Pakistani Taliban

Two suicide car bomb attacks Saturday killed at least 20 people and injured more than 150 others in northwest Pakistan, sending an ominous signal that the death of Taliban leader Baitullah Mahsud during the summer will not curb the Islamic militants' agenda for violence in this nuclear-armed state. The bloodiest explosion occurred in the bustling city of Peshawar, where an assailant detonated his car near a state-owned bank just 500 meters from the U.S. consulate. The blast tore through the building and surrounding structures, killing at least 10 people and wounding 91 more.

The death toll in a suicide bomb blast at a Pakistani military training school rose to 32 on Thursday, underscoring militants' ability to strike sensitive installations despite army offensives aimed at uprooting the insurgents. The attack occurred at the Punjab Regiment Center in the northwestern city of Mardan just as cadets were going through morning exercises. Zeeshan Haider, a local police official, said a teenage boy dressed in the uniform of a nearby school appeared on the grounds and detonated the explosives-laden vest he was wearing.

After a year spent without work and queuing for handouts, families who sought refuge here from an offensive against the Pakistani Taliban are eager to see their homes and farms again. But they doubt they'll be able to sleep peacefully when they get there. Officials say the high-profile offensive they launched last fall in South Waziristan near the Afghan border has secured the area, and they are planning to start sending 400,000 displaced people back early next month. However, evidence from South Waziristan and other areas where the military has gone after the Taliban suggest that relatively few militants were killed and the rest didn't go very far, an illustration of how difficult it is for Pakistan to defeat a force that has bloodied its cities and targeted Americans.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistanis went to the polls Saturday to elect a new parliament amid continued violence marring the historic event, as militants detonated a bomb outside a liberal, anti-Taliban party's campaign office in the southern port city of Karachi, killing 10  people and injuring at least 15. The elections mark the first democratic transition of one civilian government to another in the nuclear-armed state, which has endured a...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - For the second day in a row, a bomb blast killed and maimed participants at a campaign rally being held by one of Pakistan's Islamist religious parties, indicating a broadening of targets in the violence that has primarily taken aim at secular parties competing in parliamentary elections scheduled for Saturday. Two bombings Tuesday killed at least 15 people and injured more than 40 at campaign rallies in northwestern Pakistan, including one being held by a religious party, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, authorities said.

People here remember when hundreds of Pakistani Taliban militants roamed through the forested ridges flanking the Chail River, armed not with AK-47s but with axes. Employing termite-like efficiency, the militants felled and carted away vast swaths of Himalayan cedar, blue pine and oak, leaving mountainsides dotted with stumps. Through illegal logging, the Taliban generated quick cash to keep its arsenals stocked. But nearly a decade of tree felling by militants and 35 years of deforestation by unscrupulous timber businesses and wealthy landowners have had an unforeseen consequence.

SHABQADAR, Pakistan - When Masoom Shah hits the campaign trail these days, he brings a 9-millimeter Glock pistol and a team of up to 50 bodyguards. Instead of appearing before large crowds, he meets small clusters of voters at guesthouses where everyone is frisked before they enter. He limits his speeches to 30 minutes and then quickly slips out of the room. And at the end of the day, he returns home and prays. "I say to God, 'Thank you, another peaceful day has passed,'" said Shah, 45, a member of Pakistan's secular, anti-Taliban Awami National Party, or ANP, and a provincial assembly candidate in the country's volatile northwest.

Malala Yousafzai did not trade in her modest head scarf for a pair of skinny jeans. She wanted to go to school. For that, the Taliban tried to kill her. When her attackers learned that the freckled 14-year-old Pakistani might survive, they promised to finish the job. Malala, they explained, had been "promoting Western culture. " The Taliban has committed all manner of atrocities over the years, many of them aimed at women. This time, the militants created an icon for a global movement - for the notion that the most efficient way to propel developing countries is to educate their girls.

Suspected U.S. unmanned aircraft launched two attacks against militants loyal to the head of the Pakistani Taliban, killing at least 45, intelligence officials said. The army denied signing off on the attacks and said that they were hurting its campaign against Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mahsud by alienating local tribes. Missiles were fired at a mountaintop training camp in South Waziristan, killing 10 militants, officials said. Hours later, 12 miles to the east, missiles hit four vehicles carrying Taliban militants, killing at least 35, including a key Taliban commander, one intelligence official said.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - After a bloody campaign season marred by waves of bombings and candidate assassinations, Pakistanis turned out in large numbers Saturday to elect a new parliament in what is slated to be the first democratic transition of civilian governments  in a country with a history of military coups and forced political ousters. The new national assembly that comes out of Saturday's elections has the responsibility of choosing a new prime minister and charting a course that would lead Pakistan out of economic stagnancy and militancy that has resulted in thousands of deaths in recent years.