The Afghanistan Study Group of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, one of the sponsors of the Iraq Study Group, issued a report yesterday recommending several changes in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.
Who’s Behind the Report
The report was produced by a 22-member team led by retired General James Jones and Ambassador Thomas Pickering. [...]

Ahmad Zaidan, al-Jazeera’s Islamabad bureau chief, interviewed Baitullah Mehsud in December. The video, provided above, was aired on the station a few days ago. It’s Mehsud’s first television interview.
The leader of Tehreek-e Taliban-e Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan) speaks in Pashto (translated by AJ into Arabic) while Zaidan presents the [...]

The back page of today’s Khabrain, a leading Pakistan daily, features an interesting political advertisement from Musharraf’s faction of the Muslim League party (PML-Q). [Topi tip: Ali]
The ad paints rival Nawaz Sharif as an agenda-less political opportunist who leans in the direction the political wind blows at the time.
Sharif, once a Zia ul-Haq protege, [...]

Let’s Continue Our Conversation…in London
Shahbaz Sharif, president of the Muslim League-Nawaz, tells BBC Urdu that “If Musharraf becomes neutral and promises to hold the polls in a free and fair manner, talks can be held with him.” This is a major break with precedent. Previously the Sharif brothers have publicly ruled out any compromise [...]

Pakistan continues along a mixed, though largely negative trajectory as the spate of urban suicide bombing continues and insurgents make bold moves in South Waziristan, while the army strengthens its control over Swat and leaders flinch toward national reconciliation. The army’s immediate workload increases, but Gen. Ashfaq Kayani takes clear steps to depoliticize [...]

Earlier this evening, a bomb blast struck Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, in the vicinity of Gul Ahmed Chowrangi in the Quaidabad area. Ten individuals have been killed and over forty injured.
The attack targeted ordinary pedestrians in a fruit and vegetable market area during a peak grocery shopping hour. The bomb blast also occurred [...]

Pakistan has moved forward in the two weeks since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but toward what exactly remains unclear. The country has displayed a capacity to sustain high-levels of violence, but with economic pressures and social divisions rising, one wonders what is the tipping point.
Musharraf Hangs in the Balance
Stuck in a gray zone, [...]

Earlier this afternoon local time, a suicide bomber attacked a group of police gathered near Lahore’s High Court, the scene of renewed protests by Pakistan’s lawyers’ movement. The attack killed approximately 23 people and injured over 60.
The bomber did not appear to attack protesters, but took opportunity to target an event in which government [...]

Nicholas Schmidle’s article in this week’s New York Times Magazine on the “Next-Gen Taliban” is one of the most solid stories in recent years on Pakistan’s challenges in its northwest region.  Most foreign commentators and journalists focus exclusively on the area’s security predicament, as if it were entirely distinct from its politics and politicians.
At the [...]