Moving the Edge

And it looks like I've got a ringside seat.

This morning's above-the-fold from The Nation:

Coalition forces hit Taliban inside Pak Say raid carried out after permission from Islamabad: Pakistan military denies claim

Kabul (AFP) -- US-led and Afghan troops struck Taliban positions in fresh clashes with the extremist militia that left at least 19 rebels dead, security forces said Sunday.
The US-led coalition said it received permission from Pakistan to attack across the border on Saturday, but this was denied by the chief military spokesman in Islamabad.

Relevant excerpts follow.

Afghan and coalition forces used mortar and artillery fire to destroy insurgent attacking positions on both sides of the border after a military post in Afghanistan came under attack, the coalition said in a statement. The Afghan army saw Taliban fighters firing mortars and rockets from several positions and Pakistan's military confirmed three of the firing sites were on their soil, the statement said...Six insurgent firing sites were destroyed, three on each side of the border, and more than a dozen insurgents were killed...US military spokeswoman, Captain Vanessa Bowman, insisted to AFP that "this was fully-coordinated with Pakistan and agreed on. There is a very close working relationship (with Pakistan) to eliminate this kind of threat," she said.

In the Op Area -- North Waziristan: In Miranshah, pro-Taliban militants rocketed and then assaulted a checkpoint in Ismailkhel, killing a soldier. Troops then counterattacked, killing five and wounding seven. In Banda, troops walked H&I fires along the border for ninety minutes -- no report of the results, but the Taliban and their allies have been restive in that area.
-- South Waziristan: Negotiations are underway between the tribal council of the Mehuda and militants who kidnapped nineteen government officials (note: around here, a government official is any public servant, from local postman to local senator). In Ladha, a Frontier Forces colonel "and three others" were kidnapped; negotiations are continuing for the release of the fifteen troops kidnapped earlier in the same region.

On the Street: Four policemen were killed in Machar when a suicide bomber they halted at a checkpoint blew himself up to avoid arrest. Police in Karachi killed a recently-released-on-bail bomber in a shootout -- he was a late member of a militant Sunni group calling itself Lashkar-e-Jangvi, which appears to specialize in badly-made parcel bombs; they sent out ten a few years ago and seven of them fizzled. Baluchistan, just across the river to the west of Shangri-La (if you think I just blew OPSEC, guess again -- Baluchistan's a thousand klicks in length) is heating up. Local pro-Taliban types have been grenading barber shops and threatening to kill Baluchi men who trim their beards.

[Armorer's note - Catch up on Bill's Excellent Adventure in the Archives.]