There are more indications that the Pakistanis and Taliban are getting fed up with the murderous militants within their midsts. Jihad sounds great, until the Muslim bodies start building up. This is how the Awakening started in Iraq, so it is not infeasible that things in al-Qaeda’s last large sanctuary could turn bad for them.

The first indication of problems comes from something bloggers are quite familiar with – a blog war is heating up between one time allies:

Islamic extremists who regularly post messages to a pro-Al-Qaeda website in Egypt are accusing Afghanistan’s Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad. Prominent Taliban have responded by lashing back with criticism of their own.

The development suggests a rift is emerging between the Taliban leadership and religious extremists in the Arab world — including the Al-Qaeda network that the Taliban had hosted in Afghanistan while it planned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

Such a break could affect Afghan government efforts to convince Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons and peacefully resolve their differences with officials, which could in turn influence whether non-Afghan Al-Qaeda fighters continue to be welcomed among the Taliban.

Internet criticisms of the Taliban follow a February statement from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar announcing that his movement wants to maintain positive and “legitimate” relations with countries neighboring Afghanistan.

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Anyone with a password can post messages to the Al-Qaeda linked website. But some of the harshest remarks about the Taliban leadership have come from writers who are labeled as among the most influential on the website.

One of those bloggers — who calls himself “Miskeen” or “The Wretched” — responded to the Taliban declaration on Iran by writing: “This is the worst statement I have ever read…. [T]he disaster of defending the [Iranian] regime is on par with the Crusaders in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Mullah Salam Zaief has been a prominent spokesman for the Taliban since the 2001 ouster”Miskeen” also wrote that a “nationalist trend” appears to be penetrating the Taliban. Other pro Al-Qaeda bloggers have called for Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri to censure the Taliban over their recent statements.

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But the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan — Mullah Salam Zaief — tells RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that the bloggers have no understanding of the topic.

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“The conflict in Afghanistan doesn’t mean [the Taliban] has to confront the world,” Zaief continues. “Afghans are very tired of war. They want their homeland. They want peace in their country. They want independence. Whether they are Taliban or other Afghans, I don’t think either wants to confront the entire international community. The Taliban doesn’t want to rule the world

al-Qaeda wants to rule the world! This infighting and fracturing goes along with other news I posted yesterday on the topic. I am not surprised that our enemies are starting to fracture. After 6 years of losing to American and ally forces, with only the liberal media pretending they are winning and America should leave, the real pressure has come form Islam itself. The fact is the terrorists have killed many more Muslims since 9-11 than anyone else. And it is the waning support from Muslims across the region which is starting to fracture the militants. They are losing both on the battle field and in the hearts of the people they claim to be fighting for.

Now more and more Muslim people, who have no love of America or the West, are coming out against al-Qaeda:

he US, it has also been evidenced through comments made by its military officials at various times, is eager to see Pakistan relinquish what it still retains of its already compromised sovereignty. It believes that by having a direct presence of personnel on the ground, it can effectively combat terrorism.

Realities, known to most Pakistanis, are of course quite different; any further US intrusion would only expand extremism — which in the first place is at least partially a response to unjust US-led policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. But, of course, President Bush and his band of advisers, as well as leaders of the Democratic Party, are not erudite enough to see this.

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The challenge for Pakistan is to try and curb the reign of death imposed by the killers. If it fails to do so, pressures on any new set-up, both from within and outside the country, will continue to increase, perhaps to intolerable levels. The question of course is how the menace is to be dealt with. Simply laying blame on ‘foreign hands’, as the caretaker interior ministry has attempted to do, or announce security ‘red alerts’ after all essentially serves little purpose.

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At the same time, new leaders must also review policies on madrassahs, resurrect public-sector education and initiate socio-economic reform. There is also a need to build a media campaign against terrorism, as was done in the case of the Hudood ordinances. But all these measures are necessarily long term. For the immediate moment, there is a need to send out a clear message by clamping down on some key militant outfits. At the same time, ulema, clerics, prayer leaders — most of whom oppose suicide bombing but sometimes confuse pro-militant sentiments with an anti-US stance — need to be brought on board and used to deliver an unequivocal message against violence.

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Even now, in Swat, in Darra Adam Khel in Waziristan, most seek the calm essential to their own welfare and livelihood. For the sake of these people, and others everywhere in the country, a multi-pronged attack on militancy needs to begin immediately, so that the regular suicide attacks we today confront can become a nightmare from the past and the stability essential to any kind of progress can gradually be restored.

That is quite a moving sentiment and damning to al-Qaeda and the militant Taliban. I understand now why Omar has been ‘firing’ rogue Taliban leaders like Baitullah Mehsud who prefer violent dominance to a peaceful, simple existence.

The new government is also in trouble because the militants, feeling cornered and as if they are running out of time (which they are) seem to be spreading their terror in one last gasp. There are two reports on how the violence has increased and spread just since January (here and here). No surprise they see themselves as running out of time.

There are more US and UK Special Forces in Pakistan and with things quieting in Iraq the focus of our efforts has trained itself on this last big haven for al-Qaeda extremists. This is the year America could deal al-Qaeda a death blow, knocking it into the same corner of history where the Nazis and Communists no sit – examples of the worst and most cruel of humanity. Not the anything close to the promising future that now intoxicate those who support Jihad. We shall see, but Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to be waking up from the cloudy dream woven by al-Qaeda and Bin Laden and are beginning to see the reality. Their is no victory in attacking the US.