This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has resigned.
Story at the Economist.com
More - See: Jane Perlez, “Wrangling Begins Over Pakistan’s Next President,” New York Times, August 19, 2008
Extended coverage at PBS.org
More on Pakistan
In a review that captures well the current conflicts, political patterns, moods, and failures throughout much of the Middle East, Raymond Bonner looks at a new book by esteemed Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid.
Raymond Bonner, “War in Progress,” New York Times Book Review, August 10, 2008
The book: Ahmed Rashid. Descent Into Chaos: The United States and [...]
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is alleging that Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is linked with militants. See: Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants, New York Times, July 30, 2008.
ISI support of militant jihadist movements is not new or surprising. The same could have been said of the CIA in [...]
A report in today’s New York Times claims that, thanks to infighting within American security and intelligence networks and cooling relations between the United States and Pakistan, Al-Qaeda is gaining strength in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde, “Amid Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan,” New York Times, June 30, [...]
The Taliban, exploiting the relatively lawless border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, have been regaining ground in both countries. Earlier this month, they broke into a prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Today, the New York Times is reporting, they are positioning themselves to take over the city of Peshawar in Pakistan.
Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, [...]
Pakistan has protested what it claims was the accidental killing of eleven of its troops in a U.S. air raid that had targeted Taliban insurgents operating in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This isn’t the first time Pakistan has leveled such charges. Relations between Pakistan and the U.S. have reached new lows over how [...]
“In a searing report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, sharply criticized the administration for relying too heavily on Pakistan’s military to achieve American counterterrorism goals, while paying only token attention to economic development and improving governance.”
Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Lacks Pakistan Plan,” New York Times, April 18, 2008, A7.
In the New York Times Book Review for Sunday, April 6, Fareed Zakaria (who spoke at NMH a few years back) reviews a new book completed by Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto shortly before she was assassinated.
Go to review
See Jane Perlez, “Pakistanis Signal Shift in Relationship with U.S.,” New York Times, Mar. 26, 2008, A7.
See the summary of the February 2008 elections in Pakistan from the BBC.
BBC Middle East