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Stanley Kurtz, whose essay on Pakistan in the latest Claremont Review of Books is a must-read, posts on some striking developments in the battle over the Taliban/Al-Qaida-controlled tribal region of Waziristan:

What if there were a major development in the war on terror and nobody paid attention? Well, it would still be a major development in the war on terror. The event in question is a offensive by Pakistan’s army against the Taliban’s haven in South Waziristan. Pakistan’s government is playing this down by merely calling it a move to "reinforce" positions in Waziristan, and by formally denying that an "offensive" has been launched at all. But this rhetoric is pretty clearly designed to prevent a backlash by Pakistan’s many Islamist sympathizers.

The Western media are generally ignoring developments in Waziristan and/or playing them down. For one thing, reporters long ago fled the tribal regions, which in any case were largely closed to outsiders. That gives government bulletins an outsized influence on the press, and the government keeps its reports focused on small specifics — like the killing of a few "miscreants" in some obscure small town which no one in the West has ever heard of. Yet it’s increasingly evident that we are finally seeing a serious move by the Pakistani army against the Islamists’ core refuge in Waziristan.