India-Pakistan: NATO Moves East

NATO Moves East

October 10, 2006: The British general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan is going to Pakistan to meet senior officials, and discuss the need for more Pakistani efforts to curb Taliban activity in Pakistani tribal areas. That should be interesting, because NATO, Afghan and U.S. officials insist that Pakistan has given the Taliban freedom of action in the tribal territories. Pakistan denies this.

October 8, 2006: Indian police continue to hunt, and battle, Maoist rebels in eastern India. The hunt is particularly intense for rebel leaders, who tend to move around a lot, in order to take care of business. But this makes them more vulnerable, and more of them are getting caught.

October 7, 2006: Two rockets, wired to a cell phone for remote control firing, were found in the Pakistani capital and disarmed. The rockets were aimed at the ISI (the national intelligence organization) headquarters. This is the second time in a week that terrorist activities have been discovered in high security areas.

In Baluchistan, Pakistani police arrested over forty men suspected of belonging to the Taliban.

October 6, 2006: Pakistan estimates that is has at least four million drug addicts, mostly using heroin and opium. Most of the drugs are produced in Afghanistan, and some of the opium is processed into heroin in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Drug addiction is a growing problems with women in well off families.

October 5, 2006: In Kashmir, Islamic terrorists remain active, but most of their operations are suicidal, and Indian police are catching up with more and more terrorist group leaders. The overall level of violence is declining, as the terror groups shrink from these losses, and the absence of large reinforcements from their base camps across the border in Pakistan.

October 4, 2006: In Pakistan, a bomb went off in a park near the residence of president Musharraf. This is a high security area and, although there were no injuries, does indicate that Islamic terrorists are still trying to kill Musharraf, and can get close.