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A Blow to the Taliban and to U.S.-Pakistani Trust

May 24, 2016 | 04:33 GMT

A Blow to the Taliban and to U.S.-Pakistani Trust
Burning wreckage is all that was left of a vehicle after a U.S. drone strike targeting Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who is thought to have been killed.

(AFP/Getty Images)

The current state of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan was put to the test when U.S. President Barack Obama announced that a drone strike in Pakistan's Balochistan province killed the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. The strike comes at a precarious moment for bilateral ties between the countries. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would block $450 million in funding to Pakistan. The fact that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did not contact Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif about the strike until after it occurred, demonstrates the lack of faith that Washington has in Islamabad's reliability in coordinating such high-level strikes....

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