Pakistan Refugees Return to Swat
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Thousands of people began returning to Pakistan's Swat Valley after nearly three months of fighting that drove the Taliban from the region and created the country's worst refugee crisis in six decades.

Pakistan earned praise at home and abroad for its offensive in Swat, which began in April after the collapse of a peace deal that handed the valley just 100 miles north of Islamabad, the capital, to militants.

Under the protection of soldiers and helicopter gunships, refugees started coming back Monday. How Pakistan manages the return of the nearly two million people who fled the fighting will go a long way to determining whether it can solidify the army's gains in the strategic valley as it moves to retake more-formidable Taliban strongholds in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

In a reminder that the threat facing Pakistan has spread beyond northwestern regions such as Swat and tribal areas, an explosion Monday in the country's east killed at least nine people.

The midmorning blast in a farming village near Mian Channu, in Punjab province, appeared to have been caused by explosives stored in the house of a teacher who had set up a small religious school, a police official said.

He couldn't say why explosives were in the house, but two senior Punjab police officials said there was evidence the building was used as a meeting place for Islamist militants, who in recent months have stepped up attacks in previously peaceful parts of eastern Pakistan.

Separately, 13 suspected al Qaeda militants, including four Kuwaiti and two Saudi nationals, were arrested near Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, Reuters reported. Security forces also recovered explosive-fitted jackets used for suicide bombing, an official said.

In Swat, officials have carefully planned the refugees' return, many observers say. Pakistani and international aid officials say they have mapped out how the government would ensure the orderly -- and voluntary -- return of residents to the valley and surrounding areas, where police and local government are nearly nonexistent, schools and clinics are shuttered, and many houses were destroyed or damaged in the fighting. >>> ZAHID HUSSAIN in Sakha Kott, Pakistan, and MATTHEW ROSENBERG in New Delhi | Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Hussein Returns Home from the Grand Tour Empty-handed
THE TELEGRAPH: The US President has to explain why he is sending more troops into Afghanistan and his Nato allies won't, says Irwin Stelzer

Fugedaboutit. For those of you who don't speak New York, that's "forget about it", the most emphatic of the negatives in a New Yorker's repertoire. But it has nothing like the power to influence events that the "non", "nein" and "no" that capped Barack Obama's tour of Europe have. It is one thing to attract a crowd in Berlin, a city in which politicians have historically been successful in attracting mass audiences, or to wow several hundred adolescents in Strasbourg and thousands of adults in Prague with talk of a nuclear-free world, and quite another to get the elected representatives of those crowds to shoulder a fair share of the burden of the fight against Islamist terrorists.

The leaders of Europe came naked to the Nato meeting last weekend, shorn of the cover provided by Bush-hatred. As the American commentator Robert Kagan puts it: "George W Bush did the Europeans a great favour by giving them the best excuse for inaction in transatlantic history." Europe's leaders have always claimed they would co-operate with America in all things, were it not for that toxic Texan with his unilateralist belief in spreading democracy and free markets.

Well, George W Bush is safely back in Texas, Barack Obama wants to listen as well as lead, and Michelle Obama, after a touchy-feely visit with the Queen, proved to have more crowd-appeal than Carla Bruni. One astute observer told me that British and European crowds "went weak-kneed in the presence of the Obamas". But popularity on the streets means little in the conference room.

At the Nato meetings, "weak-kneed" took on an added meaning – no significant permanent deployment of fighting troops to aid the Americans. Obama was prepared for the turn-down, although he did harbour the illusion that in the end Gordon Brown would come up with more than a few poll-watchers. After all, the President had gone out of his way to sprinkle some of his stardust on the embattled Prime Minister. Unfortunately, Obama had not been briefed by Tony Blair on Brown's capacity for gratitude.

Turkey was a somewhat better stopover for the travelling President, who had no specific requests that could be turned down. The persistently fawning New York Times reported that the President was "showing more self-confidence each day on his maiden overseas trip as President", although how Obama could show more self-confidence than he already has is difficult to imagine: this is a man confident in self to a point that is slightly unnerving.

Obama had won favour with European audiences by proclaiming that America has shown inadequate respect for Europe's accomplishments. So he carried his I-am-not-George-Bush campaign to Ankara by implying that the US bears responsibility for "the difficulties of these last few years" between Muslim countries and America. No need to mention the World Trade Centre, Khobar Towers, the USS Cole or his support in the Senate for labelling as "genocide" the killing of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Turks. More politic to support Turkey's application for membership in the EU, despite a mind-your-own-business warning from President Sarkozy, who earlier agreed to accept one – yes, one – of the 245 Guantánamo detainees because that is "what being allies is about".

After having spent an entire presidential campaign playing down his full name and early years, the President had himself introduced to the Turkish parliament as Barack Hussein Obama, and pointed out that "Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them." This, on the heels of his deep bow to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (the Queen of England merited what can at best be described as a deferential nod). There is more to come: the President will soon travel to an as yet unnamed Muslim country to deliver a major speech laying out his views on Islam. President Barack Obama Is Going Home with Non, Nein and No Ringing in His Ears >>> By Irwin Stelzer | Wednesday, April 8, 2009