“Within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state.”  

     David Kilcullen, adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander

April 5, 2009

New York Times Magazine Preview

By JAMES TRAUB

TO ENTER the office where Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, conducts his business, you head down a long corridor toward two wax statues of exceptionally tall soldiers, each in a long, white tunic with a glittering column of buttons. On closer inspection, these turn out to be actual humans who have been trained in the arts of immobility. The office they guard, though large, is not especially opulent or stupefying by the standards of such places. President Zardari met me just inside the doorway, then seated himself facing a widescreen TV displaying an image of fish swimming in a deep blue sea. His party spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, and his presidential spokesman, Farahnaz Ispahani, sat facing him, almost as rigid as the soldiers. Zardari is famous for straying off message and saying odd things or jumbling facts and figures. He is also famous for blaming his aides when things go wrong — and things have been going wrong quite a lot lately. Zardari’s aides didn’t want him to talk to me. Now they were tensely waiting for a mishap.

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The following story by the Los Angeles Times gives a new twist to the earlier story released by the US news agency  - the Associated Press (see the post before this one). The AP story said a group called Fedayeen al-Islam claimed responsibility. Now this LA Times story claims Baituallh Mahsud has. According to the LA Times, he has thretened to strike the White House. The timing of the attacks and the Mahsud’s statement is curious and provides a perfect justification for US military strikes (ground and air) anywhere inside Pakistani territories and conincides with the increasingly hostile statements made by the top U.S. military and political officials against Pakistan Army.

LA Times Story 

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