In the latest Global Pulse episode, Pakistan at War, host Erin Coker asks who is to blame for the violence in Pakistan. Watch the episode and share your thoughts below!

Wednesday's market bombing in Peshawar capped off a particularly deadly month in Pakistan amidst a shored up military campaign in the country's western region of Waziristan.  More than 100 people died in Wednesday's attack, many of them women and children.

Global media largely attribute the recent bloodshed to the Pakistani Taliban's attempt to destabilize the government in retaliation for recent military efforts to drive extremists from the country's volatile North-West Frontier Province.

However, militant violence in Pakistan has been on the rise long before the government launched its new offensive. According to the terrorism database, South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), terrorist violence killed 2,155 civilians in 2008, compared to 140 in 2003. Similarly, nearly 1800 civilians have been killed in the first 10 months of 2009, exceeding the total number of civilian deaths from 2003 to 2006, according to the SATP.

Some international and media experts note that the Pakistani Taliban has absorbed Punjabi militants and other separatist groups, resulting in a new and dangerous band of extremists. These militants are further bolstered by al-Qaeda members who have taken refuge in the country's tribal areas near the Afghan border. This new incarnation of militants, notes the Council on Foreign Relations' Jayshree Bajoria, is "more violent and less conducive to political solutions than their predecessors."

In a Foreign Policy editorial, the Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council attributes Pakistan's inability to contain the growing extremist threat to a lack of modern military might and calls on the U.S. to furnish Pakistan with adequate weaponry to defeat the Taliban. Failure to do so, argues Shuja Nawaz, will result in continued terror strikes on the public. 

However, Pakistani blogger Riaz Haq blames the violence not on a lack of American weapons, but on government intelligence failures. "The best way to stop the increasing carnage on the streets of Pakistan...is to stop the attacks well before they occur," writes Haq. "Unfortunately, however, the intelligence agencies which are supposed to frustrate the blood-thirsty attackers appear totally ineffective, even paralyzed."
   
While the exact cause of the surge in violence may be up for debate, the toll it is taking on Pakistani civilians is undeniable.

The renewed clashes between government forces and the Taliban in North-West Frontier Province have resulted in a second wave of refugees fleeing the fighting, adding strain to already-crowded camps. According to the U.N., fighting in South Waziristan has forced an estimated 139,400 people from their homes [PDF link] and could displace thousands more.

The latest bombing in Peshawar has also disrupted the lives of Pakistan's urban residents. "The people want to go back to their mundane routines," writes Murtava Razvi in a Dawn editorial. "Youngsters want to go out to the parks, to the beach, to bowl, to eat out. Women want to go shopping unescorted, and men want to go about their daily chores without worrying about families left at home. This isn’t happening anymore."

Global Pulse producer Evelyn Messinger writes about women and the Taliban in Pakistan for the Huffington Post. Last week's episode focused on the various attitudes on-the-ground towards the Taliban's enforced version of Sharia Law.

Mosaic producer Jamal Dajani also covers Middle Eastern news and issues for the online publication. You can read his regular blog at the Huffington Post.

How should we view the recent resurgence of Taliban activity in Pakistan?

Be afraid, very afraid.

That’s a common message voiced by media and political observers in recent weeks. Pakistan’s government could go the way of the Shah of Iran in 1979, writes the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Taliban threats to Pakistan’s leadership represent the worst global crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a RAND Corporation official tells the Financial Times.

And it’s hard not to be moved by the devastation occurring in Pakistani regions like the Swat Valley. Doctors Without Borders announced today that it was halting medical services to refugees in Swat due to escalating warfare.

But could all this fear of a Taliban takeover in Pakistan be blinding the U.S. to local realities? An Economist report notes that for all the Taliban’s repellent acts in Swat, the Pakistani military has engendered deep local hostility by its brutal strikes on civilian targets. Rather than pushing for further billions of dollars in military aid for Pakistan to stave off an unlikely Taliban takeover, U.S. leaders would do well to pay more attention to the shaping of local hearts and minds. Central Asia Institute, the education non-profit co-founded by Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson, is one example of a worthy U.S. effort to build rather than break human capital in Pakistan.

Watch the Global Pulse episode on Pakistan here.

The Taliban have taken control of a northern district in Pakistan known as Swat, wreaking havoc throughout the valley, even as Obama's envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, arrives on a fact-finding tour of the region. The Pakistani army isn't able to stop the Taliban; why not?

SOURCES: BBC, U.K; Russia Today, Russia; South Asia Newsline, India; Asia Today, China; Al Jazeera English, Qatar; Press TV, Iran; ABC, U.S; NBC, U.S; UCTV, U.S.

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Comment on program page

This week's Global Pulse examines the disturbing recent rise of Taliban activity in Pakistan, including in the previously stable Swat Valley. Now, observers wonder, what can the Obama administration do to ensure that Pakistan does not become further radicalized? 

Several writers in the Pakistani blogosphere fear that the military is not yet a strong match for the rising popular appeal of the Taliban in regions like Swat. Abdullah Saad sees a long history of popular sympathy for religious fundamentalism in the area, and that the military and government continue to underestimate its appeal. Ambreen Kazmi at Chowrangi points to FM radio use by radical clerics in Swat as an effective tool to organize popular support, particularly among women, for Taliban policies.

And finally the venerable Syed Saleem Shahzad at Asia Times interviews a top Taliban leader in Swat, who notes Western and Pakistani government support for the Taliban in its infancy in the late 1970s, a connection that continues to cloud the ties between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban today.

What options then does the Obama administration have in the region? Check out further analysis here and here, as well as do let us know your own ideas in the episode comments above.

The Mumbai attacks took place within the context of a long struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir - an element often overlooked by US news reports. So our sources this week include Times Now, India; South Asia Newsline, India; Dawn TV, Pakistan; and Press TV, Iran.
 
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This week, Global Pulse will examine the roots of the Mumbai terror attacks in the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir.

As more details emerge from South Asia, we discover that the nine Mumbai gunmen were Pakistani men in their 20s with ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba guerilla group, which Indian government officials claim has helped wage a proxy war for Pakistan in Kashmir.

But Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, writing in a New York Times Op-Ed yesterday, tries to shift the world's attention away from Kashmir and towards his country's border with Afghanistan, where he argues the true source of global terror lies. By focusing on the Pakistani army's fight against al-Qaeda, Zardari attempts to elicit sympathy for his government's role in combating global terror attacks.

Meanwhile in India this week, the ruling Congress Party won an unexpected victory in 3 of 5 state elections, including in Delhi. The results may mean that the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been unsuccessful in claiming the government was ill-prepared to prevent last month's attacks.