Within hours of leaving their camps early on Saturday morning to fight what is being hailed as the decisive battle in the war against terror, 12 soldiers had been killed in the first ferocious gunfights.

Pakistan's generals have called the offensive the "mother of all battles" for the survival of a country under siege. There were reports of Taliban compounds coming under aerial bombardment from Pakistan gunships as troops moved out in three columns from Razmak to the north, Jandola to the east and Shakai in the west, and advanced on notorious Taliban target towns like Makeen and Ladha.

Marines vs. Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.

Raw Video: Marines Fight Taliban in Afghanistan

Taliban And Al-Qaeda in Show Of Unity

Pakistan's military has begun its campaign against the Taliban in South Waziristan, long-promised after a series of deadly attacks by Taliban fighters across the country.

About 150,000 people are thought to have fled South Waziristan ahead of the assault, only to find that no preparations have been made for civilians caught up in the conflict.

Meanwhile, many analysts say the reasons behind Islamabad's domestic crisis lie north of the border in Afghanistan.

Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnson reports on the Pakistani military's newest campaign against the Taliban.

IN Afghanistan they would call it a shura, the traditional tribal way of listening to elders’ views before reaching a consensus. In Washington, where President Barack Obama has now held five war councils, they are starting to call it dithering.

Originally posted by oozyism
reply to post by 3DPrisoner

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The thing is my family is in Afghanistan, and my Uncle's wife's relatives are in Pakistan, they are pashtoons, she is worried as much as I'm. WOW good job America, ruining two countries in one war, I love it.

“USMC officials said the M4 malfunctioned three times more often than the M16A4 during an assessment conducted in late summer 2002 for Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, VA. Malfunctions were broken down into several categories, including “magazine,” “failure to chamber,” “failure to fire,” “failure to extract” and “worn or broken part,” according to the briefing documents. During the comparison, the M4 failed 186 times across those categories over the course of 69,000 rounds fired. The M16A4 failed 61 times during the testing.

The Army conducted a more recent reliability test between October 2005 and April 2006, which included 10 new M16s and 10 new M4s…. On average, the new M16s and M4s fired approximately 5,000 rounds between stoppages, according to an Army official who asked that his name not be released.”