Musharaf did an interview the other day. When asked about binLaden and whether he thought he was running things out of Pakistan, Musharaf said something like, 'no, how could he? If he used a phone we'd know where he is.' Don't know what he was trying to say by that. At the time it seemed the reporter was tying to downgrade the importance of binLaden, or maybe Musharaf was. I don't know. But Musharaf was not happy with Bush's policies in Israel and with the effect that fighting in Iraq was having on muslims in the midddle east. He didn't sound firmly behind
the President.
A recent article on the operations in the region is here
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/infoservice/secwatch/index.cfm?service=cwn&parent=detail&menu=8&sNewsID=9784
an excerpt:
Spread over 6,619 square kilometers, the South Waziristan Agency is the largest and poorest of Pakistan's seven tribal agencies, which were the brainchild of British colonizers. The agency consists of three sub-divisions: Ladha, Sarokai, and Wana, the latter serving as the capital and the center of the military's operations. According to census documents and tribal elders, the Mehsud tribe largely inhabits the former two sub-divisions, while the Wazir, Dotana, and Sulaimankhel tribes inhabit Wana. The Wazir tribe is further divided into nine sub-tribes, of which the Zalikhel tribe is the largest. The Yargulkhel tribe is a clan of the Zalikhel tribe, and has been a thorn in the government's side, showing firm resistance to law-enforcement agencies during the security sweeps. They live mostly in Kaloosha, Azam Warsak, and Daja Ghundai, some 10km from the capital. There are only two main roads, the Wana-Azam Warsak Road, which is about 20km long and was constructed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Wana-Wakhwa road, which was built with US aid in the 1990s. The Wazir tribe possesses inherited lands in Afghanistan's Paktika, Shakeen, Bermal, Zabal, and Kandahar provinces, as well as property in Pakistan's Dera Ismail Khan district.