Pakistani

Twice a week, a caravan of trucks lumbers out of this volatile northwest Pakistan city in the dead of night and makes its way toward Afghanistan, loaded with one of the most coveted substances in a Taliban bombmaker's arsenal: ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Every time the illicit caravan makes its trip, it moves unhindered past a gantlet of Pakistani police checkposts along the Pak-Afghan Highway. A string of bribes paid out to police, politicians and bureaucrats ensures that the smuggled explosive agent reaches its destination, middlemen on the Afghan side of the border who sell it to insurgents, says the co-owner of a Pakistani trucking firm that dispatches the caravans.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Millions of Pakistanis braved threats from militants and voted Saturday in national elections that marked the country's first democratic transfer of governance and appeared to put former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on track for a potential return to power. The elections change Pakistan's political landscape and probably will sideline the Pakistan People's Party, which has ruled the country for five years. But the results are not expected to lead to any major shift in U.S.-Pakistan relations because the country's powerful military still holds sway over crucial issues such as Pakistan's role in peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan and the country's relationship with its nuclear archrival, India.

Television reporter Shaheen Attique and his cameraman, Nasir Masood, were finishing a live shoot on the steps of a Lahore courthouse when the gang strode menacingly toward them. Before Attique and Masood could dart away, the thugs pounced. Fists rained down from every direction. Outnumbered 25 to two, the journalists could do nothing more than tense up and take it. "We'll teach you a lesson!" Masood heard one of the attackers say just before someone thwacked him in the head with a club.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Pakistani court on Tuesday slapped former military ruler Pervez Musharraf with a lifetime ban that prevents him from running for public office again, the latest in a long line of setbacks for the onetime president since his return to his home country after four years of self-imposed exile. The 69-year-old former general is already under house arrest for ordering the detention of dozens of judges in 2007 while he was in power. He is being held at his sprawling home in Islamabad rather than in jail, a measure authorities opted for because of threats made to the former leader's life by Pakistani Taliban militants.

To find the music department of the University of the Punjab, travel several miles from the main campus to a red-brick building, down some dark stairs, left through a shadowy corridor and into a warren of small, windowless rooms. The dank basement befits a department exiled after a militant student group called it un-Islamic, un-Pakistani and unwanted. There were threats, protests, machine-gun-toting bodyguards. Then, the basement. These are the front lines of Pakistan's culture wars, a very real battlefield with bombs and bloodshed where musicians, filmmakers, painters and theater groups face off against the Taliban and other militants.

The lone surviving member of the November 2008 attack in Mumbai that killed 166 people was convicted Monday on 86 counts, including murder, conspiracy and waging war against India, while two alleged Indian accomplices were acquitted. The guilty verdict against Pakistan national Ajmal Amir Kasab, 22, was expected. Kasab was seen by several witnesses and recorded on closed-circuit video attacking the Mumbai railway station with a serene smirk on his face that prompted Indian media to dub him the "smiling assassin."

At a time when President Obama needs help tackling skepticism in Pakistan over his new plan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a valuable ally here is battling for political survival. Just 15 months into his term, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is withering under pressure from the country's military, opposition parties and vocal media critics. Zardari has proved a reliable U.S. partner, even on actions that are unpopular with the Pakistani public, such as the CIA's campaign of airstrikes targeting Al Qaeda leaders and the Taliban in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

Reporting from Mohib Banda, Pakistan Standing in the rubble of what used to be his house, Gul Wali on Monday pointed to a small, green burlap bag and explained why most residents of his flood-ravaged village no longer rush to where military helicopters continue ferrying aid. The bag, one of the relief packages dropped by Pakistani government helicopters, contains a box of dried milk and a few bottles of water and Pepsi. It won't sustain a family of six, and with just $35 in his pocket, Wali says he can't fathom how he'll rebuild his home or replace the Toyota Corolla taxi that helped him make a living.

It's 8 o'clock on a Sunday night in the Pakistani capital, but collection cowboy Sharoon Hermoon is living on U.S. time. Headset in place, feet on his desk, he aims his speed dialer at a debtor in Fort Worth, Texas. "Hello, ma'am, how ya doin' today?" he says in a convincing American accent. "My name is James Harold and you owe us $11,000." There's a deer-in-the-headlights moment at the other end, then a deep breath, then a torrent of excuses. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says.

American ground troops carried out a rare raid on Pakistani soil Wednesday, a cross-border attack from Afghanistan that left up to 20 people dead and provoked sharp condemnation from Pakistan's government. The raid, described by Pakistani officials as having been carried out by helicopter-borne commandos in a hamlet just on the Pakistani side of the frontier, is likely to inflame tensions at a time when Islamic militants are already threatening to attack Pakistani officials and installations in retaliation for recent strikes against them by government forces.

