Hey Mr. Bush, the saddle horn usually faces the horse's head...

From Der Spiegel comes an article which claims that the Taliban leadership is alive, well and living large in Quetta, Pakistan.

Der Spiegel - November 24, 2006
Pakistan: Headquarters of the Taliban
By Susanne Koelbl

Quetta is considered the center of terror and resistance against the Americans and their allies -- the "occupiers" of Afghanistan. In the backrooms of radical parties and in the white-washed mosques whose towers spiral decoratively skywards, the elite of the holy warriors meet regularly to organize their comeback. Right out in the open streets -- between the market stalls with pomegranates and dates, the currency exchanges and the vats where meat and beans steam on open fires -- the Taliban recruit the holy warriors who will blow themselves up as suicide bombers in Afghanistan.

Quetta is also home to the "Command and Staff College," the elite school of the Pakistani military and the headquarters of the Frontier Corps of Balochistan with some 40,000 men. Both embody the power of the Pakistani General President Pervez Musharraf, America's most important regional ally in the war on terror.

What may seem like a contradiction -- the co-existence of extremists with the Pakistani government in the same place -- is perhaps best explained by a visit to the Shaldara Koran School in the Pashtunabad slum. Roughly 700 children of penniless parents receive a free religious education here, most of the time by memorizing the Koran in didactic lessons. Western intelligence services consider the madrassa to be one of the secret headquarters of the Taliban. Indeed, school director Maulana Noor Mohammed openly supports the jihad in Afghanistan.