And Then There Was One

Since the 9/11 attacks, the US has gone after al Qaeda all around the globe, and those efforts have paid off. The group is now down to essentially one recognizable face - Ayman al Zawahiri, who was Osama bin Laden's right hand man since the group came into existence.

Zawahiri is believed to be in the frontier provinces of Pakistan, and he's probably spending most of his time trying not to get caught by US spymasters who have the quite lethal UAVs at their disposal.

As a result, according to senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, there now remains only one leader of any consequence in al Qaeda and that is Ayman al Zawahiri, the tetchy Egyptian surgeon who became the head of the group following the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan in May 2011.

Zawahiri, presumably, is keenly aware of the fate of so many of his longtime colleagues in al Qaeda. He will be expending considerable energy not to end up on the business end of a missile fired by a CIA drone if he, too, is hiding in the Pakistani tribal regions where the drone strikes have been concentrated.

Meanwhile, Zawahiri faces an almost impossible task to follow through on al Qaeda's main mission: attacking the United States, or failing that, one of its close allies.
Al Qaeda hasn't conducted a successful attack in the West since the bombings on London's transportation system on July 7, 2005, and of course, the group hasn't succeeded in attacking the United States for more than a decade.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains committed to carrying out attacks against the US and its interests around the world but hasn't managed to successfully carry out the kind of high profile attacks that the group was known for previously. Attempts to take down airlines have failed, though the group only has to do so once in order to achieve its aims.

It's a far cry from the 9/11 attacks and the terror group's largest effort since the 9/11 attacks was in the London subway bombings in 2005.

The group remains committed to carrying out attacks, but the threat has morphed into concerns about lone wolf individuals or groups - terrorists who share goals but aren't directly tied to al Qaeda or Zawahiri.

Just because there are lesser known terrorists (though that list still includes Adam Gadahn and Adnan G. El Shukrijumah) involved in the group doesn't mean we should discount the threat. We need to recognize the work done to get to this point, and the hard work ahead in trying to keep the nation safe from these terror groups and individuals who are intent upon doing harm to the US. At the same time, the risks from a successful attack are quite low to most Americans.

Afghanistan-US Pact Means US Presence In Afghanistan For Foreseeable Future

Despite claims that US forces will be leaving Afghanistan by 2014, the fact is that the US will continue to maintain a presence in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future - a decade or longer.

The reasons have as much to do with geography as they do politics.

Afghanistan is vital not only because the US needs to continue to deny al Qaeda a breeding ground in the country that played host to al Qaeda in the runup to the 9/11 attacks, but because it is adjacent to the current breeding grounds for al Qaeda and its affiliated terror groups in Pakistan.

Details of the pact have yet to be released. But over the past year, top generals and Pentagon officials have sketched — in congressional testimony, interviews and forum discussions — an outline of how the U.S. will operate after the accord takes effect, following the departure of most U.S. troops in 2014. U.S. and Afghan troops will live together on joint bases formally operated by the Afghans. The U.S. mission for training Afghan soldiers and police will continue until 2017 or so, although for financial reasons, the size of those Afghan troops under U.S. mentorship will shrink after 2014. Starting immediately, Afghans will have significant if incomplete influence over U.S. commando raids.

But these mentorship missions will not be the most important ones the U.S. executes in Afghanistan after 2014. They’re merely the visible ones. And they’re the cost of getting to the missions the U.S. considers most important.


To be blunt: Afghanistan is valuable to the United States because it’s the most logical place from which to conduct a war in Pakistan that’s primarily fought by armed drones and occasionally special operations forces. It’s not really valuable in and of itself. The U.S. interests in Afghanistan, as defined by the Obama administration, are to keep Afghanistan from internal collapse so al-Qaida doesn’t return. President Hamid Karzai’s government is corrupt? Yawn. Dealing with that is an expensive diversion from the core issue.

The core issue, as the Obama team sees it, is that there’s a residual al-Qaida presence next door, in the Pakistani tribal areas. Because Pakistan won’t let U.S. troops overtly operate on its territory, the U.S. basically needs to rent some nearby property. Afghanistan doesn’t have much to offer the rest of the world — minerals, maybe? — but it has a lot of land abutting Pakistan.

That's right.

It's about maintaining forces close to Pakistani territory. Pakistan, which is nominally a US ally in the war on terror is itself the territory targeted with this deal so that the US can continue to target and eliminate al Qaeda and affiliated terrorists in the frontier provinces that Pakistan's government lacks the ability to contain.

The frontier provinces, including the NWFP and Waziristan, are a hotbed of terrorist activities, and cross-border attacks are all too common. Pakistan maintains nominal control over the territories, which operates autonomously and when Pakistan has sent in military forces to quell the terrorist activities, they've gotten savaged.

In the past three years, the frontier provinces have been increasingly targeted by American UAV airstrikes - hitting high value targets and tracking down links between various terrorists operating there, including the Mehsud clan and Haqqani network.

Those raids, along with the successful raid to eliminate Osama bin Laden, have caused tremendous friction between the US and Pakistani government and the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI). The Administration appears to be accepting the fact that relations with Pakistan will continue to be rocky, but there may be a tacit deal in place to allow the US to use Afghanistan as a staging area for its UAV strikes to go after targets that Pakistan deems inconvenient - the Islamic terror groups like al Qaeda and those other terror groups. Such a deal would give the Pakistani government the maneuvering space to decry UAV airstrikes, but give silent assent to those successful strikes that eliminate threats to Pakistani security as well. After all, the Haqqani network is as much a threat to Pakistan's government as it is to Afghanistan (or the US).

Continuing Fallout From US bin Laden Raid; US Launched Raids Into Pakistan Prior to Successful Bin Laden Raid

While the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden rightfully gets tons of press, it was hardly the first time that the elite DEVGRU/SEAL Team 6 operated within Pakistan with orders to go after high value targets. In fact, two such missions were carried out during the Bush Administration, but they came away without getting their targets. In one instance, the target was Ayman al Zawahiri.

But what it reveals is that last Monday's operation, which has sparked ferocious debate in Pakistan over national sovereignty, is far from the first time that elite US forces have mounted military operations on the ground in the nuclear-armed nation.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was to address parliament last night to reiterate a message driven home last week by Pakistani military chiefs - that the country would not tolerate any further breaches of sovereignty by the US or any other nation.

He was also expected to announce a parliamentary inquiry into the intelligence services' failure to detect bin Laden, who lived for five years under their noses in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani told senior Pakistani journalists last week that "certain red lines had been crossed" by the US military.

Several people present at that briefing have suggested the subtext of his message was that the US had crossed a line by carrying out an operation in an area where Pakistan's urban and increasingly anti-US population could bear witness to it.

The Navy SEAL operation in Bajaur Agency was first reported by The New York Times in 2008, which cited a former top CIA official as confirming the mission.

