PAKISTANI TRIBES FIGHT BACK AGAINST TALIBAN: “Moderate tribesmen in parts of militant-ravaged north-west Pakistan are challenging Taliban extremists threatening to overrun their area, in what could develop into a mass resistance movement. . . . The resistance has parallels with the “Sunni awakening” in Iraq, where tribesmen took on al-Qaida militants in Anbar province and elsewhere. The Pakistani movement relies on tribal customs and widespread ownership of guns to raise traditional private armies, known as lashkars, each with hundreds or several thousand volunteers. These tribal armies cannot stop individual acts of terrorism, like the devastating suicide bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad last week that killed more than 50 people. But they aim to stop the development of an extremist mini-state in the north-west.” I think we should try to encourage this.