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Musharraf’s government says the increasingly frequent bombings are evidence of Talibanization creeping east from the Afghanistan border. The local Taliban militants blast shops selling un-Islamic CDs, cable-TV operators, massage parlors and other sites they consider havens of vice. A newspaper editor in Dera Ismail Khan showed me a letter he received, signed by the Taliban, warning him not to print anything that defamed the mujahedeen. They threatened to blow up his office if he didn’t comply.

Rehman’s critics blame him and his party for facilitating the local Taliban, an allegation he resents. “We are politicians, and we will have to go to our constituencies to get votes in an election,” he told me, as we sat together in the drawing room of his home in Dera Ismail Khan. “If there is a war going on, no one can vote.” Halogen spotlights dotted the ceiling, and soft leather couches lined the walls. Rehman wore a pinstripe waistcoat over a shalwar kameez. The room smelled of strong cologne. He added, in a rare moment of candor, “But even we are now afraid of the young men fighting.”

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Militants overrun Pakistan fort

Many soldiers are reported killed or kidnapped
Hundreds of militants have overrun a paramilitary fort in north-west Pakistan, killing or kidnapping many troops, the military says.
At least eight soldiers died in the raid and 15 escaped, the army says. The whereabouts of another 25 are unknown. Some reports put the death toll higher.

South Waziristan is a known stronghold of pro-Taleban and al-Qaeda militants

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I wonder if the Pakistani military has the heart to fight their own people? Previously, 200 Pakistani troops surrendered to Taleban/Al quada fighters rather than fight them.

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Observers say this is the first time that militants have captured a fort in Pakistan.

The army says that up to 40 attackers were killed in the fighting, something the tribal fighters deny. There is no independent confirmation of this figure.

Officials said troops at the fort came under rocket and automatic weapons attack from militants on Tuesday night.

Soldiers returned fire and the battle went on until early on Wednesday morning. People in the Sararogha area told the BBC Urdu service the exchange of fire went on for four hours.

There are many forts in South Waziristan

They said the militants entered the remote military outpost and started shifting weapons and troops they had captured out of the fort.

It is unclear whether the militants are still inside the fort.

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QUEBEC -- Any attempt to counter terrorists war-torn Afghanistan will not succeed without an intervention in neighbouring Pakistan, Liberal LeaderStephane Dionsaid Wednesday.

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The Liberal leader explained that Afghan officials told him they know where the extremist strongholds are in Pakistan. But he said the Afghans don't take action.

"One day, we are going to have to act because our soldiers are cleaning out some areas, but in fact very often they are only clean in principle. The insurgents go take refuge in Pakistan and they are going to come back (to Afghanistan) at the earliest opportunity. This could last very long if we don't tackle the problems that often originate from Pakistan," Mr. Dion said.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay told Canwest News Service Dion's comments were off base.

"Mr. Dion can't be serious to suggest NATO "intervene," in another country while simultaneously saying Canada should abandon its United Nations-mandated NATO mission in Afghanistan," he said in an e-mail.

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In one telling fact of the current Afghanistan fiasco,Mr. Ashdown states that NATO is only providing 1/25 of the troops per capita and 1/50 of the aid per capita in Afghanistan than they did in Bosnia.

He also says failure in Afghanistan is much more political than military.

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In a week when Canada has been plunged into conflict between the roles of its military and diplomatic officials in helping Afghanistan rebuild itself, the UN is hoping that Mr. Ashdown will be a powerful organizer, bridging the widening chasm between the military and diplomatic forces of 39 nations, making him in some respects more powerful than the Afghan government.

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"Our failure relies on the fact that we believe, for some bizarre reason, that we have such a unique system of government in our own countries - by the way, not a view shared by many of our citizens - that we believe we have a right to impose it lock, stock and barrel, along with the values and everything that goes along with it, on other countries with the use of B-52s, tanks and rifles."

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"We are losing in Afghanistan - and rather than militarily, we are losing the political mission - and in large part we are losing because there has been a complete failure of the international community to co-ordinate its efforts," he said.

For a UN appointee, he is especially harsh on the organization's approach to nation-building. He says that the UN is a very poor manager of military and executive action, and that it functions far better as a subcontractor of national forces and a "legitimizer of international action." And its values, he says, are far too heavily devoted to democracy at any cost.

"There is this bizarre idea that the one thing these people are dying for is gender-sensitivity training, human rights in our model and our systems of government," he said. "These guys want something much more simple than that. Look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They want security. Actually, I think democracy is what people choose when they have enough prosperity that they want a system of government that will protect it. The big thing about democracy is not that it's efficient, but that it's the best means of protecting what you have. I think you let them choose what pace they want to do it."

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