"The Lion of Herat"

Al Jazeera Eng­lish has a decent fea­ture on Ismail Khan, known as the “Lion of Herat” and one of the Taliban’s most implaca­ble foes. In the 1990s, as the mil­i­tant group was start­ing its march from the south, Khan held onto Herat in the west and set up schools (with par­ity for girls) and helped Herat […]

Jumping the Indus

Nicholas Schmi­dle, author of the upcom­ing book, “To Live or to Per­ish For­ever: Two Tumul­tuous Years in Pak­istan” spoke with the New Repub­lic about the attacks in Lahore and the claim of respon­si­bil­ity by Bait­ul­lah Mehsud. He makes some of the same points I did, in that the expan­sion of the Pash­tun insur­gency into Pun­jabi lands […]

So, Who's in Charge of Pakistan?

For­eign Affairs has a round­table up on Pak­istan and its mil­i­tary. (Or is that the other way around?) The con­sen­sus? The mil­i­tary rules and it’s totally para­noid about India, Rus­sia and being encir­cled after Amer­ica loses inter­est in Afghanistan. All this will make turn­ing around the war in Afghanistan a tough challenge.

Update on American 'Jihadist' in Somalia

Australia’s The Age has a report on Abu Man­soor al-Amriki incor­po­rat­ing some of the video I posted on yes­ter­day. The ambush he speaks of has not yet been verified.

Baitullah Mehsud Claims Lahore Attack, Threatens DC

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pak­istan leader Bait­ul­lah Mehsud claimed credit for yesterday’s attack on the Lahore police acad­emy and threat­ened retal­i­a­tion in Wash­ing­ton and the White House for stepped up US drone attacks. “We whole­heart­edly take respon­si­bil­ity for this attack and will carry out more such attacks in future,” he said in what may have been a taped recording […]