With the Pakistani government continually crowing about the “success” of its assorted military operations, particularly the invasion of South Waziristan, it seems it is rapidly becoming the victim of its own success.
The military has found plenty of strategically unimportant villages to siege and eventually occupy throughout South Waziristan, and it has killed its share of tribesmen, but the leadership of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains elusive.
Rather than all moving to a single location, it seems that the TTP is scattering throughout the nation, setting up smaller cells in the heart of Pakistan, just as capable of launching attacks but even harder to track.
Though it has done little to the TTP but make it an even more inconvenient problem, the US is pressing Pakistan to move into North Waziristan next, taking on the Haqqani network. Though the US is hopeful Pakistan can replicate its “success” there, that might cause Pakistan more problems than its solves if it spreads even more militants into the nation’s major cities.