Baitullah’s era

Published on

The death of the head of the Taliban in Pakistan appears to have confused the insurgency as much as it has the rest of the world.

In May last year, in a schoolroom in the village of Kotkai in South Waziristan, a member of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) named Qari Hussain, a man who trains potential suicide bombers, patted an Arabic-language television reporter on his back, telling him, "Please wrap up the interview – there is danger coming." But the man being interviewed merely gestured with his left hand to let the interview continue, all the while holding a small automatic assault rifle in his right.

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