A former ISI station chief for Pakistan's Pashtun-dominated northwest and tribal areas from 2001 to 2003, Asad Munir, yesterday also confirmed the 2006 operation took place, and was different to the drone strike on a suspected Zawahiri compound in January of the same year that is said to have killed up to 25 civilians.

"They flew over in helicopters, people came out on ladders and searched the compound, found nothing, and flew back," Brigadier Munir told The Australian.

"It was known by the ISI, but not by the media, and never made it to the newspapers. It was a very low-profile operation, but I have no doubt that it occurred."

He said yet another operation occurred in 2008 just over the Afghan border in South Waziristan, in which three US special operations officers raided a madrassa suspected of being used as a base from which insurgents were firing on coalition forces.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former chief secretary of the northwest frontier province and Tribal Areas Commissioner, also confirmed the fact that last week's Navy SEALs raid was not the first on Pakistani soil.

What makes the bin Laden raid notable is that it was successful in getting the target - and it was as high profile a target as can be imagined. When the other raids didn't get their targets, the teams involved were able to slip away.

Moreover, it appears that the ISI and military were caught flat footed over the bin Laden raid, as compared to closer coordination in the prior raids. Considering how the ISI and military have their fingers in every aspect of the Pakistani economy and security apparatus, it's hard for some to believe that the ISI or military didn't know that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. In many respects, the ISI and military operate in the same fashion as Iran's IRGC does - complete with its own economic support system outside that of the local economy.

The Pakistani leadership is clearly red-faced in public over the raid; and they are quick to lay blame on the US for carrying out the raid even though there are ongoing indications that a significant segment of the Pakistani public and military and ISI are predisposed to bin Laden's worldview and radicalization.

At the same time, there are now reports that the US and Pakistan had worked out a deal a decade ago that the US would go after bin Laden in Pakistan. It was a secret deal between Pervez Musharraf and President Bush. Pakistani forces would allow unilateral raids by the US to go after bin Laden or Zawahiri.

The United States repeatedly told Pakistan that Washington would send American forces into that country if it had evidence that Osama bin Laden was hiding there, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The message that the United States would not hesitate to send American operatives into Pakistan to get bin Laden was transmitted to top Pakistani officials on multiple occasions by the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, said a U.S. national security official who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information.

A former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was an "understanding" between Washington and Islamabad that amounted to an acknowledgment by Pakistani authorities that the United States would take unilateral action on Pakistani soil if it had intelligence on the al Qaeda leader's whereabouts.

Of course, the news of the secret deal has gotten the usual suspects in Pakistan upset. Even Musharraf originally stated that the US was in the wrong for going after bin Laden in Pakistan last week. Did anyone in the current government know about the deal, even as they were quick to blame the US for invading and violating their sovereignty. The nationalists in the Pakistani government are quick to blame the US, even though bin Laden was living under the Pakistani noses for years without anyone seeming to know anything about it.

Now, it's possible that Musharraf didn't inform the current Pakistani government or that the US didn't reiterate that understanding, but I find that hard to believe. Instead, it's much more likely that the Pakistanis wanted to find fault with the US actions because it shows just how little the US trusts the Pakistani ISI and military to keep a secret - and the possibility that the ISI/military could have been tipping off key al Qaeda/Taliban to avoid being captured/killed in these raids.

The question of Pakistani sovereignty is an odd one when one further considers that the Pakistanis can barely control their own territory - the frontier provinces are autonomous and Pakistani military forces operate there at their own risk because of Taliban and al Qaeda threats.

Meanwhile, bin Laden's son, Omar, is busy comparing the US raid to kill his father to an assassination and that Osama was denied some form of due process.

“When Osama did not resist, why wasn’t he arrested? After being killed, why didn’t the family get to identify him? Why was he buried at sea when that is against their Islamic beliefs?”

The questions were posted by Jean Sasson, an American writer, on her blog on Tuesday. Sasson helped bin Laden’s son Omar bin Laden write the memoir, “Growing Up bin Laden.” He has publicly denounced his father’s terrorism, but is still seeking answers to the circumstances around his death.

Sasson provided a further statement to the New York Times from Omar bin Laden, that said, “We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems ... justice must be seen to be done.”

Cry me a river - bin Laden declared war on the US; he never gave any of his thousands of victims due process; and that he wasn't armed when the raid happened doesn't detract from the fact that he was a mass murderer who was essentially caught with his pants down (lacking weapons and inadequate security) when the SEAL team killed him.

Who Will Follow Bin Laden as Head of Al Qaeda?

While much of the speculation as to who will assume the role as top terrorist in al Qaeda has fallen on Ayman al Zawahiri, there appears to be rumblings over whether he is sufficiently charismatic enough to keep the group going and whether he can get along with other terrorists.

Other possibilities include Anwar al Awlaki, whose followers have carried out several high profile attempted attacks in recent years.

Yet, there's one figure who hasn't quite made the headlines in the US who may be in a position to take over al Qaeda. He's a former Pakistani commando known as Ilyas Kashmiri.

An elusive figure who often wears heavily tinted aviator glasses, Kashmiri remains at large and active in plotting new attacks against the West, U.S. officials say. It was Kashmiri who, according to U.S. officials, was the key figure behind a suspected plot for multiple attacks in European cities, patterned after the 2008 Mumbai terror strike, which led to a widely publicized State Department travel advisory in October.

While Ayman al-Zawahri remains the “presumed” successor to bin Laden, the longtime al-Qaida deputy is deeply unpopular in some circles and his elevation is by no means guaranteed, a senior U.S. official told reporters this weekend. If al-Zawahri doesn’t make it, Kashmiri may emerge as the dark horse in the ensuing power struggle, the official told NBC on Monday.

“His star has been on the rise for the last several years,” said the official. “He would have to be on the al-Qaida short list.”

Kashmiri was at one point a member of the Pakistani military, serving as a commando in a Special Services Group that was once tasked with training Afghan mujahedeen to fight the Soviets.

He was later reassigned to train Kashmiri fighters against the Indians, but broke from the Pakistani army and joined a terrorist group — called Harakat-ul Jihad-i-Islami, or HUJI (“Movement of Islamic Holy War”) — that has been closely aligned with al-Qaida.


So far, U.S. officials have remained tight-lipped on whether they have found evidence in bin Laden’s compound that shows direct contacts between the now deceased al-Qaida leader and Kashmiri. But hints of such links — and of Kashmiri’s interest in mass casualty terror plots — are contained in U.S. court documents.

While Kashmiri was originally trained and worked closely with the Pakistani military and security services, he turned on Pervez Musharaf's regime and even targeted him in assassination attempts. His cadre of terrorists have carried out attacks in Pakistan, India, Kashmir, and plotted against the West, including a plot against Jyllands Posten for their running cartoons depicting Mohammad.

He's known to use the frontier provinces of Pakistan as his base of operations.

