Just minutes before the market hummed with the activity of late afternoon shoppers, mostly women and small children, the exotic scents of curry and spices from the food stalls wafting through the air as the day was drawing towards evening. October was a time to get out after the heat of summer, for even in the afternoon it was tolerably cool in the low altitude desert city.  Winter was approaching but had not yet arrived. This was the old section of Peshawar, where the streets are narrow and people are packed in densely. Then came the flash, the detonation of hundreds of pounds of explosives, bodies were blown apart, burned and buried under collapsed buildings.

The attack, killed at least 96 persons, and injured scores more people, was the deadliest to hit Pakistan this year.

'Doctors at Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital said most of the dead were women and children, as a routine day out shopping in the city's main bazaar ended in horror....Doctor Muslim Khan said: "There are body parts. There are people. There are burnt people. There are dead bodies. There are wounded." '

'Three hours after the explosion, people were still trying to dig bodies and survivors out of the rubble, witnesses said, and white smoke wreathed the wrecked buildings.'

Where do the Taliban terrorists get the money to buy vehicles, explosives, petrol, and to train suicide bombers? Some comes from bribes paid by contractors carrying fuel or other supplies across the mountains to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

' "If you want to get through the mountain passes, you fight or you pay." Like most contractors interviewed for this article, he preferred to remain anonymous because the U.S. and NATO have understandably strict rules about paying bribes to the Taliban' link

Many drivers and contractors do not pay the Taliban, as was recently the case in Kunduz where two drivers were beheaded  and their trucks taken, later that night German commanders called in an air strike on a tanker caught in a river bed, in a controversial incident that killed many civilians seeking free fuel from the Taliban, along with many Taliban hijackers.

'Figures released to TIME by NATO showed that from June to September, more than 145 truck drivers and guards were killed in attacks on convoys and 123 vehicles were destroyed.'

The India Times reports that in the war that George W. Bush started over eight years ago:

 'The popular perception is that Pakistan is fighting the US war against terror. Many people in the lawless North West Frontier Province say Pakistan has been sold to the US piece by piece. Under coercion, they argue, Pakistan has started a war that has consumed its economy, national security, and has torn apart its social fabric.'

The Bush administration in 8 years of neglect accomplished nothing but the installation of a corrupt government in Kabul and a poorly planned and resourced occupation of the country that has served to increase recruitment and funding for violent extremists. How stability can be achieved, if even possible with the US military presence in Afghanistan, and how to end the killing is the primary reason that the Obama administration is taking its time to figure out a new direction for policy in the region.