This is bad news no matter how you slice and dice it. Pakistan is releasing more than 2,500 Taliban and al Qaeda members back into the wilds of the Pakistani/Afghan border.
The Counterterrorism Blog notes that the prisoner release suggests serious weakness in the Musharaf government, and that this move staves off potential threats to the regime from the inside. Bill Roggio details some of those who were released - including midlevel Taliban and al Qaeda elements.
This prisoner release, along with the other inaction by Pakistan in recent weeks, suggests that successes in the past few years have been reversed in one fell swoop.
The real problem is that without Pakistan in the fight providing intel and assets, along with dealing with the al Qaeda threat from within Pakistan along with their export of al Qaeda and Taliban to Afghanistan, the fight in Afghanistan has just gotten far more difficult.
It also suggests that US strategic and tactical doctrine needs to adjust accordingly, including moving towards a far closer relationship with India, which has had to deal with Islamic terrorism on an ongoing basis. While not completely abandoning Musharaf to his fate (he does have his finger on a considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons), the US must take this situation into account going forward. And it appears that the Pakistani ISI is going to work on destabilizing the situation in India by having their agent-provocateurs appear as Hindus to blow Muslim shrines to incite violence.
Of course, al Jazeera calls Pakistan's war against the Taliban and al Qaeda elements a futile action. Nice to know where they stand.
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