The US labeled him a specially designated global terrorist in August 2010, which puts him in the same ranks as the ex-bin Laden and Zawahiri. The US has attempted to carry out UAV airstrikes against him in the past, and have come close on several occasions, particularly after capturing several of his top henchmen.

Depending on who to believe, one would think that al Qaeda had three spheres of operation - the strategic, military, and ideological - with bin Laden, Kashmiri, and Zawahiri running each, respectively. However, with bin Laden's death and the cache of intel gathered from his compound in Abbottabad, that thinking may have been sorely misguided. It would appear that bin Laden was in command and control over most operational and strategic thinking of the terror group, using couriers to shuttle information between him and his subordinates.

Kashmiri, being central to these discussions, therefore may be in a better position to assume the leadership role. He's got the military credibility among the Taliban and knows his way through the region better than others, including Zawahiri. He also benefits from knowing Pakistani tactics and probabilities - where and how the Pakistanis operate their security forces and military. That's invaluable in evading capture or being struck in Pakistani airstrikes.

More Details Emerge On Raid That Got Bin Laden; And One That Missed

Now that al Qaeda has itself admitted that yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, the deathers (aka those who don't believe President Obama when he says that bin Laden is dead) will relent and admit that bin Laden is indeed dead as President Obama says? Any takers on that? I'll even give odds.

No? Good. Because some people will never admit that bin Laden was killed in that raid.

In any event, bin Laden was quite busy while lounging in that Abbottabad compound all these years (his wife says she never left in all that time) plotting and planning further attacks. That he was focusing on railways around the world, and particularly in the US is quite troublesome because rail security particularly in the US has always lagged that of the airlines.

The US has also carried out the first UAV airstrike since bin Laden's death, targeting terrorists in the frontier province of Waziristan:

A suspected CIA drone strike targeted a hotel Thursday in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan’s borderlands, killing eight people, according to Pakistani news reports.

A series of missiles pounded the town of Datta Khel, near what U.S. officials believe is the headquarters of the Haqqani network, an Afghan insurgent force that has staged deadly bombings in Afghan cities and regularly attacks NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, as details continue to leak about the raid that killed bin Laden, we're learning about the efforts that came up short to get bin Laden in the past.

The NYT reports that intel had indicated that bin Laden may have contemplated a meeting in Tora Bora in 2007, and that a mission was planned and aircraft routed to intercept, but were called back when the intel turned out to be less than reliable and concerns raised about collateral damage. That instead led to a commando mission - killing a bunch of terrorists, but revealing that bin Laden wasn't among them.

“We thought we had ‘No. 1’ on this side of the border,” said a senior American military officer involved in planning the operation. “It was the best intelligence we’d had on him in a long time.”

The military set into motion one of the largest strike missions of its kind, with long-range bombers, attack helicopters, artillery and commandos all ready to pummel the rugged mountain valley along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, according to military officers and former government officials.

But just as the half dozen B-2 Stealth bombers were halfway on the 3,000-mile flight to their target, commanders ordered them to return to their secret base in the Indian Ocean, because of doubts about the intelligence on Bin Laden and concerns about civilian casualties from the bombs.

A smaller, more precise raid was carried out by commandos and attack helicopters, killing several dozen militants in the episode, which has not been previously disclosed.

But the founder and formative figure of Al Qaeda was not there.

Inside the White House, the disappointment was palpable, according to senior aides to former President George W. Bush. What might have been Mr. Bush’s last chance at redeeming his administration’s failure to capture or kill Bin Laden after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, when he was cornered in the same Tora Bora region but escaped into Pakistan, did not materialize.

Amid the national relief over the killing of Bin Laden by a Navy Seal team in Abbottabad, Pakistan, this secret chapter in the hunt for the world’s most famous fugitive is a reminder of the years of frustration and false hopes government officials endured in trying to pick up his trail.

Note too that this was after the shutdown of the bin Laden section in the CIA by the Bush Administration.

It also shows that the CIA was still not on the ball when it came to bin Laden and al Qaeda's operational hierarchy. After all, the CIA was stating at that time that:

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

The US focus had shifted towards going after al Qaeda's mid level terror network, perhaps hoping to lead to the high value targets in the process. That too may have led them to carry out the 2007 attack in the hopes of capturing or killing bin Laden.

UPDATE:
The Pakistanis can cooperate only so much without setting off the Islamists in a serious way. One report today indicated that the Pakistanis knew to some extent about the raid and have to claim otherwise to keep the Islamists from jumping ugly in a serious way to overthrow the government.

Another report indicates that the US informed the Pakistanis that they were carrying out this mission - while the mission was already underway. Details may or may not be accurate that the Pakistanis had scrambled jets to deal with the inbound flight of US helicopters and were sent away once notification reached the Pakistani military. The lede on that report was that the US could have been close to having a disastrous run-in with the Pakistani military during the mission inside Pakistan's borders with disastrous consequences for both sides.

If the Pakistanis are now scrambling to make more arrests, that intel could come one of four different paths: (1) directly from the people who the US left behind at Abbottabad, (2) the US could have sent them the necessary intel; (3) gathered from independent sources completely; (4) combination of sources. No way to know for sure.

It's the same deal about today's UAV airstrike - there's no way to know if it is connected with the OBL mission raid intel cache, or whether it was planned separately.

UPDATE:
It appears that the CIA was tracking the Abbottabad compound from a house nearby. They used a variety of electronic eavesdropping methods, but the agency refuses to comment on those reports. Some means and methods should not be revealed, lest they reveal too much about tactics and capabilities that the US uses to track down al Qaeda and other high value targets around the world.

UPDATE:
Further evidence of Pakistani duplicity - based on statements being released from the Pakistanis themselves. It raises still more troubling details in the bin Laden search over the years - particularly in how the Pakistanis were involved, especially as it relates to bin Laden's wife who is now in Pakistani custody.

A few key points from the story: She’s now in Pakistani custody, recovering from the gunshot wound; U.S. intelligence officials are unlikely to get the chance to speak with her. After 9/11 when the Afghan campaign began, Pakistan’s government reportedly gave her haven and helped her return to Yemen. She later reentered Pakistan to join her husband, which, as McGirk writes, points out a potentially major intelligence lapse in hindsight: Why take years deciphering courier aliases when bin Laden’s wife could have led them right to him?

On top of that, there’s this detail of further alleged Pakistani duplicity, which will only further inflame tensions at a delicate moment:

Says [an] Arab woman formerly connected to al-Qaeda: “There was an understanding with the Pakistani army. We would get a tip-off that the army planned to raid one of our houses in the tribal area. We would flee but leave some ‘evidence’ behind so that the army could show to the Americans that we’d been there.”

