April 26, 2007:
Pakistan
has been fighting Islamic radicals for decades, but the battle got particularly
nasty after September 11, 2001. Since then, Pakistani police and troops have
arrested over 4,000 Islamic radicals, mostlyin the tribal territories along the Afghan border. About half of those
were then handed over to foreign governments. The U.S. apparently for about a
thousand of them, but Pakistan refuses to say who got the rest. It would appear
that many of the Islamic radicals were turned over to Middle Eastern and
Central Asian countries, including neighboring Afghanistan.
During all that, Pakistani
security forces suffered over 500 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded. Several
thousand tribesmen, Islamic radicals and civilians have been killed in the
fighting as well.