Sami Yousafzai

The Pakistani military's most impressive accomplishment in the past two years was its major offensive into the Swat Valley that succeeded in driving out Islamist militants who had established control over one of the country's favorite tourist destinations. The military became confident that it had all but decapitated the valley's radical leadership. Now there is doubt.

Dissension has broken out in the top ranks of Afghanistan's Taliban. The group has muddled along without an operational head since February, when Mullah Mohammed Omar's second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan. (It was Baradar who directed the Taliban's day-to-day affairs while the Taliban's living symbol and spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, stayed safely hidden from the Americans.)

By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau The failed May 1 Times Square car bombing is rattling the Waziristan tribal badlands of Pakistan. Tribal chieftains and militant leaders are furious with Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud and his deputy, master bomb maker Qari Hussain Mehsud, for making Internet videos boasting of responsibility for the attempt and promising more attacks soon.

One of the questions that continues to surround the investigation into the attempted Times Square car bombing: Where did suspect Faisal Shahzad get the financial resources to carry out the attack, including funds he used to travel back and forth to his native Pakistan for what he has told investigators was terrorist training in North Waziristan with the Pakistani Taliban, as well as money he used to buy a sophisticated rifle and the materials—including firecrackers, propane tanks, fertilizer,...

Al Qaeda's friends and allies on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier have no shortage of recruits like Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber. "With all this new technology, it's not difficult to recruit people in the West," says an Afghan Taliban planner and organizer who operates on both sides of the border.

How a radical new generation is defying the old guard and upending America's plans for a lasting peace.

A top Afghan Taliban planner and organizer tells NEWSWEEK he wasn't surprised by the attempted car bombing in Times Square. "We were expecting this," says the source, who operates on both sides of the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

American military efforts in the village of Nawa, in Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province, are often cited by leaders as a model of what a properly resourced counterinsurgency campaign can achieve.

Yet another leader of the Afghan Taliban has reportedly been captured by authorities in Pakistan. Counterterrorism sources in the U.S. and Pakistan, requesting anonymity when discussing sensitive information, identified the latest Taliban chief to be arrested as Maulvi Abdul Kabir, described as a former regional governor during the days when the Taliban ran Afghanistan's government.

In the latest of a flurry of moves against top Taliban leaders in recent weeks, U.S. unmanned aircraft launched a strike Thursday against a convoy of vehicles believed to be carrying Sirajuddin Haqqani, the powerful leader of Pakistani Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan, where American casualties have been highest.

Another leader of the Afghan Taliban has been captured by authorities in Pakistan working in partnership with U.S. intelligence officials. Taliban sources in the region and a counterterrorism officials in Washington have identified the detained insurgent leader as Mullah Abdul Salam, described as the Taliban movement's "shadow governor" of Afghanistan's Kunduz province.

During wars and after them, the real voice of the enemy is rarely heard. Propaganda is plentiful, as are prideful boasts—and the Taliban have certainly been quick studies at the modern art of information warfare.

The Taliban says it didn't care about the election—until the Marines decided to safeguard it.

Last week yet another militant victory in Pakistan had many fretting that the country's capital could also soon fall to the Taliban. After Islamists swept into the populous Buner district, just 60 miles northwest of Islamabad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared it posed a "mortal threat" to the world, and Fazlur Rehman, a Pakistani parliamentarian, predicted that the Taliban would soon be perched on the hills overlooking the capital.But the rumors of Pakistan's demise have been...

In the city's Muslim neighborhoods, an Afghan reporter finds a few too many uncomfortable reminders of home.

A barrage of pinpoint strikes may be unsettling Al Qaeda.

Everyone's talking about talking to the Taliban. But before we jaw-jaw, there will be more war-war.

How ransom kidnappings, once a rarity in most of Afghanistan, have become a cash source second only to the narcotics trade for the country's insurgents

The insurgents are closing in on Kabul, not in order to overrun the capital but to terrorize its residents and drive away investors. It's working.

This month's spectacular prison escape in Kandahar began with a jailed guerrilla's phone conversation with the No. 2 leader of the Afghan insurgency, according to one of the roughly 350 Taliban fighters who broke out.

Pakistan talks peace with tribal radicals but may just be pushing their fighters across the border into Afghanistan.

In the country's poppy-growing provinces, farmers are being forced to sell their daughters to pay loans.

The Taliban may have discovered a worrisome new target: the main supply conduit for food, fuel and military equipment to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. While Pakistan rethinks its support for the war against Al Qaeda's allies in the region, the militants are focusing their raids on the highway that winds through the strategic Khyber Pass—and Taliban sources say they're getting ready to squeeze even harder.

Afghan militants claim they knew English royalty was in their midst.

After more than five years as a leading member of Pakistan's National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman had to run for re-election without daring to leave his house.

Why are so few Taliban in jail? Hundreds are buying their way out for cash.

Osama Bin Laden appears to be reasserting his influence among the Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders upon whom he's depending for survival. Since December, the Qaeda chief has personally penned at least five brief letters, written in Arabic on white stationery, to the region's militant commanders.

Baitullah Mehsud is being blamed for most of the suicide bombings in Pakistan, including Benazir Bhutto's assassination. The rise of a militant leader.

No journalist could turn down the offer: a face-to-face interview with would-be suicide bombers. A chance to learn how the insurgents recruit, train and deploy, to examine why the Taliban relies so heavily on this imprecise, indiscriminate tactic.

If you think Musharraf's wrong to free jailed Taliban members while he busts dissidents, wait until you hear who's back on the loose.