Swat Valley invites Osama bin Laden and offers to "help" and "protect" him

MINGORA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan was trying to end bloodshed when it let the idyllic Swat Valley fall under Islamic law last week. Instead, it has emboldened the Taliban to extend a hand to militants, including Osama bin Laden.Imagine that!

The local spokesman for the Taliban, which control the valley, told The Associated Press he'd welcome militants bent on battling U.S. troops and their Arab allies if they want to settle there.

"Osama can come here. Sure, like a brother they can stay anywhere they want," Muslim Khan said in a two-hour interview Friday, his first with a foreign journalist since Islamic law was imposed. "Yes, we will help them and protect them."

Khan spoke in halting English he learned during four years painting houses in the U.S. before returning to Swat in 2002. He averted his eyes as he spoke to a female journalist, in line with his strict understanding of Islam.

Pakistan reacted with alarm to his comments, saying it would never let him shelter the likes of bin Laden.Of course; one is not supposed to say such things, at least not publicly, definitely not when being interviewed by a Western kafira.

"We would have to go for the military operation. We would have to apply force again," said Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira. "We simply condemn this. We are fighting this war against al-Qaida and the Taliban."

But it is far from clear that the government has the means to do much of anything in the Swat Valley. It agreed to Islamic law in the region — drawing international condemnation — after trying and failing to defeat the Taliban in fighting marked by brutal beheadings that killed more than 850 people over two years.

"We lost the war. We negotiated from a position of weakness," said Afrasiab Khattak, a leader of the Awami National Party, which governs the province that includes Swat...

I forsee Bin Laden with nukes in the very near future. Put one in a container with a couple suicide bombers and there will be a huge mushroom cloud in some port. I just hope it is San Francisco.