Crippled, Chaotic Pakistan

For years, Pakistan has ignored the Obama administration’s pleas to crack down on militants who cross from Pakistan to attack American forces in Afghanistan. Recent cross-border raids by Taliban militants who kill Pakistani soldiers should give Islamabad a reason to take that complaint more seriously.

Last week, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, raised the issue in a meeting with Gen. John Allen, the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He demanded that NATO go after the militants on the Afghan side of the border, according to Pakistani news reports. General Allen demanded that Pakistan act against Afghan militants given safe haven by its security services, especially the Haqqani network, which is responsible for some of the worst attacks in Kabul.

Fighting extremists should be grounds for common cause, but there is no sign that Pakistan’s military leaders get it. They see the need to confront the virulent Afghan-based insurgency that threatens their own country and has killed thousands of Pakistani soldiers and civilians. But they refuse to cut ties with the Haqqanis and other militants, who give Islamabad leverage in Afghanistan and are the biggest threat to American efforts to stabilize that country. ….

Read more » The New York Times

Pakistan – Punjab government declares martial law in hospitals.

By: Nusrat Javed

Why Shahbaz Sharif always fails to address any crisis by political means and administrative tools put at his disposal? When he was the Chief Minister of Punjab the last time, he asked the Army to find out the ghost schools for him; his elder brother also asked the army to take care of electricity stealing and now Shahbaz has asked the army doctors to fill the void left by protesting doctors.

Courtesy: Bolta Pakistan facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/boltapakistan1/posts/372935972774149

via – Twitter.

Taliban bodies are ‘returned to Pakistan for burial’ – BBC

The bodies of nine Taliban fighters, who slipped over the border and attacked a Nato convoy in Afghanistan, have been returned to Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area for burial. They were part of a 50-member group of fighters loyal to militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

Many vehicles were torched in the attack on the convoy in Afghanistan’s Khost province two weeeks ago. But the fighters were killed in a Nato air raid that followed the attack. Residents in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, told the BBC that the dead fighters were between 15 and 25 years old and were from the area.