Tom Hussain

Pakistan announced Wednesday that it was ending its 7-month-old policy of trying to reconcile with its Taliban insurgents and vowing to answer each terrorist attack with military strikes on the militants’ strongholds in northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Treason charges against Pakistan’s former military dictator, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, have become the nuisance that the country’s power brokers wish would somehow go away.

Intermediaries representing Pakistan’s government and Taliban insurgents will meet later this week, supposedly to explore avenues for a peaceful solution to the country’s six-year militant uprising.

Eight months after Pakistan’s newly appointed prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, suspended counterterrorist operations against Taliban militants and sought negotiations to end their six-year insurgency, the country has discovered that the militants exploited that time and space to reverse major losses they’d suffered over the years at the hands of the 150,000 Pakistani soldiers arrayed against them.

After twice defying summonses to appear before a special court formed to hear treason charges against him, former Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf apparently suffered heart problems Thursday while en route to the court, forcing the case to be adjourned until Monday.

The treason trial of Pakistan’s former military strongman, Pervez Musharraf, got off to a cloak-and-dagger start Tuesday when police discovered explosives and other weapons on the route from his Islamabad home to the court hearing the case.

Pakistan’s former military strongman, Pervez Musharraf, is to go on trial Tuesday on treason charges, in what promises to be a memorable piece of political theater that, in theory, could end with him being sent to the gallows.

A diplomatic initiative by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to kick-start peace talks with regional foe India, stalled since a murderous November 2008 rampage across Mumbai by Pakistani militants, has failed because of opposition from his powerful military, officials in Islamabad indicate.

Pakistan’s government initiated treason proceedings Thursday against former military strongman Pervez Musharraf, setting the stage for the first trial of a former dictator in this country, which has been ruled by military juntas for half its 66-year history.

The Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency find Osama bin Laden is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars, irrespective of whether charges of manslaughter filed against him last week stick or not, security officials and analysts say.

Hundreds of Pakistani nationalists blockaded roads in northwest Pakistan Sunday, vowing to prevent the passage of supplies to U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan until the Central Intelligence Agency ends drone strikes against the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Pakistani officials acknowledged this week that the Obama administration had told Pakistan’s prime minister during his recent visit to Washington that there would be no letup in U.S. drone strikes intended to kill key terrorist leaders in Pakistan.

Former Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, will be tried for treason, Pakistan’s interior minister said Sunday. If convicted, Musharraf could face the death penalty.

A top financier of the notorious Haqqani Network, a key Afghan terrorist group, was killed late Sunday in a drive-by shooting on the outskirts of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, four years after he was detained by Pakistani authorities here for violating United Nations and U.S. Treasury Department sanctions.

Six days after a U.S. drone strike killed the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, the terrorist organization named Mullah Fazlullah as its leader, a controversial choice that is bound to produce a bloody upsurge in militant attacks across Pakistan but that also is likely to irreversibly fracture the group.