Army must change tactics against militants to halt chaos

The regional war on whose name nobody can agree - terror, occupation and invasion - has shifted its shape in recent years. In western eyes, anyway, it was in the beginning about Afghanistan then Iraq was its epicentre, until the focus shifted to Iran and its nuclear ambitions and than back to Afghanistan. Pakistan always figured when Afghanistan was in the spotlight because failure to deal effectively with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the border areas puts Nato forces at a disadvantage. Pakistan was seen as a dimension of the Afghan problem and was again presented in those terms yesterday when Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Galani assured President Bush in Washington that Pakistan would strive to secure the Afghan border.

As insurgents have moved from the border strip to some settled areas of Pakistan in recent months, it is at least an open question as to which country is the sideshow and which the main event. Without demonising these movements - which mix tribalism, jihadism, Pashtun national feeling and criminality, and are also the product of social breakdown resulting from decades of war - it cannot be right that parts of Pakistan are ruled by parallel governments, judged by parallel courts, and make war on their own terms whenever they wish.

Militants are even now encroaching on the environs of Peshawar. In Mohmand, the Taliban control economic enterprises. The number of foreign fighters entering Pakistan is said to be now much higher than those entering Iraq. And they are coming to Pakistan not only to fight in Afghanistan but in Pakistan itself.