The problem with Afghanistan is that every prescription has a noxious side-effect; every answer raises more questions.

The Taliban is trying to disrupt the second round of the Afghan elections, hence today’s attack on UN staff in Kabul. Having risked death to vote in the first round, and seeing how the government tried to cheat to stay in power, it seems likely that many Afghans won’t bother to vote on 7 November. Who can blame them? read more

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Najibullah Zazi has appeared in court in New York to plead not guilty to conspiring to use wepons of mass destruction. He is accused of being part of what is generally considered to be the most serious terrorism case inside the US since 9/11.

Authorities say it bears many similarities to the 7/7 London attacks, and could have resulted in significant loss of life if the plot hadn’t been disrupted.

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Pakistan is in the grip of a bloody, intense fight against the militants in its midst – those who have threatened its capital, its economy and its broad existence as a state – that has displaced millions.

But in the coming weeks a trial in a high-security courtroom in Mumbai means that the world’s attention is, unhelpfully for Islamabad, bound to focus on the Pakistani security services enduring relationship with a group that was, a few years ago, seen as merely a group of Kashmiri separatists, Lashkar-e-Taiba. read more

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I blame journalists. If we didn’t demand numbers, governments wouldn’t have to make them up.

How many people have been displaced by the fighting in Pakistan? According to the government, 2,882,642. read more

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MALAKAND, PAKISTAN – In Pakistan they have have a great sense of the continuity of history.

These days, local government officials are called district coordination officers or DCOs rather than political agents, but when I visited Malakand yesterday I noted that the sign on the gate still read “Political Agent’s Residence” as it must have done since 1895 when the British took control of the area.
 
Above the DCO’s desk was a wooden board listing the names of all the political agents of Dir, Swat, Chitral, Bajaur and Malakand Agency. read more

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My Pakistani journalist friend was clear. “This is the first serious effort by the Pakistani army since 9/11 to eliminate the Taliban.” In other words, the military assault to oust the militants from Swat shows that Pakistan’s strategic thinking has changed.

An intelligence contact reinforced the point. “It may have been America’s war in the past, but it’s no longer so,” he said. “It’s now our war and our security at stake.”

After General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took over as army chief last year, he read more

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LAHORE, PAKISTAN – One of the joys of working in Pakistan is that people here love the media. There are dozens of Pakistani newspapers and TV channels and every other Pakistani, it seems, is – or thinks he is – a journalist.

Of course the government – like most governments – wants to restrict or control coverage, but their own people can’t help themselves. They like us.

In a refugee camp in North West Frontier Province, two policemen came up and told us we had to report to the major. Oh no, I thought, we’re in trouble. read more

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MARDAN, PAKISTAN – The Taliban said they would take revenge for the attacks on them in the Swat valley, and they might do it anywhere in Pakistan.

It seems they have been as good as their word. This morning, we were in Mardan visiting refugees from the fighting in Swat when we heard about the blast in Lahore.

The refugees are the most obvious victims of this war, but the impact is being felt all over the country. read more

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In quieter times, Taj Mahmad pulls a cart loaded with vegetables for a living. But today’s Washington Post quotes him as saying that he fled government shelling so quickly that he and his wife were forced to leave their son and three-year-old daughter behind. “My wife cried and said the rest of us would be killed if we stayed, so we kept going,” Mr Mahmad says. “I have no idea what happened to them”.

Another refugee, Bakhte Rwan, tells the Associated Press that he found his wife and two sons dead after he’d returned home from prayers at his local mosque. read more

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