Waziristan

The Mahsud tribesmen of South Waziristan don't hate the Taliban. But they hate what having Taliban fighters living among them has done to life in their mud-hut hamlets. The Taliban presence has made their villages frequent targets for U.S. missile strikes. It has prevented schools and hospitals from opening and roads from being built. Many villages still do not have electricity or phone lines. As people stream out of South Waziristan to escape the all-out blitz against the Taliban, they say they back the offensive, if only because it represents their best -- and only -- hope for a clean break from the misery of isolation.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A barrage of missiles fired by U.S. drones killed at least 18 people in northwest Pakistan on Friday, the latest in a flurry of attacks in a tribal region along the Afghan border that soon may become the site of the new Pakistani offensive against Taliban militants. Local intelligence sources said the drone strikes hit militant compounds and vehicles in North Waziristan. The area is home to militants from the Haqqani network, an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban that targets U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, as well as the Pakistani Taliban, pockets of Al Qaeda fighters and other militant groups.

Dressed in camouflage and armed with automatic rifles, grenades, mines, and suicide vests, the 10 militants who shot their way into Pakistan's army headquarters were driven by a chilling goal: seize senior military officers as hostages and demand the release of more than 100 prisoners held by the government. But nearly a day after the attack began, Pakistani commandos killed one militant before he could blow himself up in a room packed with 22 hostages, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Monday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The war between the CIA and Pakistani militant groups threatens to produce an unlikely casualty: thousands of children who are being denied polio vaccinations in one of the few places on Earth where the disease is still a menace. A phony inoculation program orchestrated by the CIA last year to help it track down Osama bin Laden bolstered long-standing claims by hard-line clerics that vaccination campaigns are a Western plot against Pakistanis. The complaints turned serious this month when the Pakistani Taliban said it would not allow a planned polio vaccination campaign to proceed in the North Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border.

A suspected U.S. missile struck a car in a northwest Pakistani tribal region, intelligence officials said, killing two insurgents and a civilian. The missile strike occurred near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal region, two intelligence officials said. South Waziristan is the main base of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mahsud, but there was no indication that he was the target. A drone had been flying over the area, and the missile struck after people in the car fired at the aircraft, the officials said.

Fighting between security forces and Islamic militants after the kidnapping of four paramilitary troops in northwestern Pakistan left five fighters dead, officials said. The troops were abducted while walking toward their base in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, an intelligence official said. Security forces launched artillery and mortar fire at militant positions, and militants returned fire.

The alert came from an informant who warned of impending suicide attacks on the Barcelona subway. And because the suspected bombers thought the spy was ready to die with them, officials say, he urged authorities to act fast. The paramilitary Guardia Civil raided mosques and apartments in port neighborhoods housing one of mainland Europe's largest Pakistani communities. A judge jailed 10 suspects. Spain warned that bombers had been dispatched for follow-up attacks in Paris, London, Lisbon and Frankfurt.

Leaders of the Pakistani Taliban have begun preliminary talks with intermediaries of the government aimed at reaching a peace agreement in the tribal region of South Waziristan, the site of a large-scale military operation against the homegrown insurgency in 2009. Sources close to the Pakistani Taliban confirmed that talks were underway, adding that the discussions were at an early stage. The intermediaries include tribal elders in South Waziristan, the militant group's stronghold.

With help from the U.S., Pakistan's main intelligence agency has nabbed a top Al Qaeda commander suspected of planning attacks on American oil pipelines, tankers and other economic targets. The arrest suggested that the deep tension that had derailed cooperation between the two countries may be easing. Younis al Mauritani, a senior Al Qaeda commander, was arrested in the southern city of Quetta along with two other senior Al Qaeda operatives, Abdul Ghaffar al Shami and Messara al Shami, Pakistan's military said Monday.

The U.S. has confirmed that a key Al Qaeda planner and trainer was killed in a drone strike in the tribal areas of Pakistan in June, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday. Ilyas Kashmiri led a militant group in Pakistan and in recent years had been brought into the leadership of Al Qaeda, running a training camp and planning attacks against targets in India and Europe, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

An attack by militants on a checkpoint in a lawless tribal area near the Afghan border early Thursday underscores how overstretched the Pakistani military is and why it is resisting U.S. pressure to conduct a massive offensive in North Waziristan, analysts said Thursday. About 100 insurgents stormed the checkpoint in the environs of Marobi village in South Waziristan with rockets and machine guns, sparking a three-hour gunfight that killed eight soldiers and wounded 12 others. Local officials said 10 militants were also killed and five wounded in the battle, figures disputed by a spokesman for the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group who said none of its fighters were killed and that two had received bullet wounds.

An overnight attack by an unmanned aircraft killed Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda-linked operative blamed for several high-profile attacks in Pakistan and India, local news reports and a statement by his banned militant organization said Saturday. If borne out, this would be the second major U.S. anti-terrorism coup in quick succession, coming just a month after the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs. Analysts had identified Kashmiri as a possible Bin Laden successor.

The killing of Osama bin Laden could be a transformational moment for Pakistan and its military. The country has an opportunity now to decide whether it wants to decisively confront Islamist violence or face the consequences of the military's current policy of giving support to jihadis with one hand even as it slaps them with the other. If Pakistan chooses this second path, it will be increasingly vulnerable to internal chaos, more drone strikes and more direct U.S. action against the jihadist groups openly operating in the country.

Pakistan's army chief strongly condemned a U.S. drone missile strike that killed at least 40 people in a volatile tribal region along the Afghan border Thursday, asserting that the dead included innocent tribal elders who had been holding a meeting. If Gen. Ashfaq Kayani's accusation is valid, it could undermine Pakistani cooperation on Washington's drone campaign against Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the largely lawless tribal badlands in the country's northwest. The Obama administration relies heavily on drone missile strikes to hamper Al Qaeda and its militant allies' ability to plan terrorist attacks and train recruits.

A series of missile strikes killed at least 19 suspected insurgents Saturday in Pakistan's tribal borderlands, signaling that the new year would bring no respite in a relentless campaign of U.S. attacks employing aerial drones to target militant figures. The strikes in the North Waziristan tribal agency were apparently aimed at the Haqqani network, an offshoot of the Taliban movement and one of the deadliest foes of U.S. and other Western forces in Afghanistan. The group's fighters operate mainly in the eastern part of Afghanistan but seek shelter in neighboring Pakistan.