The war on Pakistan's Taliban

Stalking Baitullah MehsudIT WAS a rare success for Pakistans police. At dawn on March 30th, a group of grenade-hurling, Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists, some in police uniform, stormed a police training centre in a rural suburb of Lahore, seizing the compound with over 800 cadets. By 4pm, it was all over. Four terrorists were killed or blew themselves up. Three were captured. The police fired wildly in the air before cameras as the captives were whisked away.Less than a month before, a similar group had brazenly attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore. After that bloody episode, in which all the terrorists escaped leaving eight policemen dead and a couple of cricketers wounded, many pointed the finger of blame at India, with which Pakistan has been locked in conflict since 1947. This time, the de facto interior minister, Rehman Malik, looked elsewhere. Their footprints lead to Waziristan, he saidreferring to Baitullah Mehsud, a jihadist warlord who maintains a fief in that north-western region on the border with Afghanistan.