by Omar Ali

3 days ago the Pakistani Taliban raided an outpost of the levies, a paramilitary force recruited primarily from the Afridi tribesmen of the Khyber agency. Poorly equipped, poorly paid and left to stand on the frontlines of the war against the Taliban with little or no backup from the army, the levies lost 3 men and another 23 were captured. The next day the “local administration” spent a busy day contacting “tribal elders” to negotiate with the Taliban for the release of those poor men. But the talks failed and

the captives were executed and their bodies dumped a couple of miles outside the city. This is not the first time the local Taliban have captured levies or other paramilitary forces and it is not the first time they have executed them.

On the same day, a related anti-Shia militant group blew up three buses carrying Shia pilgrims to Iran.

20 or so people were killed. Dozens more injured. Again, this is not the first time such an act was commited. In fact scores of other pilgrims have lost their lives on that very road in the last few years and more will probably do so in the months and years to come.

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