Jihadis break cover

Bruce Loudon | July 09, 2008 US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, the Bush administration's point man on policy in South Asia, is a highly regarded and experienced diplomat seldom given to public expressions of exasperation. Anti-Musharraf demonstration in Rawalpindi in June. Picture: AFP So when on a recent visit to Islamabad he gave vent at a news conference to apparent feelings of despair about what was happening in a country increasingly seen as the linchpin in the war against global Islamic extremism, it was inevitable that his remarks would create concern. The issue facing nuclear-armed Pakistan, Boucher insists, is not President Pervez Musharraf. "This is not the problem that Pakistan faces right now," he maintains, in what was taken as a warning to the country's floundering civilian Government, installed... [read full story]