I have no doubt that the latter may help explain the former. If the CIA believed that the Pakistanis were laying down a false trail or were coopted by al Qaeda, then trying to track down bin Laden based on his wife's whereabouts could have been seen as a false trail. This reinforces the notion that the Pakistanis were apparently left in the dark about the operation because the US didn't trust elements within the Pakistani government to not tip off al Qaeda and bin Laden. It also explains, in part, why the Pakistanis aren't going to let the CIA and US officials anywhere near her. On top of cultural and religious misgivings over such interrogations, bin Laden's wife would likely reveal much about bin Laden and al Qaeda's relationship with those within the security services and military.

UPDATE:
Apparently the Pakistanis understand the visuals of the situation, and they may have decided that the best course of action is to sack the head of the Pakistani intel services (ISI):

To allay both domestic and international anger and dismay over the presence of Osama bin Laden in a military cantonment town close to the capital, senior Pakistani officials have told The Daily Beast they recognize that an important head has to roll and soon. They say the most likely candidate to be the fall guy is Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the director general of the country’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. In a last ditch effort to control the damage and to assure the US that the ISI was not harboring him and was unaware of his presence in Pakistan, Pasha reportedly flew to Washington today. But these high-level sources who refused to be quoted or named say his resignation is only a matter of time.

Fallout from Bin Laden's Death and What Did Pakistan Know?

Fallout from the death of Osama bin Laden continues to ripple throughout the world. Bin Laden's burial at sea has been criticized, even though that's a far better fate than the nearly 3,000 who were murdered at the World Trade Center. Some criticize that the US was too respectful, while others claim the US was not respectful enough. To me, that says that the US got it right - and I believe that the burial at sea was necessary to eliminate any possibility that his burial site could be treated as a rallying point.

As new details of the raid continue to leak out, the real questions are being pointed in the direction of Pakistan. What did they know and when did they know that bin Laden was living large in their country?

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari submitted an op-ed in the Washington Post today in response to the US mission that killed Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbotabad, just miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Let us be frank. Pakistan has paid an enormous price for its stand against terrorism. More of our soldiers have died than all of NATO’s casualties combined. Two thousand police officers, as many as 30,000 innocent civilians and a generation of social progress for our people have been lost. And for me, justice against bin Laden was not just political; it was also personal, as the terrorists murdered our greatest leader, the mother of my children. Twice he tried to assassinate my wife. In 1989 he poured $50 million into a no-confidence vote to topple her first government. She said that she was bin Laden’s worst nightmare — a democratically elected, progressive, moderate, pluralistic female leader. She was right, and she paid for it with her life.

Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as as it is America’s. And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.

My government endorses the words of President Obama and appreciates the credit he gave us Sunday night for the successful operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. We also applaud and endorse the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we must “press forward, bolstering our partnerships, strengthening our networks, investing in a positive vision of peace and progress, and relentlessly pursuing the murderers who target innocent people.” We have not yet won this war, but we now clearly can see the beginning of the end, and the kind of South and Central Asia that lies in our future.

Only hours after bin Laden’s death, the Taliban reacted by blaming the government of Pakistan and calling for retribution against its leaders, and specifically against me as the nation’s president. We will not be intimidated. Pakistan has never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media.

Zardari is in a real tough position right now. He's got to simultaneously defend his country from claims that he was harboring al Qaeda's top dog, claiming that he was providing assistance (unidentified and uncorroborated by US officials who have studiously stated that they shared no aspects of this mission with any other country, including Pakistan), and has to be worried that the Islamists will try to topple his government because of its existing ties with the US (a belief that the government is complicit with the US even if there was no actual). Given the way that Pakistanis love their conspiracy theories (even more than the nutjobs who think Osama wasn't real, wasn't killed, or any permutation thereof), all kinds of speculation is rampant in Pakistan right now over what Pakistan's government knew and when did they know of it.

Fact is, no one really knows what the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden's location, but it is highly suspicious that he was able to live in relative comfort in a compound just yards from the country's military academy and where military personnel go to retire. It is plausible that members of the military or the ISI were complicit in keeping bin Laden's whereabouts hidden but it once again indicates the difficulty of trusting the Pakistani government to reveal key details. Those questions are being asked by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle - and they have good reason to ask those questions. Similar questions are being asked by other countries, including the UK.

Zardari is right to state that his country has been ravaged by Islamic terrorists, particularly Taliban and al Qaeda. Yet, each time the Pakistani government (whether under Zardari or his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf) cracks down, it doesn't go far enough to eliminate the threat. It does just enough - anything more and the Islamists in the Pakistani government (Parliament, military, ISI) would thwart further action.

He further claims that radical Islamist parties make up a small fraction of his government, but that overlooks those other groups that lean towards radicalism and who do not condone crackdowns against the Islamists.

Pakistan barely maintains control over the frontier provinces, which are overrun with Taliban and have hosted al Qaeda for years on end. Efforts to thwart the Taliban have met with mixed success - and the body count among Pakistani soldiers is quite high and

The country can't align itself too greatly with the US for fear of assassinations or coups to install a more Islamist government, but doing nothing allows the Islamists free reign in the frontier provinces.

The question of what Pakistan knew and who knew might be revealed in the treasure trove of intel captured by the special forces team that carried out the mission. They recovered numerous computers, hard drives, thumb drives, and other intel that can be critical to unraveling the logistical network and other contacts, as well as identifying other key members and locations. It could also shed light on other planned or contemplated targets.

Bin Laden's death may also result in a reappraisal of ongoing military operations by the ISAF in Afghanistan, including the possible withdrawal of troops earlier than 2014. I think that would be a serious mistake, considering that al Qaeda and the Taliban remain a serious threat, and allowing them safe haven is a mistake.

US Seeks To Expand Military Strikes In Pakistan

NYTimes: U.S. Military Seeks to Expand Raids in Pakistan. The US is looking at expanding raids in Pakistan to deal with the ongoing Taliban threat. It is one of the policies and hallmarks of the Obama administration that has carried out UAV airstrikes more frequently than his predecessor. However, Pakistanis aren't likely to go along with the change unless additional aid is forthcoming. It is also likely to result in additional problems for Pakistan in the frontier provinces where the Taliban maintain their safe havens.

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UPDATE:
These raids wouldn't be the UAV airstrikes we've seen in the past, but special forces operating deep behind the national boundaries of an official ally, even though Pakistan doesn't maintain strict and authoritative control over the frontier provinces. It's a sticky wicket that deserves closer scrutiny and the issue has come up numerous times in the past few years, including during the 2008 presidential campaign when then candidate Barack Obama called for invading Pakistan. Now, some of his military commanders are pushing for that very strategy to go and eradicate the Taliban threat posed by those safe havens. Pakistan has long refused to go fully after the Taliban clans that frequently cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the last time they made a concerted effort, the Pakistani military didn't come off very well.

This news may be an effort to spur the Pakistani government to once again take more action against the Taliban.

