November 2, 2009: As Pakistani troops advance through South Waziristan, they are coming across quickly abandoned facilities apparently long used by Islamic terror organizations. South Waziristan, and its pro-Taliban Mehsud tribe, has long been a place where government officials only went with permission of the locals. And the locals apparently believed their own propaganda that government troops would not get far if they tried to invade the area. Army artillery and helicopter gunships, aided by air force fighter-bombers, proved more than a match for the tribal warriors, who soon fled to the safer hills. The Islamic terrorists fled with them, often failing to destroy documents and computer files. So Pakistani troops found passports used by Islamic terrorists.
The Pakistani army released the names on some of those passports, and were surprised when Western officials (and some news organizations) pointed out that some of those names belonged to wanted terrorists, some of them as a result of involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and subsequent attacks in Europe and in North Africa. The Pakistanis were taken aback by this, as they had long insisted (without ever going in to confirm it) that no terrorists were hiding out in North or South Waziristan. Meanwhile, Pakistan has promised to share, with Western allies, any terrorist related information found in Waziristan. The U.S. is quite insistent on this, and has threatened to cut billions of dollars in military and economic if the Pakistanis do not share. Pakistan needs this money, as over a decade of tolerating Islamic terrorist groups in the country, has led to the terrorists trying to take over. The American money, and aid (military and intelligence) is needed to minimize Pakistani casualties and speed the destruction of the Islamic terror groups. Meanwhile, opportunistic Pakistani politicians are excoriating America for causing the problem in the first place (the reasoning behind this is rather murky), and for not giving Pakistani enough foreign aid, with no strings attached (so it's easier to steal), to deal with the problem.
