DESTINATION: WAZIRISTAN
It’s coming to a boil, and bound to be nasty and brutish — but not short.
… the “army’s already in action” in Waziristan, though full-scale combat does not appear to have started. Military analysts believe NATO forces in Afghanistan are likely to launch a parallel operation to cut off the militants’ retreat.The assault on Baitullah Mehsud comes after a challenger emerged from his own tribe, Qari Zainuddin, who is being secretly backed by the Pakistan state and is already believed to have weakened the fearsome warlord. [More on that here – voxd]
[snip]
Pakistan has fought Mehsud three times since 2004 but has lost each encounter and then been forced to cut a peace deal that only emboldened the Taliban. This time, locals living in towns on the edge of Mehsud’s South Waziristan lair report massive movement of military men and equipment, on a scale not seen in the past. Source