The Times report is most notable for a new development on the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda - the US has been backing Afghan militias that carry out cross-border raids:

Additionally, in recent years, Afghan militias backed by the C.I.A. have carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal areas. These operations in Pakistan by Afghan operatives, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, have been previously reported as solely intelligence-gathering operations. But interviews in recent weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.

This latter bit may prove to be quite problematic since it shows that the US is backing groups that attack those living on the Pakistani side of the border, and Pakistan may not take kindly to such actions in their official response even if they give them a wink and nod unofficially because the Pakistani government in Islamabad can't directly deal with the Taliban or al Qaeda for fear of upsetting the Islamists who dominate the country.

UPDATE:
The Christian Science Monitor reports that NATO is denying the reports that the US wants to expand special forces operations into Pakistan.

A spokesperson for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan today rebuffed a report that senior US military officials in Afghanistan are seeking to expand raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas.

"There is absolutely no truth to reporting in The New York Times that US forces are planning to conduct ground operations into Pakistan," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, deputy chief of staff for communication for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said in a statement from Kabul, according to Reuters.

The Los Angeles Times adds that Smith's "sharply worded statement underscored the extreme sensitivities surrounding the subject of militant sanctuaries in Pakistan."

US allies are wary of potential repercussions because their logistics are so thinly stretched and are reluctant to engage in directly fighting the Taliban - leaving those efforts up to the US. Supply lines in Pakistan have come under attack on numerous occasions in the past couple of years, destroying convoys of vehicles and equipment destined for NATO troops in Afghanistan. It is possible that the Times report was accurate, but efforts to win NATO commanders over to the idea hasn't gained traction, which is why the denial was issued.

UAV Airstrike Kills German Militants In Pakistan As Unrest Continues

A United States UAV airstrike in the Waziristan town of Mir Ali appears to have taken out a bunch of German militants. The exact number of casualties is not yet known, but it is highly unusual for such a large concentration of foreign terrorists to congregate in the area.

Pakistani intelligence officials say five German militants are believed to have been killed in an American missile strike close to the Afghan border.

The officials say the missiles hit a house in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan region late Monday.

Two say the victims were believed to be German citizens in the region for terrorist training.

A third says they were believed to be foreigners, but gave no details.

A Reuters report said eight militants of German nationality were killed by missiles from a pilotless aircraft.

The officials spoke anonymously because their agency does not permit operatives to be named in the media.

This comes on the heels of NATO convoys to Afghanistan being repeatedly attacked in Pakistan, which has put the NATO efforts under considerable strain.

It's also on the heels of alerts in Europe over potential terror attacks. The US State Department issued warnings to those Americans visiting Europe to be vigilant (as if that isn't what people should be doing generally).

There were 21 UAV airstrikes this past September - the most for any month.

The CIA has been trying to eliminate leaders of the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction operating out of North Waziristan which is seen as one of the most effective forces fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

North Waziristan is home to a variety of militant groups, some fighting the Pakistani government, others battling U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Some militants are foreigners who have taken up the cause of holy war against the West and see North Waziristan as a safe haven or training ground.

U.S. and British alerts about possible attacks in Europe highlight concern that growing numbers of militants are going from the West to remote war zones for training in answer to al Qaeda's online call for violence.

The immediate trigger for Sunday's travel alerts was intelligence about a plot against European targets reportedly originating with a group of individuals in mountainous northern Pakistan, some of them believed to be European citizens.

Few details of the conspiracy are known. But the plot appears to be of the kind that Western officials believe poses the most significant danger today -- the use of so-called self-radicalized militants with no previous record of extremism.

This area has been the focus of military action for quite some time. Mir Ali was the scene of a major Pakistani military action in 2007, where Pakistani troops killed nearly 200 people, most of whom were terrorists, though the Pakistani forces got bloodied in the process. Quite a few of the UAV airstrikes have been directed in the vicinity of Mir Ali.

Big Fish Watch: Al Qaeda Number 3; Osama's Brother In Law Killed?

If this can be confirmed, it's a real big fish. Al Qaeda's number 3 - and who happens to be Osama Bin Laden's brother in law, was allegedly killed in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

Al-Qaida's number three — a co-founder of the terror network and Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law — has been killed in Pakistan's border area with Afghanistan, according to a statement attributed to the group that was posted on Islamist websites Monday.

The statement did not say how Shaykh Saeed, whose real name is Shaykh Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, was killed nor did it identify a successor. Saeed was also al-Qaida's financial director.

One senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity told NBC News that Saeed was killed in an attack by a missile-carrying drone aircraft.

Another official said that "in terms of counterterrorism this would be a big victory," describing Saeed as "the group's chief operating officer, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning. He was also the organization's prime conduit to Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. He was key to al-Qaida's command and control."

How he was killed? It would appear to be a UAV airstrike.

Detained Americans In Pakistan To Be Deported: UPDATE: Or Not?

Five American citizens who had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicions of trying to link up with terrorist groups are being deported back to the US.

The men have allegedly told investigators they tried to connect with al-Qaida-linked militant groups in Pakistan and were intending to cross the border into Afghanistan and fight U.S. troops there.

They were reported missing by their families in the Washington D.C. area a week ago after one of them left behind a militaristic farewell video saying Muslims must be defended.

The men used the social networking site Facebook and Internet video site YouTube to try to connect with extremist groups in Pakistan. When they arrived in Pakistan, they took that effort to the street.

Pakistani police detained them this week -- along with one of their fathers -- in the town of Sargodha in eastern Pakistan.

Regional police chief Javed Islam said the men had yet to be charged with any crime but they would "most probably" be deported. He declined to say how long police could hold them before they were charged.

U.S. officials, including some from the FBI, have visited the men in custody.

The case has fanned fears that Americans and other Westerns -- especially those of Pakistani descent -- are traveling to Pakistan to join up with al-Qaida and other militant groups. It comes on the heels of charges against a Chicago man of Pakistani origin who is accused of surveying targets for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

One of the men left a lengthy video recording akin to a martyrdom tape done by jihadis around the world. Their families contacted CAIR and law enforcement, and spurred a manhunt for the five. CAIR acted properly in the case and did what it should have been doing all along - assisting law enforcement root out jihadis in the midst of the Muslim community. The father of one of the men is also under arrest in the US for not cooperating with the FBI because he knew that the five had gone to Pakistan.

The five planned on going to Waziristan, which is ground zero of the Taliban war against Pakistan and has continued to play safe haven for jihadis seeking to attack the US and Afghan forces inside Afghanistan as well. They were up to no good, and came to the attention of one of the jihadi leaders.

The men appeared to have come to the attention of “Saifullah” — an Islamic militant with links to Al Qaeda — through their YouTube activities, the police chief said. Saifullah traced their e mail addresses through YouTube, Chief Anwar said.

