They "can't" control these border regions because its politically convenient for them not to. There is no excuse for any "lawless territories" in any soverign nation.
No excuse for any lawless territories in a sovereign nation...excuse me, wrong thread, I was thinking about the Texas border. Never mind...
The list of Al Qaeda kills by Pakistan is long.
Taliban, now that's a different story.
As I said before, you obviously have absolutely no idea what you are talking about regarding the border regions of Pak (or Stan for that matter). There is centuries of history in this particular region we are talking about - No centralized Gov't has ever controlled these areas.
Understand the terrain we are talking about (along with the history). The border region stretches nearly 2,000 miles along Pakistan's Pashtun belt -- from Chitral in the Northern Areas near the Chinese border, south through the tribal agencies including Waziristan, down to Zhob on the Balochistan border, then southwest to the Iranian border. The region includes every landscape from desert to snow-capped mountains.
Hell we are talking roughly over 44,000 Sq miles of the most rugged terrain on earth just in the NWFP alone!
The ability of even our military is completely stretched trying to conduct sustained Ops in this region. The logistics alone are a complete nightmare (let alone what the Pak military can do).
You are clearly speaking of a region and a subject you know very little to nothing about.
Regards,
You don't know a Pashtun from a Percheron.