...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
-Khyber Agency
... the place to go if you've got an Indiana Jones hat and whip. Chock full of high adventure and treacherous Pathans. You should really train up to it, though...
boundary, a separatist attack in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
-- the new year has continued with grim reminders of a troubling reality: the country still has a long way to go before victory can be declared in the fight against militancy.
While it was never expected that a year and a half of sustained counter-insurgency operations in Fata and intensive counterterrorism actions across the rest of Pakistain would eliminate militancy, the worry is that the state may have reached the point of diminishing returns.
Past counter-insurgency operations, like the several iterations in Khyber Agency, have yielded a worrying pattern.
While the military is able to reclaim territory and ensure turbans do not return en masse, the turbans adapt their tactics to new realities. The occasional suicide kaboom against security targets and frequent IED attacks have prevented the return of true normality.
Vastly improved as the situation on the ground may be, small-scale attacks continue with disturbing frequency. Meanwhile,
...back at the game, the Babe was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally it hit him...
in Balochistan, two years of outreach by the previous civilian governments to separatist elements have not been able to offset the continuing realities of a province where politics and security have effectively been militarised.
The Bolan attack on FC personnel and the claim of responsibility by the BLA suggest that a decade of trying to militarily crush the separatists has not worked.
Could NAP be the answer to both problems in areas abutting Fata and in Balochistan? On paper, yes. But in reality, patchy implementation and the lack of meaningful coordination between the centre and the provinces and the civilian and military arms of the state continue to impede long-term success.
The attack on Khasadar personnel stationed at a Khyber-Peshawar check post embodies the dizzying array of challenges -- border control with Afghanistan; normalising Fata; and protecting the provinces.
Neither the success of Khyber I and Khyber II, nor high-level attempts to improve border management prevented the turbans from being able to kill personnel right on Peshawar's doorstep.