The Haqqani Network which primarily uses suicide bombings as a tactic in Afghanistan, and constitutes a quintessential element of the Kabul Attack Network (KAN), a group that carries out operations in and around Kabul, the national capital. KAN also includes militants belonging to the Quetta Shura Taliban, run by Mullah Omar, and Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HI-G) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and co-operates with other terrorist outfits including al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Led by senior Haqqani leaders, Dawood and Taj Mir Jawad, KAN has executed several attacks in Kabul. The major KAN successes owe mainly to the Haqqani Network. Jeffrey A. Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War notes, “[a]s early as 2007, there were reports that insurgents were establishing bases of operations in districts and provinces in and around Kabul. These bases were established in Kabul and Logar and resourced by suicide bombers who could be assigned to strike targets in the nation’s capital”. -- Ambreen Agha

The 'targeted operation' was launched four days after Security Forces (SFs) suffered nine fatalities in a Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) attack on their convoy in the Akakhel area of Bara tehsil on October 17, 2011. 14 terrorists were killed in retaliatory fire by the SFs.  The Khyber Agency, which borders Afghanistan to the east, the Orakzai Agency to the south, Mohmand Agency to the North and Peshawar District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province to the East, has emerged in recent times as a centre of growing extremist activities as a result of the infiltration of runaway militants from the adjacent Agencies, where military operations were ongoing. Operation Koh-i-Sufaid (White Mountain) was conducted in Kurram Agency between May 2, 2011, and August 17, 2011, while Operation Brekhna (Thunder) has been in progress in the Mohmand Agency since April 6, 2011. The remote Tirah Valley in the Bara Sub-district is important for the extremists because of its difficult terrain, which makes SF operations complicated.  According to the SATP data, a total of 1,812 fatalities, including 400 civilians, 152 SFs and 1,260 militants have been recorded in the Khyber Agency since 2008 (data till October 30, 2011). The overall fatalities in FATA during this period stand at 15,690 comprising of 2,663 civilians, 993 SFs and 12,034 militants. -- Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

As America chose 'good over evil', a heady mix of politics, terror and religion spread across the subcontinent. America will eventually wriggle out of Afghanistan, differentiating between the ' Good Taliban' and 'Bad Taliban'. But India, Pakistan and other countries in our region will continue to suffer the consequences of radical madrasas sponsored by the CIA in cooperation with the Pakistani state, originally set up to drive the Russians away. Together they supported the call for an armed 'jihad' - something the Islamic world hadn't seen for almost a century, and just a few times in the whole1400 years of Islamic history. Unfortunately, the history of Islam is currently linked to the Arabs' history; and the peculiar and prohobitive Saudi version of Islam often thrust upon diverse Muslim communities at that. This has kept Islamic discourse from a more open and intelligent engagement with modernity. -- Sadia Dehlvi

The film is notable for its portrayal of Hinduism and of the British. Hindus are presented as miserable, corrupt, and sexually debauched while the British are scheming. Muslims, meanwhile, are poor and hard working. Ilam Din (Haider) is depicted as a blessed Muslim from the moment of his birth. When a mullah recites Azan (call for prayers) in his ear, the new-born Ilam Din stops crying and listens to Azan attentively. The mullah interprets this as a blessed sign. In contrast, Raj Pal (Afzal Ahmed) is greedy, scheming and sexually wayward. He is fond of a Red Light Area girl who is also a Hindu. Raj Pal wants to publish an inflammatory book to provoke the Muslims. The white ruler (Angraiz Sarkar) has assured him that no harm will come his way. But his wife and daughter - who was once about to be raped by a local Hindu tough (Munawwar Saeed), only to be rescued by Ilam Din - dissuade him. When the book hits the stall, Muslims begin to protest. Raj Pal is sent to jail by the district court and the book is banned. --- Farooq Sulehria

These ill-fated families had everything in abundance including loss, yet continued to become much-loved legacies. Fairy tales will always be just that, fairy tales! Happily ever after can never reach the extraordinary heights reached by its antagonist, tragedy. And when tragedy strikes real people, it hits where it affects the most and becomes history. The images of a convertible cruising with the first couple of America and gun shots being heard; Benazir Bhutto waving to the crowd and then going down with the explosion; the assassin bowing down to touch Rajeev Gandhi’s feet — all images that will perhaps always remind us of life’s unpredictability. These families have seen power, money, success, tragedy and sorrow like no other. -- Parkha Zeb

The fact that the Taliban and al Qaeda had sanctuaries and freedom in Pakistan is largely responsible for their present position in the strategic equation. One could mention a hundred junctures where the US went wrong in Afghanistan over the past 10 years, including turning a blind eye to the Taliban and the elements of Pakistan’s security establishment who had been openly supporting militants. Let alone the strategic follies in the war zone, some fairly dumb decisions were made politically too. Once the operations Rah-e-Rast and Haq were carried out to push them (as opposed to finish them off), they found sanctuaries in Afghan provinces, especially Nuristan. -- Marvi Sirmed

There are numerous Pakistanis who are convinced that the Taliban rule in Afghanistan was the best that the country had ever seen. They say that there was peace in Afghanistan and people could travel wherever they wanted to inside it, that there was no theft, no rape, no looting and generally law and order was very good. There is, however, another segment of society, which is of the opinion that religion was misinterpreted and misused by the Taliban when they came to power in Afghanistan. And as for those media anchors who consider the Taliban important for lasting peace in Afghanistan, why don’t they consider allowing the Taliban to set up a government in, say, Karachi? -- Asad Munir

