Taliban Inch Closer to Pakistani Capital

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan<br>April 22, 2009 -- The Taliban have made very public inroads into formerly peaceful areas of Pakistan, thanks largely to a peace deal that imposes Islamic law on nearly a third of the Northwest Frontier Province. Militants have used that area as a base, residents say, and they have flouted requirements in that area that they disarm. Wednesday they set up checkpoints and began patrolling the streets with weapons, just as they did for months during nearly two years of fighting with the military.

The Taliban's increasing strength caught the attention of U.S. officials Wednesday, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling Pakistan a "mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world."

"I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances, now within hours, of Islamabad," she told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, "being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state."

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said.

The Pashtuns who dominate the area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border have a saying: "Every passing moment is better than the next one here."

Residents say that is an apt description of the current state of law and order in Pakistan, which has deteriorated to the point where people living in Islamabad are questioning whether the Taliban will soon challenge the writ of the state inside the capital itself.

The most public Taliban advance came in Buner, just south of the Swat Valley, part of the northwest area where the government signed a deal last week to impose Islamic law. In Buner, residents had managed to fend off Taliban militants for months. But eventually the militants overran the area, forcing many to flee to Islamabad, less than 100 miles away.