In reply to UKC News:
indeed bad shit. but complex.
the area its in (raikhot) is notorious for unrest, and has seen foreigners harassed and several incidents of killings over a long time. tho certainly not like this. several foreigners have gone missing in isolated incidents on trips out from gilgit to fairy meadows, a once popular backpackers destination at the base of NP. one, a japanese girls, body showed up with the throat cut in 1998 (i think that was the year).
last year 80-odd foreigners were stranded in gilgit when stirred up locals blocked the highway in late spring after the annual battle with the shias in kohistan got out of control.
personally ive been held in a small town north of chilas for a night by armed locals, whilst a military escort negotiated that we could pass.
10 years ago also i was there during an arthquake that destroyed the famous raikhot bridge and a large group had to negotiate with the loacls via the military to walk safely around the landslips and bridge.
these folk dont want to see outsiders plain and simple, drones overhead or not.
kohistan has always been nasty. kipling mentions it. gilgit has long been an outpost of taliban fermentation within its volatile mix of sunni, shia, shina, ismaili and pashtun. not far south of NP is besham, a major arms manufacturing center and the backdoor route to swat that has seen a lot of foreign interest over the last 4 decades, ranging from hippies and western mercenaries to arms smuggling and refugees.
chinese construction crews have upset the balance of both culture and economics the length of the KKH. for several years gilgit was the staging ground for special operations north of hunza, with foreigners using the airbase there. chitral to the west has a similar recent history.
the kohistani tribes that did this may well be within the talibans sphere of influence, but they have always attacked outsiders (including pakistani military) and neighbouring tribes. the taliban will be just cashing in on their existing attitude rather than inspiring them.
none of this justifies what happened at NP. that was a massacre and brigandry as much as it was terrorism. it will only intensify the scenario as security forces get wound up in how to deal with it (pakistan has very different groups depending on how the incident is defined), the remaining foreign interest in visiting plummets further (numbers are already a shadow of what they were 10 years ago, with groups like the russians and chinese making up a big part of those who still went there) and the area further descends into the effects of economic collapse and security limbo.
meanwhile, in qatar, the situation further weirds out as spokesmen that claim to represent the people who did this invite kerry and karzai to tea and the taliban suddenly are being treated as if they are a rational force even tho they explicitly target teenage schoolgirls, hospitals and tourists.