President Asif Ali Zardari

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.

Ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan's embattled civilian government, the nation's Supreme Court on Tuesday threatened to dismiss Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani from office if he does not revive corruption proceedings against President Asif Ali Zardari. Gilani and Zardari, who heads the ruling Pakistan People's Party, are struggling to survive withering attacks from the country's military and judiciary, both powerful institutions that harbor long-standing animosity for the two civilian leaders.

A stint behind bars doesn't always have to be an ignominious coda to a politician's career. In the case of Yusaf Raza Gilani, it became a badge of honor. Gilani was an opposition party stalwart in 2001 when Pakistan's then-President Gen. Pervez Musharraf gave him and other supporters of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto a choice: switch over to the general's side, or spend time in prison. "Some gave in, but Gilani refused," said Syed Nazimuddin Shah, a provincial lawmaker and a friend of Gilani since childhood.

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States stepped down Tuesday after accusations that he engineered a memo to the U.S. urging Washington to help rein in the Asian nation's powerful armed forces. Husain Haqqani's decision to step down made him the first political casualty in a scandal that has exposed the growing chasm between Pakistan's civilian government and military leadership. Haqqani, a close ally of President Asif Ali Zardari and widely regarded as an influential figure in Washington, quit after being requested to do so by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, according to a statement issued by Gilani's office.

Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency not only funds and trains Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but also maintains its own representation on the insurgency's leadership council, claims a new report issued by the London School of Economics. Assertions that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, continues to nurture links with the Afghan Taliban are not new. But the scope of that relationship claimed by the report's author, Matt Waldman, is startling and could prove damaging to the fragile alliance Washington is trying to foster with Pakistan, its military establishment, and its weak civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari.

The brazen assassination Tuesday of a popular and progressive Pakistani governor allied with the nation's president threw an already teetering U.S.-backed government into even greater turmoil. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province and an avowed opponent of religious extremism, was shot to death at an open-air shopping center in Islamabad that is frequented by foreigners and the Pakistani elite. The gunman was a member of the governor's own elite police security contingent, officials said.

A decision by Pakistani authorities to allow imposition of Islamic law in a region a short distance from Islamabad is increasing India's fears that religious militancy is growing in its neighbor and traditional rival. India's main Hindu nationalist group, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said Wednesday that national security was at risk because of well-entrenched militants operating in Pakistan's Swat Valley, within a five-hour drive of Amritsar, an Indian city of 1.5 million people.

The fatal shooting of two Pakistani men by a U.S. Consulate employee last month was "coldblooded murder" and not self-defense, police investigators said Friday, escalating a diplomatic crisis between the United States and an important ally in its fight against terrorism. With law enforcement authorities set on a course to try Raymond Davis on murder charges, the 36-year-old American's case may rest on his claim of diplomatic immunity, an assertion that so far the Pakistani federal government has avoided affirming.

In its standoff with President Asif Ali Zardari's administration, Pakistan's powerful military is relying on an institution that experts say is equally antagonistic toward the civilian government: the country's high court. The Pakistani capital has been awash with rumors that the army, which is fed up with a civilian government defined by corruption and ineffectiveness, is planning a coup. But as the rift between civilian leaders and the security establishment widens, it's becoming clear that a military takeover isn't what the generals envision.