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Pakistan: Violence Continues, Impeachment Rolls On, India Gets Impatient |
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More than a dozen people have died in an attack on a Pakistani air force bus near Peshawar.
Taleban spokesman Maulvi Omar said the attack was in response to military operations against insurgents in the Bajaur tribal region near the Afghan border.
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Karachi says this is the first direct attack on security forces in several weeks.
Pakistan saw a wave of militant violence last year with dozens of suicide attacks and bomb blasts which killed hundreds of people.
Violence reduced considerably after a new coalition government came to power after elections earlier this year and opened negotiations with the militants.
But clashes have intensified since top Pakistani Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud suspended talks in June.
Call me crazy, but it does seem there is some (inverse) relationship between how well negotiations are going and how much violence we see in Pakistan.
In impeachment news, the provincial assembly in Punjab voted to declare Musharraf unfit for office. The vote comes more as a symbolic than a procedural victory for proponents of impeachment, but it adds steam to their crusade. The news from Punjab reinforces other reports that Musharraf’s allies are deserting him: members of his party are voting against him in other provinces, and his successor in the military, Kayani, shows little interest in taking sides (or coming to Musharraf’s rescue). Even Bush has stopped taking Musharraf’s phone calls (h/t Juan Cole).
But civilian leaders still face a credibility problem abroad. Indian officials have expressed frustration to the New York Times about peace talks between India and Pakistan’s civilian government; the real powers in Pakistan, these officials argued, are the army and the ISI. And while impeaching Musharraf may be a real first step toward securing more control for civilian parliamentary leaders, the recent embassy bombings in Kabul show that Musharraf is not the only authority in Pakistan operating outside of frameworks of accountability and democracy.