If there ever was a time to see "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," that time is here and now. In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, with even President Obama asking, "Why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence?" comes a smart, provocative film that compellingly addresses these kinds of concerns. Directed by Mira Nair from Mohsin Hamid's exceptional novel (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" does not offer answers but rather, of equal if not greater value, it presents different ways to frame the question.

BRUSSELS -- Afghan and Pakistani leaders met with U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Wednesday to try to reverse a deterioration in relations that has threatened Afghanistan's peacemaking efforts. Invited by Kerry, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani flew to a sprawling Flemish-style estate on the edge of Brussels to try to overcome their differences on a long list of security issues. Kerry emerged after more than three hours of talks saying that he believed “we made progress,” but making no claims of a breakthrough.

BRUSSELS -- Secretary of State John F. Kerry is to host a meeting of top Afghan and Pakistani leaders here this week in hopes of breathing new life into flagging Afghan peace efforts. The meeting set for Wednesday is to bring together Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his defense minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi, with Pakistani army chief Gen.  Ashfaq Kayani and Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani. A State Department official described the encounter as part of a series of three-way meetings that occur regularly at a lower level.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was arrested and placed in police custody Friday, a day after commandos whisked him away from an Islamabad courthouse where he faces charges of illegally detaining dozens of judges while in power. Musharraf, who only a few weeks ago presented himself as a patriotic savior returning to his homeland from self-imposed exile, was being held at police headquarters at least until his next court appearance, which was expected within 48 hours.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - On Sunday, a local politician named Mukarram Shah was in his car in the remote Pakistani village of Banjot when a bomb was detonated by remote control. He was instantly killed. The bomb was made out of a pressure cooker, a common appliance in Pakistani kitchens and an increasingly common tool of terrorism in South Asia. It is the same sort of device that is believed to have been used in the Boston Marathon bombings, although authorities caution that it does not necessarily point to South Asian perpetrators; anyone could have taken advantage of easy-to-find online plans that have been posted by Al Qaeda, among others.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Pakistani court on Tuesday barred former President Pervez Musharraf from running in next month's parliament elections, derailing the onetime general's bid for an unlikely political comeback in the country he ruled for nearly nine years. Widely disliked among Pakistanis as an autocrat who undermined democracy and allowed corruption to flourish, Musharraf never was seen by analysts as having much of a chance in the elections slated for May 11. He has virtually no political backing within the country, and he still faces charges that he did not provide enough security to prevent the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and allegedly ordered the killing of a Baluch nationalist leader in 2006.

Masked gunmen killed five Pakistani preachers outside a mosque in Somalia following morning prayers, witnesses said. Six gunmen with assault rifles and pistols stormed Tawfiq Mosque in Galkayo and forced six Pakistani preachers and a Somali man outside, said Ismail Mohamud Hassan, who was in the mosque at the time. The gunmen then opened fire, he said. It was not clear who was behind the killings in this overwhelmingly Muslim country. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and one of Somalia's extremist Islamic groups, Shabab, condemned the killings.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - On Sunday, a local politician named Mukarram Shah was in his car in the remote Pakistani village of Banjot when a bomb was detonated by remote control. He was instantly killed. The bomb was made out of a pressure cooker, a common appliance in Pakistani kitchens and an increasingly common tool of terrorism in South Asia. It is the same sort of device that is believed to have been used in the Boston Marathon bombings, although authorities caution that it does not necessarily point to South Asian perpetrators; anyone could have taken advantage of easy-to-find online plans that have been posted by Al Qaeda, among others.

BOSTON - The bombs that tore past the finish line of the Boston Marathon were probably made with simple kitchen pressure cookers packed with metal pellets and nails and hidden in black nylon bags, investigators said Tuesday. FBI lead investigator Rick DesLauriers said fragments from a pressure cooker and pieces of black nylon were discovered near one of the bomb sites. Physicians said they had extracted from the wounded large numbers of pellets and carpenters' nails, common shrapnel components in the elementary bombs widely used in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and also discovered in at least two previous attempted terrorist attacks in the United States.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The Pakistani Taliban, an insurgent group focused mostly on the Pakistani state but which claimed responsibility for a failed bomb attack in New York nearly three years ago, has denied any involvement in the bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon on Monday. The group is responsible for many of the suicide bombings and terror attacks that have wreaked havoc on this South Asian nation for years. It does, however, regard the U.S. as an enemy and helped train Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani American who confessed to engineering a botched bombing attempt in New York's Times Square in 2010.