The New Face of the Pakistani Army, The Guardian, 4 March 2010
EXCERPT: "Pakistan's army, the bedrock of an otherwise fragile state, may not be the most progressive institution. But recent developments suggest that military leaders realise it needs to change, even if key concerns remain. No issue puts Pakistan under the international spotlight more than its relationship with Islamist militancy. [...] At the heart of the debate is Pakistan's army, an at once nebulous yet strangely cohesive collective that has been blamed for playing a double game that has irked foreign allies and domestic hardliners alike. Those fears have led the army to some significant conclusions. At a press conference with foreign journalists last month, the usually media-shy army chief Pervez Kayani noted that a 'Talibanised' society at home or in Afghanistan was not in Pakistan's interests. Those remarks have been backed with action. In the last two years, Pakistan's security forces have at last met a homegrown Taliban insurgency with significant force and skill. Their counterinsurgency capacity has increased from virtual non-existence in 2004, when a new insurgency later to be called the Pakistan Taliban started to force the state to reach humiliating ceasefire agreements in the tribal areas. Now there is a major military presence in each of the country's seven tribal areas, while Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan and Bajaur have been captured. Most significant of all, Pakistan has finally cracked down on the senior Afghan Taliban leadership sheltering in its territory."
Read the full story.
Related articles:
Pakistan army: The struggle within [op-ed], The Hindu, 6 March 2010
Taliban call Pak army "impure force", The Times of India, 5 March 2010
Holbrooke "agnostic" over Pak's sudden change of policy against Taliban, One India, 5 March 2010
US sees Pakistan "strategic shift" in war on Taliban, AFP, 26 February 2010
Related posts:
Military "biggest obstacle" to reconciliation with Taliban, 9 February 2010
The Pakistan military's adaptation to counter-insurgency in 2009, 27 January 2010
Govt, military wary of US overtures, 25 January 2010
Pakistan's military balks at Obama's Afghan surge, 20 January 2010
The Pakistan military: Change and continuity, 16 October 2009
