Pakistan Struggling To Beat Back Taliban

Pakistan's fight against the Taliban isn't going according to plan , reports the New York Times, with the Swat Valley still in chaos a year after the government declared that it had rid the region of Taliban insurgents. With tens of thousands of young people still living in tents, and hundreds of schools destroyed by the Taliban yet to be rebuilt, local leaders fear the lack of government follow-through is leaving a generation of disaffected young people susceptible to the Taliban's recruitment efforts. The government is now reportedly unwilling to launch further assaults on the Taliban for fear of reprisals, and some experts say there's a real threat that insurgents could topple the Pakistani government. Former President Perez Musharraf, who himself gained power in a coup, told reporters that civil governments had "never performed" in Pakistan, and suggested that he'd be willing to take over the reins again in order to restore order. The former general dismissed suggestions that he'd originally been carried to power by Pakistan's armed forces. "I didn't have to come on the shoulders of the military," he told NPR . "I was the military."