Pakistan

The Odeon Cinema's creaky, ripped red vinyl seats are mostly empty except for a couple of back rows where a dozen Pakistani men sit slouched, their eyes half-open, legs slung over the seats in front of them. Along the hall's bubble-gum pink walls, rows of fans barely move the hot, dank air. The Odeon's loudspeakers crackle like a ham radio. The feature on this recent evening is a Pakistani film called "Majajan," a love story. The barely breathing, Lahore-based Pakistani film industry produces less than a dozen movies each year, which explains why every day, three times a day for the last three years, the only movie screened at the Odeon has been "Majajan."

Radio Khyber airs in the heart of Pakistan's wild and volatile tribal areas, where women are bound by strict centuries-old codes of conduct handed down by generations of Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in northwestern Pakistan. The code's tenets are oppressive and nonnegotiable. Women should confine themselves to their homes and the sole task of raising children. When they go to markets and other public places, a male relative should accompany them. And their voices should never be heard by strangers.

After a U.S. airstrike leveled a small compound in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions in January 2006, President Pervez Musharraf and his intelligence officials announced that several senior Al Qaeda operatives had been killed, and that the top prize was an elusive Egyptian who was believed to be a chemical weapons expert. But current and former U.S.

A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States. The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S.

In the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, people are accustomed to the hum of American drones overhead -- and don't like it. The drones kill civilians as well as militants, they say, and use of the pilotless aircraft also tramples Pakistani sovereignty. This summer in the Swat Valley, Pakistanis again heard drones whirring in the sky, but there was a difference. They were Pakistani-owned and operated, a toe-in-the-water foray into a technology that is revolutionizing warfare. They weren't missile-carrying drones like the ones used by the U.S., but unmanned aerial vehicles that sent images of targets back to Pakistani command posts.

Although the war against Islamic militancy has focused on shadowy underground organizations such as Al Qaeda, counter-terrorism officials say there is a growing worldwide threat from an extremist group operating in plain sight in Pakistan. The group, formerly known as Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Righteous, was formed in the late 1980s and, with the support of the Pakistani government, launched attacks against India in the dispute over the Kashmir region.

College student Amena Omer inhaled tobacco from a hookah, the octopus arms of the hubbly-bubbly wrapped around a table leg, and summed up the state of her country: "Worse than zero." Having foreigners refer to their home as a failed state naturally puts Pakistanis on the defensive, she said.

The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says he has evidence that factions of Pakistani and Iranian spy services are supporting insurgent groups that carry out attacks on coalition troops. Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are being aided by "elements of some intelligence agencies," Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote in a detailed analysis of the military situation delivered to the White House earlier this month. McChrystal went on to single out Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency as well as the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as contributing to the external forces working to undermine U.S. interests and destabilize the government in Kabul.

The Obama administration plans to complete its overhaul of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan by April, before a crucial NATO summit, the White House said Tuesday in announcing the new head of its review. Before the reassessment is complete, President Obama is likely to decide on the details of a U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said.

U.S. efforts to identify and thwart the growing threat posed by Pakistani extremists who enjoy easy access to the United States -- and already have a significant presence here -- are being undermined by the government of Pakistan, according to current and former U.S. and Western counter-terrorism officials. After the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, in November, which killed more than 170 people, the FBI and other U.S.

The Pakistani army Sunday was investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud may have been killed in a drone strike last month. If confirmed, the militant's death could deal insurgents a severe setback in their battle against the government. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Mahsud, 28, was wounded Jan. 17 in a U.S. airstrike that targeted two cars in North Waziristan, a largely Taliban-controlled tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. Abbas said intelligence agents are investigating a report on state television that Mahsud was killed in the airstrike and buried four days ago in the tribal district of Orakzai.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates leaned on India and Pakistan during his trip to South Asia this week to set aside a simmering rivalry and confront militant extremists. At the same time, Gates and other U.S. officials pushed arms sales that could fuel the antagonism between the two countries. Gates' trip was framed by that apparent contradiction in U.S. policy. On his arrival in Pakistan, a television news interviewer put the question bluntly: "Why re-arm both countries?" The Pentagon chief sidestepped the question.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates leaned on India and Pakistan during his trip to South Asia this week to set aside a simmering rivalry and confront militant extremists. At the same time, Gates and other U.S. officials pushed arms sales that could fuel the antagonism between the two countries. Gates' trip was framed by that apparent contradiction in U.S. policy. On his arrival in Pakistan, a television news interviewer put the question bluntly: "Why re-arm both countries?" The Pentagon chief darted around the question.

Reporting from New Delhi and Islamabad Mark Magnier -- Using a mixture of praise and pressure, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked Pakistan government officials today to build on their offensives against militants at the same time he tried to reassure a skeptical Pakistani public about American aims in the region. On his first day of a visit to Pakistan, Gates announced the U.S. would provide unmanned aerial drones to the Pakistani military--a longstanding request of Islamabad that America has previously balked at. Defense officials said the U.S. would give Pakistan 12 Shadow UAVs, unarmed surveillance drones that can be used to spy on militants.

Stepping up pressure on Pakistan to help thwart further terrorist attacks on India, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that the Indian government probably would not show the same level of restraint that it did in 2008 if struck again. Gates said at a news conference that Al Qaeda and other Islamic militant organizations are hoping to ignite a regional clash between Pakistan and India, a confrontation he said must be averted. Gates has praised India's "statesmanship" in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, which left at least 166 people dead and has been attributed to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based extremist group aligned with Al Qaeda.

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Peshawar, Pakistan -- A U.S. drone missile attack that may have been aimed at Pakistan's most-wanted militant killed 16 people in the country's troubled tribal areas Thursday, the latest in a dramatic step-up of such strikes since a Dec. 30 bombing killed seven CIA employees and contractors. In the last two weeks, U.S. drones have carried out at least eight strikes in the country's largely ungoverned tribal region along the border with Afghanistan.

A Pakistani television station aired a video Saturday allegedly showing the suicide bomber who hit a CIA outpost in Afghanistan telling the Pakistani Taliban leader that he had shared U.S. and Jordanian intelligence secrets with fellow militants. He also urged militants to strike other U.S. targets in retaliation for the killing of the leader's predecessor last year in a U.S. missile strike. Although its veracity could not be immediately determined, the video is a powerful recruiting tool and its content potentially embarrassing to the U.S. spy agency.

At least 75 civilians were killed and dozens were wounded Friday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at an outdoor volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, police said. The attack apparently was aimed at members of an anti-Taliban "peace committee" that has been challenging the influence of insurgents, officials and town elders said. The bombing took place as a crowd of more than 200 people watched a match between local teams about 20 miles south of the town of Lakki Marwat in North-West Frontier Province.

A suicide bomber blew himself up Monday in the middle of a Shiite Muslim procession in Karachi, the commercial capital of Pakistan, killing at least 20 people, wounding dozens more and heaping further pressure on the nation's already beleaguered government. The attack was the third in as many days in Pakistan's most populous city, a major South Asian port that has emerged as a significant logistics hub for supply trucks headed to Afghanistan in support of U.S. and NATO-led forces.

The United States spent 2009 at war again -- with its own troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a major, indirect supporter of Pakistan in its internal counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism campaign as well. On balance, I would judge it a moderately successful year in all three places to varying degrees. But that is admittedly a subjective judgment and also obviously requires a great deal more discussion. First, the basics: The year was one of gradual drawdown in Iraq together with intensification of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.