bomber killed a pro-government ethnic Pashtun tribal leader and four other people Monday as soldiers killed 10 militants in a separate incident, police and security officials said. Violence has been picking up in northwest Pakistan after a relative lull that followed the killing of the Pakistani Taleban leader in a US drone attack last month, and after troops made gains in an assault launched in the Swat region in April. Monday's attack near the town of Bannu in North West Frontier Province came two days after suicide bombers killed 27 people, and a day after Interior Minister Rehman Malik again said the back of the Pakistani Taleban had been broken. Here are some questions and answers about the Pakistani Taleban. Why is the government trumpeting success? The army largely cleared the former Taleban bastion in the Swat valley, 120 km northwest of Islamabad, with an offensive launched in April. Another militant enclave, the Bajaur ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border, was largely cleared earlier although intermittent clashes and bomb attacks occur in both places. The biggest blow to the Taleban was the killing of their overall leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in an attack by a missile-firing US drone aircraft in his South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border on Aug. 5. Several top Taleban members, including one of Mehsud's aides and former spokesman and the spokesman from Swat, have been captured. Has the militants' back really been broken? While largely forced out of Swat and Bajaur and apparently in disarray since Mehsud's death, there are still thousands of well-armed fighters in South Waziristan and some other regions. The new overall Taleban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, is said to be even more aggressive than Baitullah. The violence over recent days has set back hopes the militants were on the back foot. Some analysts say the militants have been given time to regroup because the army has put off an offensive against their South Waziristan bastion. What will Pakistan do next? Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Sunday Pakistan had yet to decide if it should launch a full-scale military operation in Waziristan. But he said Pakistan would take whatever action was needed to flush out the Pakistani Taleban – whom he described as “the front face of Al-Qaeda” – from areas bordering Afghanistan. The army would face a tough fight with high casualties in South Waziristan and instead of sending in ground troops it has been relying on air strikes. The army is also unlikely to want to launch a ground offensive with winter approaching. What implications for Afghanistan? Many analysts say Pakistan is acting only against the militants which threaten it, like the Pakistani Taleban, while leaving alone those focused on fighting in Afghanistan or on targetting India. Pakistan's main objective is to stop attacks on its security forces and in its cities, so there's a danger the Pakistani Taleban might focus more on supporting their Afghan Taleban allies in attacking into Afghanistan. If the back of the Pakistani Taleban really is broken, the United States is likely to want Pakistan's attention to shift to the Afghan Taleban factions operating out of western Pakistani enclaves. But Malik rejected US complaints the Afghan Taleban led by Mullah Omar were operating from the town of Quetta in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, in the so-called “Quetta shura”, or leadership council. Despite such denials, analysts say some Pakistanis see Afghan Taleban groups as a useful tool to counter the growing influence of old rival India in Afghanistan. With US and Afghan officials increasingly raising the possibility of talks with the Afghan Taleban to end that war, analysts say Pakistan is unlikely to move with full force against the groups that might be part of a negotiated settlement and would provide it with leverage in Afghanistan.