After establishing the Internet connection with the militant, the men planned their journey to Pakistan and into the tough terrain of North Waziristan, where they intended to train around the border town of Miram Shah, a headquarters of the Afghan Taliban fighting against the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the police said.

The men were carrying laptops and maps of Miram Shah, as well as Kohat and Hangu, two major towns in the North-West Frontier Province that serve as the gateway to the tribal areas and North Waziristan, the police said.

Sargodha is about a seven-hour drive from Miram Shah over a route that is increasingly well traveled by Pakistani militants from Punjab who head to the Waziristans for training in explosives and weapons conducted by the Taliban and Qaeda operatives. In the last six months, 24 militants have been arrested in Sargodha, all of them with ties to the Taliban and Waziristan, the police said recently.

One of the five, Waqar Khan, had $25,000 with him for the trip. The others arrested are: Ramy Zamzam, 22, a dental student of Egyptian background at Howard University, who was described as a sort of “ringleader”; Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, born in Eritrea; and Aman Hassan Yemer, 18, a native Ethiopian. Mr. Khan is of Pakistani background and was reported to have family connections in Karachi.

UPDATE:
Fox News is reporting that the Pakistanis are not yet ready to issue a deportation order. Pakistani officials say that no order will be issued until both the US and Pakistanis complete their investigations.

Developing: US Officials Say Top Al Qaeda Terrorist Killed In Airstrike

The US says that they've killed a high ranking al Qaeda terrorist somewhere in Pakistan via a UAV airstrike. Pakistan denies that any such event took place. The officials wont confirm who was killed, but only that it wasn't Osama bin Laden.

A “high-ranking” al-Qaida figure was killed Thursday in an attack by a drone aircraft, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The officials did not identify who was killed, except to say that it was not al-Qaida’s supreme leader, Osama bin Laden. If the report is confirmed, it would be the first time coalition forces had killed a top al-Qaida figure in almost a year.

The officials said the killing was the result of stepped-up operations targeting al-Qaida leaders in recent weeks.

Bill Roggio at Long War Journal confirmed that the strike did take place, and that the Pakistani denials of several other strikes were inaccurate. No word on who the target was, but it was the first strikes in South Waziristan since Pakistani forces began their operations to root out Taliban elements who have been wreaking havoc in Pakistan via terror attacks against marketplaces and even against military and intel targets.

The Pakistani denials may be part of trying to maintain morale among Pakistani forces who have not yet achieved their goals along with undermining US efforts to go after top leadership in the past year in a stepped-up UAV airstrike campaign.

AP: Terrorists Now Headlined As Gangsters

The AP reports that Pakistani police engaged a bunch of terrorists and killed one and captured five others, all while seizing a bunch of suicide vests, grenades, guns, and ammunition. So, how does the AP headline this report?

Pakistani police arrest gang accused in bombing.

Police said the commandos encountered fierce resistance when they stormed the compound in the village of Kaka Khel near Peshawar, the largest city in the area and the main gateway to the Afghan border region where many al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents are based.

Militants have carried out a wave of deadly attacks in and around Peshawar in apparent retaliation for an army offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan.

Three suicide jackets as well as a number of bombs, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons were seized from the compound, regional police Chief Liaquat Ali Khan said.

He said one suspect was killed and five others arrested following a gunbattle that lasted more than two hours. A search operation for more militants continued in the area, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Peshawar.

The detained are suspected of involvement in recent bombings and other attacks not only in Peshawar but in Islamabad and its sister city of Rawalpindi, Khan said, declining to be more specific.

In the latest major attack, a team of gunmen and suicide bombers struck a mosque Friday in Rawalpindi, killing 37 people, including several senior army officers.

These aren't mere gangsters, but terrorists who are seeking to undermine the Pakistani government and pushing an Islamist agenda. They want autonomy in the frontier provinces and are aligned with the Taliban in the NWFP and Waziristan to establish and maintain safe havens there for the Taliban and their al Qaeda affiliates. The terrorists continue their war against the Pakistani government and are using an agreement between certain Taliban groups and the government to spread their ideology and operate against the government forces in the region.

The Afghan Conundrum

The US casualties in the last four months in the Afghan campaign are in part the result of more aggressive campaign to root out Taliban; we saw a similar spike in casualties during the surge in Iraq. However, those casualties are weighing heavily on the Obama Administration and their decision making process as to whether to increase troop numbers to root out the Taliban or pursue a reduced troop commitment while increasing reliance on air strikes, particularly via UAVs.

The problem is the perception of dithering by the Administration is going to lead to problems on the battlefield as the Taliban watch the news as well. They see that they may be about to outlast the US efforts and if enough casualties are imposed on US forces, Obama may go the route of limiting/curtailing any troop increase or opt to slowly reduce troop numbers in Afghanistan despite an ongoing presence of Taliban/al Qaeda in Afghanistan and along the Afghan/Pak border.

At the same time, the Pakistanis are continuing their military efforts in the frontier provinces and taking casualties, even as they're dishing it out to the Taliban.

The base problem with the Obama Administration is that they're looking to put political expediency ahead of strategic and tactical military concerns. Even if that isn't their intention, the appearance of just that is strong enough to warrant concern and question the Administration's commitment to the Afghan campaign.

Moreover, it will be interesting to see how the Administration addresses the Afghan government following Abdullah's dropping out from the runoff election. The Administration was quick to accept the bogus election results in Iran with a bunch of tyrannical mullahs who had no problem slaughtering opposition members marching in the street demanding that the vote be recounted. Here, what will the Administration do? Will they shape their Afghan policy and curtail efforts or will they accept the disputed results and work towards improving the situation?

If they curtail the efforts and somehow use the disputed elections as a wedge, it would be extremely troublesome particularly because the Administration would be pursuing a strategy that undermines our military efforts, distances ourselves from our allies, and once again shows that the Administration is more willing to deal with our enemies than to stand by our allies, even when our allies aren't quite up to snuff on matters like elections.

Islamic Terrorists Again Strike At Pakistan's Nuclear Infrastructure

A suicide bomber struck at a facility linked to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, killing seven people. That's in addition to another terror attack in Pakistan killing 17 aboard a bus that was heading to a wedding. Just yesterday, a Pakistani general was killed by a suicide bomber.

These attacks should be unsettling, and rightfully so.

Pakistan has a significant nuclear arsenal, and they are on the front lines against the Taliban and al Qaeda. The terrorists have again struck at the heart of Pakistan's nuclear program; this is the fourth time in the past three years that they have carried out successful attacks against sites linked to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. The Karma Air Station where the latest attack occurred is where unassembled nuclear weapons are maintained, and can be assembled for use within hours.

The previous attacks include the following:

... an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan's nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons assembly.

All this news has been seriously underreported by the West, and the seriousness of the situation underscores the problems in Afghanistan as well. Al Qaeda and Taliban elements continue to operate largely with impunity from Pakistani territory inside the frontier provinces, and engage in attacks against Afghanistan regularly.

