Since then, military courts have convicted at least 274 people and sentenced 161 of them to death. The military courts’ special jurisdiction expired on Jan. 7, and the government is holding consultations with opposition parties about reviving it. Before these terrorism trials, the Pakistani army already had its own system of justice: It would abduct people it believed were a threat to national security. Some of the people convicted of terrorism by the military courts had been declared missing and were already in the army’s custody. For a long while we were told that the Taliban in Afghanistan were our assets and the Pakistani Taliban were our misguided brothers.

Source: New York Times January 15, 2017 23:02 UTC