On Ground Updates: Pakistan/Afghanistan - June 14, 2009

On Ground Updates:
Pakistan/Afghanistan
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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AP brings us the following report late this Sunday evening and it starts off like this… Pakistan ordered its army to go after the country's top Taliban commander, a feared al-Qaida-allied militant whose remote stronghold could prove a difficult test for troops but whose demise would remove a major threat to the country's stability… The announcement Sunday of the operation in South Waziristan, rumored for weeks, came hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five alleged militants there. The move will likely please Washington, which wants Pakistan to eliminate safe havens for militants leaving Afghanistan and which considers South Waziristan a particularly troublesome hideout for al-Qaida…
Read the full report at link below…
Pakistan orders army to go after Taliban chief
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KansasCity.com reports it this way… Pakistan announced late Sunday it would fight warlord Baitullah Mehsud in Waziristan in a gamble that will see the Pakistani troops confront the fountainhead of Taliban and al-Qaida extremism… The move signals Islamabad is serious about fighting Islamic extremism, but promises to engulf the country in bloodshed. Mehsud's terrorist network spans Pakistan and he has grown so powerful U.S. officials believe he poses an "existential" threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan, a key American ally… The determination to take the offensive to Waziristan, part of Pakistan's tribal area that runs along the Afghan border, also marks an important turn in the struggle against al-Qaida…
Read the rest at link below…
Pakistan declares war on Taliban leader Mehsud
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The Washington Post has this take and it goes in part like this… The announcement by officials in North-West Frontier Province came after a week of deadly attacks attributed to the Pakistani Taliban, including the bombing Tuesday of a five-star hotel that killed 11 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the assassination Friday of a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric in another suicide bombing here in the capital of Punjab province… It also followed another day of violence in the northwestern region where the Taliban forces are based…
Read this report in full at link below…
Pakistan To Pursue Taliban Leader

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AubreyJ………