THE HARD PART IS GETTING THEM TO CLUSTER SO YOU CAN CONCENTRATE YOUR FIRE, UNLESS THEY TAKE CARE OF THAT FOR YOU...:

Pakistani city serves as a refuge for the Taliban:Quetta is a resting spot, recruiting ground and meeting point for the militia, officials say. (Laura King, December 21, 2006, LA Times)

At a time when the Taliban is making its strongest push in years to regain influence and territory across the border in Afghanistan, this mountain-ringed provincial capital has become an increasingly brazen hub of activity by the Islamist militia.

Quetta serves as a place of rest and refuge for Taliban fighters between battles, a funneling point for cash and armaments, a fertile recruiting ground and a sometime meeting point for the group's fugitive leaders, say aid workers, local officials, diplomats and others.

"Everybody is here," said Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a Quetta-based member of Pakistan's National Assembly, describing the routine comings and goings of senior Taliban commanders in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

The apparent ease of Taliban movement in and out of Quetta comes against a backdrop of increasingly bitter squabbling by authorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan over who bears responsibility for the militia's use of tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the border as a staging ground for attacks that have killed at least 180 North Atlantic Treaty Organization and allied troops this year.

No Quetta, no problem.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2006 9:55 AM