Here you get the monthly report from Chuck Bennett, Pakistan:

Friends,

As you have probably seen on the news, the Pakistani Army, police and border security forces are battling the Taliban in the North West Frontier Province.  I have been working with the Pakistani police in the NWFP for the last several weeks.  Our team is helping them develop and implement policing and security plans for the huge internally displaced persons camps that have sprung up in the NWFP.  UN personnel now estimate that over 3 million Pakistanis have fled the fighting in Swat, Malakand, Mohmand, and Buner.  Half of these are in camps in the NWFP.  Many of the Taliban have shaved their beards, cut their hair, and rolled down their pant legs.  They are now mingling with the IDPs in the camps.  We’re advising the police on ways to get the IDPs to identify the fugitive Taliban hiding in the camps.

The camps are an absolute mess.  No arrangements for sewage, little water, no shade.  It was 106 at the camp near Mansehra on Tuesday.  I have never smelled a smell like that!  I have attached several pictures taken at the camp.  I have attached several pictures taken at the camp.  I believe that what we are doing is helping the refugees have a safer place to live.

I will be going north into the Himalayas next Friday to Skardu.  We will get far enough north to see K-2.  Does “Three Cups of Tea” ring a bell?  This is where Mortenson is based.  The Pakistan military is driving the remaining Taliban out of the NWFP into the Northern Area along the Chinese border.  The police there are asking for some organizational help and training to counter this threat, and I’ll be up there checking out potential venues.

The Taliban have been sending suicide bombers into the NWFP and the Punjab with devastating regularity.  People still go about the business of living every day, cautiously but with little outward signs.  In Urdu its, “Yeah-hee zinda-ghee hey!”  That’s life!  Life goes on, and so does our work.

Your friend in a battle-scarred Pakistan,

Chuck

Photo: Charles Bennett

Anmerkung:
Mein Freund Chuck, ehemaliger Chief Lynchburg Police Department bildet pakistanische Polizisten aus und berichtet regelmäßig über die Situation in Pakistan.
Chuck ist in Pension(!) leistet dennoch seinen Beitrag im Kampf gegen den internationalen Terror.
May God bless you, Chuck!