Displaced Pakistanis crowd camps as they flee fighting

A family of 18 Pakistani men, women and children trudges down a dirt road toward a refugee camp. Adolescent girls carry infants on their hips, while the men lug bundles of belongings on their backs. “Come, stay close to me,” said one woman wrapped in brightly colored robes, speaking to three children trailing behind her.

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Obama: Afghanistan, Pakistan, U.S. working to defeat extremists

President Obama said Wednesday that the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States are meeting "as three sovereign nations joined by a common goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al Qaeda and the Taliban. To do so, Obama said, the three nations have to deny extremists space to operate and bring a better life to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama delivered the remarks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the White House

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Orphanage caught in Pakistan crossfire

About 80 boys and 20 staffers in an orphanage were trapped during intense fighting between the Pakistani military and the Taliban Wednesday, the orphanage director said. The children trapped in the four-story building in the town of Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat Valley felt as if they were under siege because the fighting was so close, said Muhammad Ali, director of the orphanage. Staff members said they only had enough food to last two more days.

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Pakistani forces, Taliban clash in Swat Valley

The Pakistani military and the Taliban clashed in the country’s Swat Valley Wednesday as thousands of civilians fled the area, a local official said. An estimated 40,000 people fled the city of Mingora in northwestern Pakistan, as military clashes raged on, said Khushhal Khan, district coordination officer in the area

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Legislation would triple U.S. non-military aid to Pakistan

As Pakistani forces continue to battle an advancing Taliban, the leading senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee introduced legislation Monday tripling aid to the country. The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, introduced by Sens. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and Dick Lugar, R-Indiana, authorizes $7.5 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan over the next five years to foster economic growth and development, and another $7.5 billion for the following five years.

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