Refugee Crisis Clouds Pakistan’s Anti-Taliban War

It is in refugee camps like Chotha Lahore, rather than on the battlefields of the Swat Valley, that the outcome of Pakistan’s decisive showdown with the Taliban may be decided. The camp, near the town of Swabi, is sheltering some of the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the government offensive to drive the militants out of the Swat Valley and its surrounds. “The purpose [of the campaign] is to cleanse the areas of these miscreants and militants,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told TIME

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U.N.: 360,000 escape war-torn Pakistani region

Civilians continued to flee Pakistan’s northwest in droves Monday as government troops prepared to engage Taliban militants in the crisis-hit Swat Valley. More than 360,000 Pakistanis have fled their homes since May 2, the United Nations has reported. “Obviously more people are on the move,” said Ariane Rummery, a spokeswoman for the U.N.

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Scottish court convicts 8 men over child sex abuse

A Scottish court has convicted eight men of child sexual abuse in what police say is the largest pedophile ring ever dismantled in Scotland. Staff members from Mardan Medical Center have treated 2,124 patients from clashes between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters in more than two weeks of fighting, according to Dr

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Son of pro-Taliban cleric killed in Pakistan

A son of a pro-Taliban cleric who negotiated a controversial peace deal in Pakistan’s Swat Valley was killed Thursday morning, Pakistani and Taliban officials said. Kafayatullah, the son of Islamist fundamentalist leader Sufi Muhammed, died when mortar shells from Pakistani security forces hit a home in the Lower Dir district of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, said Mehmood Khan, a Taliban commander, and a Pakistani intelligence official who asked not to be identified. The attack took place in the Maiden area.

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Zardari in Washington: Hard Questions for Pakistan’s Leader

Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, arrives at the White House on Wednesday as one of his country’s walking wounded. Amid rising violence and turmoil, his popularity among his own people has hit rock bottom; political allies and rivals alike smell blood in the water; the country’s military barely pretends to follow his instructions; the Taliban controls large swaths of his country’s territory; and militant groups want his head — literally. So, can Pakistan’s President expect some TLC in Washington

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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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