From Newsweek, a certain sign of more trouble:

Pakistani lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition-party members can scarcely ignore the irony of their situation: while thousands of them are being beaten and locked up under President Pervez Musharraf’s newly declared state of emergency, his government has just let more than two dozen militant Islamists out of jail. Protesters might be even angrier if Musharraf disclosed the names of some of those freed militants. Taliban sources tell NEWSWEEK that the top man on the list was Mullah Obaidullah Akhund—the highest-ranking Taliban official ever captured by the Pakistanis. As one of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar’s closest confidants and his defense minister until the post 9-11 invasion of Afghanistan, Obaidullah was No. 3 in the group’s hierarchy and a member of its ruling 10-man shura (council).

His arrest on Feb. 26 seems to have been anything but a coincidence. That was the very day that Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Islamabad on an unannounced visit to demand a crackdown on Taliban operations in Pakistan. Washington was out of patience with Taliban commanders not only roaming free in Pakistan’s tribal lands but even being allowed to hide in plain sight in cities like Quetta–the provincial capital near the Afghan border where Obaidullah was captured, along with the Taliban’s senior Zabul province commander, Amir Khan Haqqani.

Reading the rest, it displays how inept it was to let at least 250 of its troops captured by a dangerous warlord. Is this the same military that supposedly is keeping the nukes safe? This oughta get Congress and same candidates furious.

Mehsud finally released the last 211 surviving hostages on Nov. 4, the day after Musharraf declared a state of emergency and began rounding up dissidents in the name of confronting “extremism and terrorism.” In exchange for the freed troops, the tribal warlord got the men he wanted out of jail. Besides Obaidullah and Haqqani, they included two brothers of another senior Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani. He and his two brothers had shared a house in Quetta until his death last December. U.S. forces, reportedly tipped off by Pakistani intelligence, killed him as he was crossing into Afghanistan. His brothers were arrested at his house in Quetta at the same time. Also released was Mehsud’s cousin, who was the first suicide bomber captured with his suicide vest intact.

As an aside, a new blog from Pakistani lawyers can keep you updated here.

So this is part of the much-touted Republican strength in fighting terror. In the Axis of Evil, they dismantled Iran where the terrorists were NOT, North Korea built a nuke and they want to bomb Iran where there’s no nukes, while Pakistani’s terrorists keep closing in on about 50 existing warheads.

Are the Republicans for us or against us?