The Pakistani military has started making increasing efforts to go after the Taliban in South Waziristan and the Taliban claim that the latest attack was retribution for the continuing operations. The Pakistani military has to get a handle on the situation, if only to further secure their nuclear program from additional attacks.

Inside Pakistan's Terror Training Camps

The threat of international terrorism isn't going away anytime soon, and Pakistan continues to be an epicenter of the al Qaeda terror training camps, despite the ongoing US efforts to target mid and high level al Qaeda terror masters on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with UAV airstrikes.

The Telegraph reports that Pakistani forces have come across an al Qaeda terror training camp consisting primarily of Germans who converted to Islam and who intend to fight under the banner of al Qaeda. The report calls this a village, but it's truly a rallying point for al Qaeda's foreign fighters in Pakistan:

The village, in Taliban-controlled Waziristan, is run by the notorious al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which plots raids on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

A recruitment video presents life in the village as a desirable lifestyle choice with schools, hospitals, pharmacies and day care centres, all at a safe distance from the front.

In the video, the presenter, "Abu Adam", the public face of the group in Germany, points his finger and asks: "Doesn't it appeal to you? We warmly invite you to join us!"

According to German foreign ministry officials a growing number of German families, many of North African descent, have taken up the offer and travelled to Waziristan where supporters say converts make up some of the insurgents' most dedicated fighters.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has a foothold in several German cities, has capitalised on growing concern over the rising profile of German forces in Afghanistan. Their role has become increasingly controversial in Germany in recent weeks after dozens of civilians were killed in an air strike ordered by German officers.

Last night a foreign ministry spokesman told The Daily Telegraph they were now negotiating with Pakistani authorities for the release of six Germans, including "Adrian M", a white Muslim convert, his Eritrean wife and their four year old daughter, who were arrested as they were making their way to the "German village". They are particularly concerned about the welfare of the child.

They are being held in custody in Peshawar after their arrest in May shortly when they crossed the border from Iran. They are understood to have left Germany in March this year.

This news also shows the ongoing efforts of al Qaeda to recruit jihadis from Europe and elsewhere to fight in the jihad, particularly among those who have recently converted to Islam.

Confirmed? Baitullah Mehsud Killed In Airstrike Says Captured Taliban Spokesman

This would indeed be good news. All too frequently, confirmation of successful airstrikes against high value targets is hard to come by because of an inability to obtain proof that the target was indeed killed. However, this report appears to give credence to the reports that have been circulating that Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a UAV airstrike.

The death of Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud has been confirmed by his close aide who was on Tuesday captured by local
militiamen in country’s northwestern tribal region, government officials said.

"Maulvi Omer has confirmed to security officials that Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a missile strike by a US drone," NWFP information minister Iftikhar Hussain told media.

Maulvi Omer who, until recent, was a mouthpiece for the Baitullah Mehsud-led TTP, was arrested along with his two colleagues by local pro-government militia in the restive Mohmand Agency. The militia then handed him over to security forces. The captured militant leader was going on foot to the Bajaur Agency, his native tribal town.

Earlier Omer declined that Mehsud was killed in a missile strike in Waziristan. "Yes, we have arrested Maulvi Omar and he will shortly be produced before the media", a senior military official said.

Omer's (sometimes reported as Umar) capture was not the only high profile target captured in recent days.

Umar's capture came a day after police arrested militant commander Qair Saifullah, another close Mehsud aide, as he was being treated in a private hospital in Islamabad, the capital.

Saifullah, who is reportedly linked to al-Qaida, told police he had been wounded in an American missile strike in South Waziristan, said two police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. It was unclear if it was the same strike believed to have killed Mehsud.

Saifullah appeared Tuesday before a special anti-terrorism court along with Zaid Ikram, an aide arrested along with him. Both were ordered held for four days for investigation, prosecutor Raja Yaseen said, but he would not elaborate on what charges they would face.

Taliban Bigwig Baitullah Mehsud Killed In Airstrike?

It had been released earlier this week that one of Baitullah Mehsud's wives were killed in a UAV airstrike this week while at Mehsud's father in laws compound. Now, an aide to Mehsud says that Mehsud was indeed killed in an airstrike. The US has been trying to get at Mehsud for some time now, and the admission that his wife was killed suggested that we were on to his movements.

Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who led a violent campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the Pakistani government, has been killed in a U.S. missile strike, a militant commander and aide to Mehsud said Friday.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad that intelligence showed Mehsud had been killed in Wednesday's missile strike on his father-in-law's house in Pakistan's lawless tribal area, but authorities would travel to the site to verify his death.

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials said the CIA was behind the strike. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

"I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan," Taliban commander Kafayat Ullah told The Associated Press by telephone. He would not give any further details.

Mehsud had been a thorn in the side of not only the US, but Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Mehsud had been carrying on a war against the Pakistani government's efforts to pacify the frontier provinces and to limit the reach of the Islamists. Mehsud was a capable and determined leader, who had a loyal following, and whose thugs managed to capture wide areas extending beyond their tribal areas in the frontier provinces, putting the Pakistani government in jeopardy.

It was the realization of latter fact that meant that the Pakistani government, for all of its public opposition to the US covert airstrikes, never truly minded that the US was hunting al Qaeda and Taliban in the frontier provinces. The US was doing what the Pakistani military could or would not do.

Still, this could be a misdirection ploy by Mehsud's Taliban group, as Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal reports. US officials aren't nearly as sure that they got their man.

UPDATE:
Bill Roggio now reports with more certainty that Mehsud indeed was killed in the airstrike, and notes possible successors. One in particular is worrisome, Qari Hussain, for his use of child suicide bombers, but another of Baitullah's cousins is responsible for repeated attacks on NATO supply lines through Pakistan:

Possible successors to Baitullah include his cousins Hakeemullah Mehsud and Qari Hussain Mehsud; North Waziristan leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar; and Bajuar Taliban sub commander Waliur Rahman.

Hakeemullah directs Taliban operations in Arakzai, Kurram, and Khyber. He has been behind the attack against NATO convoys moving through Peshawar. More than 700 NATO vehicles and containers have been destroyed in these atacks over the past eight months.

Qari Hussain is a fear[ed] military commander in South Waziristan. He is renown for training children to become suicide bombers.

Hafiz Gul Bahadar is also a candidate to take over the Pakistani Taliban in the event of Baitullah's death. Bahadar is widely respected in Taliban circles and has close links to the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a Qaeda.

Taliban Assault School; 400+ Students Held Hostage

Shades of Beslan.

Suspected militants armed with rockets, grenades and automatic weapons abducted some 400 students, staff and relatives driving away from a boy's school in a troubled tribal region in northwest Pakistan on Monday, police and a witness said.

The brazen abduction came amid rising militant violence in Pakistan's tribal belt — actions the military says are aimed at distracting it from its offensive against the Taliban in the nearby Swat Valley.

