Pakistan floods: an emergency for the West

Pakistan's floods have not just overwhelmed the lives of millions of people, they at the present present an supreme national security challenge for the country, the region and the international group of people. Lest anyone under-estimate the level of the disaster, all four of Pakistan's wars with India joint did not cause such injure.

It has turn out to be clear this week that, unless major aid is impending immediately and international political effort is applied to humanizing Pakistan's relations with India, social and ethnic tensions will rise and there will be food riots. Big parts of the country that are now cut off will be taken over by the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated extremist groups, and governance will fall down. The risk is that Pakistan will become what many have long predicted – a failed state with nuclear weapons; although we are a long way off from that yet. ,

The serious rain and floods have devastated the poorest and least educated areas of the country, where extremists and separatist arrangements thrive. Central Punjab – the country's richest region, where income and literacy are double those of other areas – has escaped the tragedy. The resentment felt towards Punjab by ethnic groups in the smaller provinces is thus likely to increase.

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Taliban calls for boycott of Western aid as Swat Valley ravaged by floods

The Taliban has told victims of Pakistan's floods to boycott aid from "foreign infidels" as the UN called for $460 million in emergency aid to prevent a rise in the death toll.

Present isn't a great deal to smile about here, though, in the hilly far north of Pakistan, where until lately the Taliban ruled.

Previous year, two million people fled their homes in the valley to run away heavy fighting as the Pakistani army sought to inflict control over the area; now the floods have come to cause even greater obliteration.

You see it all over the place along the route of the Swat river, famous in happier times for its clear waters and fine trout, but now an angry, brown, bloated violent flow, four or five times its normal width.

Proof of the amazing power of the flood at its height last week is all around. On Shamozai, towards the southern end of the valley, the new concrete road bridge has been knock down, it huge cylindrical ropes toppled into the river.

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