MANSOUR Arbabsiar, the man at the centre of the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, has been described variously as ‘dishevelled’, ‘disorganised’, ‘unreliable’, and even ‘worthless’. Hardly flattering labels, but not (yet) criminal offences. In any case, he hardly seems to be an Iranian version of James Bond. Tom Hossein, an old friend of Arbabsiar’s, describes him as somebody “who was constantly losing his keys and cellphone”. After a dismal 30-year career in which he failed in a succession of business ventures ranging from selling horses and cars to peddling ice cream and sandwiches, we are being asked to believe that he was entrusted with a complex assassination plot stretching from Tehran to Mexico to Washington. -- Irfan Husain

Visit the US, there is no sign of any threat or attack, life goes like routine with no shade of war anywhere. Here in Pakistan, there is no road or street that does not have barricades, security checks and all sorts of problems that the people face. The entire thrust has come on Pakistan for no fault of hers. Bush and company have made billions, killed people in hundreds of thousands with no sweat on their faces. -- Wahab Munir

Lieberman and Co. have lost Turkey and are losing Egypt, our two stalwart allies in the region, and have insulted, humiliated and trodden on the toes of a dozen other nations. But they have undoubtedly gained much prestige. “They” – Netanyahu, Lieberman et al – are losing all our remaining friends, humiliating Barack Obama on the way. They sabotage the resumption of peace negotiations. They sprinkle settlements everywhere. If the Two-State solution is finally made impossible, what remains? A unified state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan? What kind of state would that be? They are dead set against a bi-national state, which would be the total negation of Zionism. An apartheid state? How long could that last? The ancient Hebrew sages said: “Who is the bravest hero? He who turns his enemy into a friend.” The modern sages who govern us have turned this around: “Who has the most prestige? He who turns his friend into an enemy.” -- Uri Avnery

TRUTH WILL out, they say. In the case of the sensational murder of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya on 26 March 2003, the adage could well prove true. Especially after the arrest of suspended IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt, who filed an affidavit in the Gujarat High Court last week stating that former minister of state for home Amit Shah and Chief Minister Narendra Modi asked him to destroy important evidence he had collected pertaining to the case. The web is quite tangled. The CBI probe into the fake encounter that killed Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi saw the arrest of Shah for his alleged connivance with the cops. Now the agency, on the orders of the SC, is investigating the encounter that took the life of Sohrabuddin’s associate Prajapati. -- Rana Ayyub (Photo: Haren Pandya)

In case Islamabad decides to pull the plug on the US, it may still be possible to feed the troops in Afghanistan - but it will certainly become more difficult. This is not to suggest that there aren't problems in Washington's perception of Pakistan. In fact, as the US gets into the election cycle, the hawks in the government will make a case against Pakistan. Similarly, Pakistan also needs the US if the latter wants a good deal in Afghanistan. Despite the inclination of the hawks in Islamabad to 'go it alone' in Afghanistan, the fact is that this is a plan fraught with numerous problems. The most critical issue is the threat of Pakistan getting sucked into the Afghan quagmire after the US's departure. Pakistan and the US stand at a juncture in their relations where they experience a strategic divergence of perceptions, plan and tactical convergence. This means that they are no longer on the same page as far as Afghanistan and the war on terror are concerned. The main issue is the manner in which they visualise the Afghanistan endgame. -- Ayesha Siddiqa

Rabbani was a disarmingly soft-spoken man who, it almost seemed, was inspired by the Quranic injunction: “... be modest in thy bearing, and lower thy voice: for, behold, the ugliest of all voices is the voice of asses.” Yet, behind this self-effacing facade was a ruthlessly ambitious person who is blamed by his detractors for the anarchy that prevailed in post-Najib Afghanistan and triggered the emergence of the Taliban.  Three overwhelmingly strong impulses motivated Rabbani throughout his eventful life: a commitment to the cause of Afghanistan’s Tajik community, a passion for restructuring Afghan society in accordance with his own interpretation of Islam, and an insatiable urge for power. He believed that power would enable him to achieve the first two objectives. He also believed that peace could not return to the country so long as foreign forces remained and he was against the grant of permanent military bases to the US. For this reason the point-man for Afghanistan at the Iranian foreign office, Mohsen Pak-Ayeen, made the preposterous statement that the Americans and NATO were responsible for the killing of Rabbani. -- S Iftikhar Murshed

“Even his tie and shoes were still on,” Shafiq told me. He called the police, and by the next day they had determined the man’s identity: Syed Saleem Shahzad, a journalist known for his exposés of the Pakistani military. Meanwhile, the zamindar—feudal lord—of a village twenty miles upstream from the dam called the police about a white Toyota Corolla that had been abandoned by the canal, in the shade of a banyan tree. The police discovered that the car belonged to Shahzad. Its doors were locked, and there was no trace of blood. Shahzad, whose parents migrated from India after Partition, making him a Mohajir—Urdu for “immigrant”—was an affable outsider within Pakistan’s journalistic circles. A hallmark of Shahzad’s reporting was that it frequently featured interviews with Islamist militants, including Al Qaeda fighters. -- Dexter Filkins

Terrorist violence in Quetta has had a significant sectarian overlay. In a prominent attack, at least 11 Shias were killed and another three were injured when their vehicle was attacked near a bus stop on Spiny Road in Quetta on July 30, 2011. In another attack, a suicide car bomb killed at least 11 Shias and injured 22, while they were celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr in Quetta on August 31, 2011. The bomber was apparently targeting a Shiite mosque, but could not get close enough because the road was blocked. The Quetta Shura-al Qaeda combine has plagued US-led forces fighting in Afghanistan. -- Ajit Kumar Singh