Link works fine for me but here ya' go. Hate for you to use that as an excuse-
Taliban militants driven from the Swat Valley by Pakistan's army in recent months are again infiltrating the region's towns and villages, kidnapping and beheading perceived enemies and ambushing soldiers, as hundreds of thousands of refugees return home.
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Associated Press
.Whether the latest violence represents the last gasp of a dying insurgency or the first sign of the militants' recovery is hard to tell. But the renewed violence is a sharp reminder that the offensive for the strategic valley, which won effusive praise from the U.S. and European nations, remains far from complete.
One of the most recent incidents took place around midnight Thursday, when eight bearded men with Kalashnikovs and dressed in army uniforms came looking for Jahan Zada, the head clerk of a small-town police station in Swat. Three took up positions on the roof of the boxy, two-story brick home, said a neighbor who witnessed the incident. The other five kicked down the front door.
"That's when we knew they were Taliban," said the witness, who asked that he be identified as Junaid. "They dragged him out and took him away."
Within hours, four of the alleged Taliban kidnappers were killed by security forces, officials say. Mr. Zada is still missing.
Pakistan's military declared the valley secure two weeks ago, after weeks of intense fighting against the Taliban in what has been viewed as the start of a major pushback by Pakistani forces against the militants' spread. The military has since been encouraging the more than two million people who had fled the area to return: 350,000 have already come home.
But some of the militants who melted away in the face of the offensive are re-emerging, while others remain holed up in mountainside redoubts.
Pakistan's military spokesman, Maj. Gen Athar Abbas, said that until the military has a better handle on the valley, it is unlikely to open another front in the tribal areas along the Afghan border, the Taliban's most important strongholds in Pakistan and the rear base for militants fighting U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.
In the past week, three civilians have been beheaded by the Taliban in and around Mingora, the valley's main town. Mr. Zada was kidnapped in a nearby town, Sangota. In another nearby village, the janitor at a police station was killed, say military officers, diplomats and aid workers.
The army, meanwhile, is engaged in near-daily firefights with pockets of Taliban resisters. Most clashes are small, but dozens of militants have been killed in recent days, along with a few soldiers, the army says.
"The situation is still uncertain," said Shazeb Ali, 28 years old, who returned to his home and mobile-phone shop in Mingora two weeks ago. "We can hear the sound of firing some distance away."
Military commanders say the violence is nowhere near the level seen in Swat in the wake of a February peace deal that effectively handed the valley to the Taliban, or at the height of the offensive, which began in late April after the militants pushed into two neighboring districts and came within 60 miles of Islamabad, the capital.
The recent beheadings, gun battles and threats are a sharp reminder for Pakistan and its foreign allies, "that there is no quick solution to the challenge we face from these miscreants," said Gen Abbas.
Authorities in Peshawar said Sunday they had arrested Sufi Mohammed, the cleric who negotiated the Swat peace deal on behalf of the Taliban, and two of his sons. They were arrested for encouraging violence and terrorism, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister of North West Frontier Province, which includes Swat. There was no immediate comment from Mr. Mohammed's spokesman.
With violence in Swat continuing, authorities are having trouble recruiting police and administrators because candidates fear being targeted. The violence is also making it hard to re-establish some semblance of the valley's social order, which was upended during two years of unrest in which the Taliban imposed a harsh brand of Islamic law and fomented a rebellion by chasing off the small class of landlords who controlled most of the valley's business.
A faltering reconstruction could leave the strategic valley exposed for what would be the third Taliban takeover since 2007.
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Associated Press
Soldiers in the Swat town of Mingora on Sunday pose with youths who the military said had been rescued after being forced to join the Taliban.
.The military says it has decimated the Swat Taliban's command-and-control abilities and its logistics infrastructure, and soldiers now control the main roads, towns and villages on the banks of the Swat River.
But the "Taliban are still entrenched in some mountainous areas," said Brig. Tahir Hameed Rana, a commander in Mingora.
The valley's Taliban commanders remain at large. Gen. Abbas, the military spokesman, called this "our biggest failure."
"We're going to continue these raids and these snatch-and-grab operations until we have them," he said. "We can't allow them to continue instilling fear in the population."
Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah, known as the 'radio mullah' for his fiery broadcasts on the Taliban's pirate FM radio station, was again heard on the airwaves for three days last week. Muslim Khan, the Swat Taliban's spokesman, has also resurfaced. He told local journalists last week that the Taliban's main forces would return.
Junaid, the man who witnessed last week's kidnapping of Mr. Zada, said when he hears Mr. Fazlullah's voice, "I fear the Taliban are preparing to come back," said. He said he and his family are staying for now. Military commanders say they are banking on such people to help root out Taliban holdouts"
Pakistan doesnt bother to guard its own borders and thats the US's fault thats a new high on the rolf factor. Though the following comes close..
And really its not opening, i dont need an excuse or covers to hide behind.
