP · Pakistan · Sunni Islam · Taliban