Islamists Waste Little Time in Pakistan

By Douglas Farah

Defense secretary Robert Gates is rightly concerned that the internal turmoil in Pakistan is distracting crucial efforts from tracking al Qaeda and the resurgent Taliban.

"The concern I have is that the longer the internal problems continue, the more distracted the Pakistani army and security services will be in terms of the internal situation rather than focusing on the terrorist threat in the frontier area," Gates said.

There are plenty of signs of the damage already done. Some 200 members of government forces in the Swat Valley surrendered to the Taliban in recent days. In the Northwest Frontier Territory, a car bomb has killed a senior government official. Across the country troops are deployed to monitor, arrest and beat the democratic opposition.

How distracted is the army? It seems like plenty. Musharraf's power play has discredited an already weak government, and my friends monitoring the situation say the command-and-control structure is in tatters. My full blog is here.

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