May 18, 2010:
In Pakistan's tribal territories, a Taliban death squad attacked a senior police commander, killing him, along with twelve others (including three children). This occurred near the Khyber Pass, where troops have been pursuing Islamic terrorists fleeing from Waziristan. The local media jumps all over the deaths of women and children, and in a pattern similar to what happened elsewhere in the Moslem world (Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia), Islamic terrorist attacks that kill kids, turn the population against the Islamic radicals.
Away from the headlines, Pakistan is having major problems coping with the three million refugees created last year, as civilians fled the fighting, mainly in the tribal territories. Most returned home within weeks or months, but the process disrupted the economy and government in the areas affected, creating more demand for emergency services. There are also problems with Taliban and other Islamic terrorists hiding among the refugees in order to set up operations outside the tribal territories.
Pakistani security forces found and destroyed at least five more Taliban camps in Orakzai, causing nearly a hundred terrorist deaths in the last a week. In the last two months, over 2,500 Taliban and Islamic terrorist fighters have been killed, wounded or captured in the Orakzai area (which is south of the Khyber Pass, an 1,800 square kilometers patch of mountains inhabited by 450,000 tribals). The combat operations have caused over 50,000 civilians to flee their homes.
Not all the major violence in the tribal territories is Taliban related. In the Kurram river valley, adjacent to the Khyber Pass area, sixty people were kidnapped at gunpoint, apparently as part of a dispute between Shia and Sunni tribesmen. This Shia/Sunni violence has been going on for a long time.
May 17, 2010: India successfully tested another of its Agni II ballistic missiles (solid fuel, 2,000 kilometer range, nuclear warhead). In central India, a Maoist landmine destroyed a bus, killing 35 of the 60 passengers. Most of the dead were civilians, including many children.
The Indian government has banned over a hundred terrorist organizations that operate, for the most part, outside of India. This makes it easier to go after members of these groups if they come to India for any reason.
May 15, 2010: In northern India, police found a car rigged as a bomb, and parked near a railroad station. The bomb was disabled and the car is being traced.
May 13, 2010: In Indian Kashmir, police caught four 15 year old boys trying to sneak away and join an Islamic terrorist group operating in the area. Suspicious neighbors called police, who intervened and returned the boys to their families. The Islamic terrorists are increasingly concentrating their recruiting efforts on teenagers, as older men are less enthusiastic about joining (and facing almost certain death.)