An explosives-laden vehicle moving towards Wana was designed to turn a populated town into a killing field. That catastrophe was prevented because Pakistan’s security forces detected the plot, destroyed the vehicles and killed one terrorist. Five others were injured. It was the second such success in Wana within days, after another vehicle-borne assault on a […]
Denials
Strikes Signal Pakistan’s Harder Line as Taliban Denials Wear Thin
Pakistan’s latest precision strikes inside Afghanistan have pushed an already volatile frontier into a more coercive phase. Islamabad is no longer treating Afghan-based TTP sanctuaries as a matter for demarches, mediated pauses and Taliban assurances; it is signalling a line of action in which militant infrastructure across the border will be targeted when Kabul refuses […]
Denials of US immigrant visas skyrocket after rule change
When Arturo Balbino, a Texas construction worker, walked into his visa interview at the American consulate in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez in March, he wasn’t nervous. He felt good. Balbino, a 33-year-old Mexican national who had entered the United States illegally 14 years ago, thought he had a strong case for […]