Details were still emerging Monday about the nature of the attack. No group immediately claimed responsibility.

Police official Meer Sardar said the abduction occurred about 20 miles from Razmak Cadet College in North Waziristan tribal area. The people were leaving the school area after they were warned to get out in a phone call from a man they believed to be a political official, Sardar said, citing accounts from a group of 17 who managed to get away.

Around 30 buses, cars and other vehicles were carrying the students, staff and others when they were stopped along the road by a large group of alleged militants in their own vehicles.

The details were confirmed by a staff member at the school who was among those who escaped. He requested anonymity out of fear of Taliban reprisal but said the school's principal was among those abducted. His vehicle happened to be behind a truck on the road, and it was less visible, so the driver slipped away.

So far, there's no word on what the terrorists hope to accomplish from this mass abduction, but none of it can be good. This comes as the Pakistani military continues going after Taliban groups in the frontier provinces and claims that they've beaten back the Taliban in some areas.

Taliban Declare War On Pakistan

They may not have used those precise words, but their threat to Pakistanis to flee cities, followed by multiple explosions all over the country, following still more deadly blasts in the past two days, and there's little else can call it but an all-out war between the Taliban and Pakistan.

Three bombs detonated in Peshawar, north of Pakistan’s capital, and one in Dera Ismail Khan, in the country’s troubled west, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens.

The strikes were deadly reminders of the potency of militants in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed American ally that is fighting a war against the Taliban in its north and west. Pakistan is central to American policy in this region, as militants in its lawless tribal areas cross the border into Afghanistan, where the United States is fighting a similar insurgency.

Hakimullah Mehsud, a young Taliban commander and lieutenant of Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, told the Pakistani newspaper Dawn that more attacks would follow the one in Lahore. Hakimullah Mehsud, who spoke from an undisclosed location, claimed responsibility for the Lahore bombing.

“We want the people of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Multan to leave those cities, as we plan major attacks against government facilities in coming days and weeks,” he said in a phone call to Reuters.

He said that the Lahore attack was a response to Pakistan’s recent military campaign against the Taliban in Swat, an area north of the capital, which was overrun by militants earlier this year.

“We have been looking for a target from the day the military launched the operation in Swat,” Mr. Mehsud said.

The real question isn't whether the Pakistani government can stop the Taliban. It's whether the Pakistani people will continue to tolerate the carnage and rise up against the Taliban themselves (akin the to the Anbar Awakening). Pakistan's governments have played a delicate dance between appeasement and crackdown, and right now, they are paying dearly for that cycle of violence.

The government continues fighting the Taliban in Swat, and the Taliban's latest grievances are that the Pakistanis are trying to defend themselves outside of the frontier provinces, which the Pakistani governments have treated as semi-autonomous for much of Pakistan's history. It has been a major mistake on their part to do so, as the Taliban have used their control to spread the Islamist doctrine and their control now runs into Pakistan proper like tentacles of a hydra.

The Taliban aren't going to stop until they are stopped. That threatens not only Pakistan, but Afghanistan and the rest of South Asia, including India. Putting out a list of most wanted Taliban is a meager start, but until the regular army gets in the game and seeks to impose Pakistani control over all of Pakistan up to the Afghan border, this war will continue.

US Coordinating Pakistani Predator Strikes

The pace of UAV airstrikes against the Taliban and al Qaeda inside Pakistan and the frontier provinces continues to increase, and this is a major reason why. The US is closely coordinating with the Pakistani government over the targets in an attempt to smooth over ruffled feathers in the Pakistani government.

The project was begun in recent weeks to bolster Pakistan's ability and willingness to disrupt the militant groups that are posing a growing threat to the government in Islamabad and fueling violence in Afghanistan.

For the U.S. military, the missions represent a broad new role in searching for Islamic militants in Pakistan. For years, that task has been the domain of the CIA, which has flown its own fleet of Predators over the South Asian nation.

Under the new partnership, U.S. military drones will be allowed for the first time to venture beyond the borders of Afghanistan under the direction of Pakistani military officials, who are working with American counterparts at a command center in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

We've known that those Predator airstrikes have occurred inside Pakistan, but this is the first time that we're acknowledging that we're doing so, and that we're doing so in coordination with the Pakistani government.

So, while the airstrikes continue to take their toll on Taliban forces in South Waziristan, the Taliban continue their assaults on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bill Roggio notes the offensive against a security installation in Khost, and while the Taliban suffered significant losses, it shows that this war is far from over.

The attack began mid-morning when a suicide bomber dressed in a burka attacked the provincial headquarters and was followed up by a suicide car bomber. No casualties were reported in the opening salvo.

A six-man suicide team then assaulted a police station in Khost City but was repelled by the policemen. The attackers entered a nearby municipal center and took 20 people hostage. Three of the suicide bombers apparently detonated their vests as Afghan and US forces cordoned then stormed the building, killed the remaining Taliban fighters, and rescued the hostages.

Other explosions were heard throughout the city, while the Taliban set ambushes for US and Afghan forces as they responded to the attacks from nearby bases. The fighting later died down in the evening as security forces took control.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a senior Taliban spokesman, claimed the attack was larger than reported, and said 30 suicide bombers participated in the assault.

Today’s assault in Khost is the latest in a series of complex attacks and other strikes aimed and police and government centers in Afghanistan since January 2008 [see list below]. Taliban bombers and assault teams have carried out sophisticated strikes in Kabul, Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Nuristan, and Khost.

Over the past two years, of the Taliban attacks have become more sophisticated and more effective. The Taliban receive training for such attacks at training facilities in Pakistan's northwest as well as in Baluchistan province. Taliban fighters train with al Qaeda and other allied jihadi groups inside of Pakistan, and some Taliban fighters become members of al Qaeda's Shadow Army, the elite paramilitary force operating in the Afghan/Pakistani border region.

The Taliban continue crossing the Afghan/Pakistani border without the slightest hesitation, and that's a situation that must be rectified.

UPDATE:
The Taliban continue attacking NATO supply lines in Pakistan, damaging yet another convoy. MSNBC also reports that seven civilians were killed in the assault on the NATO facility in Khost when one of the suicide bombers detonated his bomb vest. The issue of civilian casualties remains a hot button issue, and the Taliban will continue putting civilians in harm's way by operating as lawless thugs who couldn't care about human rights or the Geneva Conventions, and hope to pin those deaths on the Americans.

Civilian casualties have been a cause of increasing anger in Afghanistan. Afghan officials say U.S. forces killed more than 100 civilians in strikes in Farah province in the west of the country last week.

U.S. commanders say they believe the death toll from that incident was lower and blame the Taliban for putting civilians in danger and possibly killing some of them.

They've been successful in getting the Afghan government to question US airstrikes against Taliban targets, by inflating body counts, and getting the US to defend its actions.